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I get a FlexNet (licence) error when I try to run GOLD

Solution

Note: GOLD 5.4 and later uses CSD software suite based licensing, and does not require a flexnet license server to be run. The following information therefore only applies to GOLD 5.3 and earlier.

 

There are a number of common licence failures. The first step is to read the error message carefully

  1. “connection refused”. This means that there wasn’t a process listening on the server:port specified in the licence file
    - is there actually a licence server running on the server specified?
    - is there a firewall blocking access (NB firewalls can block ‘local’ access too)
  2. expired licence,
    - suggest that they should check the licence, and that their server has been restarted.
  3. “Server node is down or not responding”
    - is there a licence server running?
    - is the machine that the licence server is meant to be running on, ok?
    - Can the client resolve the licence server hostname, and connect to it?
  4. “Not a valid server hostname”
    - check that the hostname in the SERVER line matches the output of the ‘hostname’ command
  5. “version 4.0 < 5.0”. You’re using an old licence with new software
    - Either use the software you licence allows, or get an updated licence for the new software

A simple check that your system is able to connect to the licence server is to use the command telnet, and use data from the SERVER line of your licence

$ grep SERVER ccdc_licence.dat
SERVER pluto 0015175be150
# the server is running on a machine called pluto, the default FlexNet port is 27000:
$ telnet pluto 27000
Trying 131.111.114.1...
Connected to pluto.ccdc.cam.ac.uk.
Escape character is '^]'.

shows that there is a server listening, and we can connect to it. If there was no server running, you’d expect output similar to:

$ telnet pluto 27000
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

If there was a problem with DNS:

$ telnet pluto 27000
telnet: could not resolve pluto/telnet: Name or service not known

Something like a firewall/routing issue, you may get output like:

$ telnet pluto
Trying 131.111.114.1...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: No route to host

or it may just hang (or eventually time out) at the Trying ... step.