RELEASE NOTES FOR VERSION 64789 OF THE LSTC LICENSE SOFTWARE ------------------------------------------------------------ February 9, 2011 IMPORTANT BUG FIX: Version 64606 has been removed because of a serious error. Programs were not queued properly when there were no available licenses. This error was related to the introduction of the '-q' server command line option. RELEASE NOTES FOR VERSION 64606 OF THE LSTC LICENSE SOFTWARE ------------------------------------------------------------ January 27, 2011 *********************** ***** WHAT'S NEW ****** *********************** LOGGING: Versions of the LSTC License Server now log uncounted license use. All licenses recovered at server start-up are now logged to the server license log. DISALLOW QUEUE: If the LSTC License Server is started with a "-q" command line option, then licenses will not queued. If there are no available licenses, then the server will reject the license request. If this happens, then LS-DYNA will print the following error message: *** License problem *** Network license: *** Error You are not licensed to run this LS-DYNA on this machine, or you requested more additional processors than are licensed. Program license denied. This is particularly useful in situations where MPP versions of LS-DYNA are used. MPP versions CANNOT properly idle while waiting for licenses; so they continue to consume resources while in a spin state. And cluster firewalls often block the license server requests which are used to tell the MPP version of LS-DYNA to start once the license is ready. So, it is common for queued MPP versions of LS-DYNA to end up in a perpetual spin state. If you have experienced such problems, then this option may be the best solution. START-UP ARGUMENTS: Versions of the LSTC License Server now look for a file named "server_args" in the security directory. If the "server_args" file exists, then the arguments specified in the file are prepended to the command line arguments. Each line of the "server_args" file should contain only one option (along with any of its optional arguments.) Lines beginning with '#' are treated as comment lines. This file must be readable by the LSTC License Server, and should reside in the security directory along with the "server_data" license file. ALLOWED OPTIONS IN "server_args" # This will allow any user to kill a job -a # You can force the server to remain in the foreground -f # If a job is owned by 'user', then allow 'user' to kill # any job running on any machine if it is owned by 'user' -n # Only the owner of the job on the machine where the job is # running may kill the job -N # Specify a job log file name. If a path is not absolute, # then it is interpreted relative to the security directory -l log_file_name # Disable the job queue, forcing LS-DYNA to terminate if there are # no available licenses -q # Specify a separate server-to-serer port for redundant server # communcation. -s2s port LOG UTILITY: There is now an "lstc_logreport" utility included with the LSTC License software distributions. You must specify a log file created by the LSTC License Sever in order to use this utility. SYNTAX: lstc_logreport input_logfile [-begin MMDD[[YY]YY]] [-end MMDD[[YY]YY]] [-sort [user|host|code|status]] [-rev] [-csv] [-out out_file] TEXT FORMAT. If you do nothing else but specify the input log file, then the program will gather all log entries, and create one report line per tracked license. The current format of this simple text file output is: [STARTED] USER JOB PROGRAM NCPU IP STATUS ELAPSED -------------------------- ------- ----------------- ----------- ---- ------------- ------------- --------- [Wed Nov 3 06:36:36 2010] my_user 7402@host.dom.com LS-DYNA_971 1 127.10.11.12 completed 000:00:11 [Wed Nov 3 06:41:06 2010] my_user 7418@host.dom.com LS-DYNA_971 1 127.10.11.12 completed 000:00:26 .... The output is directed to the terminal if "-out out_file" is not specfied on the command line. CSV FORMAT The simplest command to generate output in a csv format is lstc_logreport input_logfile -csv The output will be directed to the terminal in a csv format, which you can redirect to file. Or, you can specify an output file using the -out out_file option. The sample output in this case is my_user;127.10.11.12;7402@host.lstc.com;LS-DYNA_971;1;2010;11;03;06;36;36;000;00;11;completed my_user;127.10.11.12;7418@host.lstc.com;LS-DYNA_971;1;2010;11;03;06;41;06;000;00;26;completed FILTERING BY DATE You can restrict the log report to dates using the -begin and -end command line options An argument to these options can be in any of the following forms 0901 (Sept 1 of the current calendar year) 090110 (Sept 1 of 2010) 09012010 (Sept 1 of 2010) If you use -begin 0901, then all entries started before that date are ignored. If you use -end 0901, then all entries started after that date are ignored. So, '-begin 0901 -end 0901' will report only entries started on 0901. The final status of the completed run is always reported. If there is no final entry for a particular run, then we assume that it is still running and report the elapsed as as the current_time - start_time. SORTING BY FIELD The only fields currently supported are -sort user -sort host -sort code -sort status The sort is a standard alphanumeric sort in ascending order. To reverse the order of the sort, you can invoke the reverse-sort option -rev *********************** ***** BUGS FIXED ****** *********************** PROXY SERVER BUG FIX: Previous versions of the proxy server could time out a license, making it falsely appear that the license server had done so. All existing proxy servers should be updated. An additional grace period has also been added for the proxy's handling of licenses so that there is no chance of timing out a license before the server does. REDUNDANT SERVER BUG FIX: There are cases when one redundant server may fail to log a license failure, even though the two did. REDUNDANT SERVER BUG FIX: This bug manifests itself in a server crash under some very special circumstances where license ownership is transferred multiple times due to a redundant server failure. REDUNDANT SERVER BUG FIX: This bug manifests itself in the following way. During redundant server (re)negotiation, LS-DYNA contacts a server for a license. The server to which LS-DYNA connects is not yet ready, and the license request is denied, even though the other two servers are ready to serve licenses. This causes a false license failure, and a misleading message from LS-DYNA indicating that it could not find a license server. The fix for this problem is to allow the server-to-server communication to be on a separate channel, so that a server may safely close its license socket whenever it is not yet ready. That way, LS-DYNA is prevented from ever contacting a server which is not ready. If no servers are yet ready, then license failure is unavoidable. REQUIRED ACTION: You MUST update ALL three redundant servers to version 64552 or later. Then you must start the server with a special command line option -s2s server_to_server_port Alternatively, you may start the server with a command line option that instructs the server to use the license server port minus an offset: -s2s -offset For example, the server port is 31010 by default. A redundant server will use port 31000 for its server-to-server communication if you specify the either of the following command line options: -s2s -10 -s2s 31000 WARNING: Be sure to open the additional port for server-to-server communication if you invoke this option. SAVING THE OPTION: Refer to START-UP ARGUMENTS below for a way to save this command line option across a restart.