flexlm-systemd-service

This is a systemd-based service definition to run FlexLM lmgrd.

This code is provided “AS IS”. The developer makes no other warranties, express or implied, and hereby disclaims all implied warranties, including any warranty of merchantability and warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.

Based on the following:

• https://www.schrodinger.com/kb/1148
• https://medium.com/@benmorel/creating-a-linux-service-with-systemd-611b5c8b91d6
• https://gist.github.com/kalebo/fd39edb6c6e4ebed41f7eab2d9925ebc
• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html (man page)
• http://0pointer.net/blog/projects/systemd-docs.html
• https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/understanding-and-administering-systemd/

Unprivileged (System) User flexlm

Create an unprivileged user, e.g. flexlm, to run the service. The following will create the user with a home directory /opt/flexlm:

useradd flexlm -b /opt -c "FlexLM User" -s /sbin/nologin --create-home --system 

FlexLM Directory Tree

Based in /opt/flexlm

• /opt/flexlm/bin will contain all executables, except for the vendor daemons. Vendor daemons are typically named with the vendor name in all capitals, e.g. "INTEL". (Really, the daemons are just copies of lmgrd.
• /opt/flexlm/licenses will contain all license files.

Create the directory structure:

mkdir -p /opt/flexlm/bin /opt/flexlm/licenses

Install lmgrd and Vendor Daemon(s)

The vendor should have provided a copy of the lmgrd executable, along with the vendor daemon, say it is called FOOBAR. Copy and create the appropriate links (using the make_flexlm_links.sh script):

cp lmgrd /opt/flexlm/bin
cp FOOBAR /opt/flexlm/bin
cd /opt/flexlm/bin
make_flexlm_links.sh

Install License Files

Server license files should be plain text with at .lic suffix.

cp FOO.lic /opt/flexlm/licenses

FlexLM Logging

Log in subdirectory of /var/log:

mkdir -p /var/log/lmgrd
chown -R flexlm /var/log/lmgrd
chmod -R 0744 /var/log/lmgrd

Install Service Definition File

Copy the lmgrd.service file to /etc/systemd/system/

Enable and Start Service

Use systemctl to enable and start the service:

systemctl enable lmgrd.service
systemctl start lmgrd.service

Client Setup

Users who use the license software usually have a particular environment variable set which contains the full path to the client license file, which is basically bare bones except for a line which specifies the license server, and a line saying "USE_SERVER".