TABLE OF CONTENTS


A floating license is bound to a network connected server which allows the licenses to be shared and distributed amongst many clients whether an artist working at a workstation or a render node.  This makes the floating licenses more flexible and appealing to studio environments but also introduces extra complexity when setting up for the first time.


Please note: these licensing instructions are for those who have purchased a Yeti Studio - if you have a Yeti Indie license please refer to Node Locked License Installation.


To proceed you will need to make sure you have been issued a floating license from our licensing team.


We use the Reprise Software license manager for all of our software licensing needs, this has become an industry standard way of provisioning and managing licenses. 


Download our RLM Distribution


If you haven't already done so, please download our licensing tool distribution - even if you already have another instance of RLM running you will need our peregrinel.set file to use our licenses.


The latest release of our licenses tools is v1.1 for Windows, Linux and macOS - please be aware that they all required a 64bit version of the OS. They can be downloaded via the links below:


Linux

macOS

Windows


Additional documentation is provided by the Reprise team at RLM End User Manual.



Running the License Server


Once you have a license you will need to install and run the license server software on the machine you acquired the license for - this running instance of RLM will become the main host for your licenses where client machines can query, check out and return licenses within the studio. 


Once you have extracted the license tools to a directory of your choosing you can copy our license files into the same directory and run the rlm.exe command from a terminal window.  If successful the license server will stay running (and will need to stay so) until you shut it down. 


For example, if I have extracted the RLM distribution to C:/Program Files/PeregrineLabs/RLM I would copy my .lic file into that same directory, and then run the RLM.exe file accordingly. 


RLM Command Line Reference

% rlm [-c license_file] [-dlog [+]logfile]     [-nows] [-ws port] [-x [rlmdown|rlmremove]]     [-install_service] [-service_name sname]     [-isv_startup_delay seconds]

The -c license_file option specifies which license file to use. This option overrides the setting of the RLM_LICENSE environment variable. The license_file parameter can be a directory containing license files, all of which will be processed.


The -dlog logfile specifies the pathname for the server debug log. If logfile is preceded by the ‘+’ character, the logfile will be appended, otherwise it is overwritten.


The -nows and -ws port options control the operation of the embedded Web Server. The -nows option instructs the rlm server to not start the embedded web server. The -ws port option instructs the rlm server to use port as the port number for the web server.


The -x [rlmdown | rlmremove] option controls whether the rlmdown and/or rlmremove commands will be processed by the server. Specifying only -x will disable both commands. Specifying either command name after the -x will disable just that command.


These options can appear in any order on the command line.


Note that if the rlm server cannot bind the web server port (5054 by default), it will exit.


To confirm the license server is running you can access the RLM embedded web server which provides information about license status, count and usage.


Accessing the license server from clients


Once you have a license server up and running you need to tell the client where to find it, this is done with either the peregrinel_LICENSE environment variable or a client side license file.


The environment variables should be set to port@hostname where port is the TCP/IP port of the license server and hostname is the name of the license server. For example:

5053@licenseserver01


An alternative way is to use a client side license file, this can be a simple text file placed in one of

Mac: /Library/Application Support/PeregrineLabs/rlm/
Linux: /var/PeregrineLabs/rlm/
Windows: C:/ProgramData/PeregrineLabs/rlm/

with the contents::

HOST <server_name> 5053 ISV peregrinel

where server_name is the name of your license server.


Having gone through all of those steps the clients in your network should now be able to access our license server and successfully check out license entitlements. 


RLM Embedded Web Server


The rlm server contains an embedded Web Server which can be used to perform most administration of the rlm server itself. The web server allows you to retrieve server and license status (similar to rlmstat), cause the servers to re-read the license files (rlmreread), switch debug (rlmswitch) or report log (rlmswitchr) files, move the current report log file to a new name (rlmnewlog), or shut down the license servers (rlmdown). Using this web-based interface, you can administer the license servers from any platform, and you do not need to install the rlm utilities - you only need a web browser.


The web server is started automatically on port 5054 when rlm is started. To use the web server, simply point your browser to: 

http://ServerHostName:5054 

and select the operation you would like to perform. You will be prompted for any required information.


If you would like to run the web server on a different port, specify the -ws NNNNN command-line argument when starting rlm, where NNNNN is the desired port.


The RLM web server is 100% self-contained in the rlm binary; no additional html files are required for operation.