Summary

When you purchase a concurrent license for InstallAnywhere, you need to identify the location of the FlexNet License Server each time you install InstallAnywhere. You can enter the license server information in the InstallAnywhere user interface when registering the product.

However, there may be situations where you want to configure InstallAnywhere to use a license server by calling the build.exe tool from the command line. This article explains how to configure InstallAnywhere to use a license server using the command line as well as how to configure a concurrent license timeout period.

Synopsis

When you purchase a concurrent license for InstallAnywhere, you need to identify the location of the FlexNet License Server each time you install InstallAnywhere. You can enter the license server information in the InstallAnywhere user interface when registering the product. However, there may be situations where you want to configure InstallAnywhere to use a license server by calling the build.exe tool from the command line.

This article explains how to configure InstallAnywhere to use a license server using the command line as well as how to configure a concurrent license time-out period.

Discussion

Registering InstallAnywhere with the License Server Using the Command Line

InstallAnywhere can be configured to use a license server by calling the build.exe tool from the command line. The ?ls option is provided to configure InstallAnywhere with the FlexNet License Server. To configure the host and port number of the license server, use the following command:

IA 2009 and IA 2010:

build.exe ?ls <host>:<port>

IA 2011 and Subsequent Releases:

build.exe -ls <port>@<host>

Where host is the server host and port is the port number.

NOTE: If the server is configured to use the default port, there is no need to specify the server port number.

For example, to configure InstallAnywhere with a license server located at host 192.168.0.1 and port number 1234, you would enter the following:

IA 2009 and IA 2010:

build.exe ?ls 192.168.0.1:1234

IA 2011 and Subsequent Releases:

build.exe -ls 1234@192.168.0.1

To configure InstallAnywhere with a license server located at host 192.168.0.1 and using the default port number, you would enter the following:

IA 2009 and IA 2010:

build.exe ?ls 192.168.0.1

IA 2011 and Subsequent Releases:

build.exe -ls 192.168.0.1

Configuring the License Time-Out Period

To avoid licenses from being held by instances of InstallAnywhere that are not in use for long periods, the license can be configured to be automatically freed after a specified idle period.

By default, there is no license time out period set. This means that if a user launches InstallAnywhere and checks out a license, the license will remain checked out until that user closes InstallAnywhere, even if they are not using it. To enable a license time-out period, which would enable the license server to take back the license after a specified period of idle time, create a file named ?mvsn.opt? in the same directory as the license file used to start the FlexNet License Server. The file should contain one or more lines with the following format:

TIMEOUT license_type seconds

where license_type is the type of license to be configured and seconds is the number of seconds after which

For example, to configure the server to revoke the InstallAnywhere Enterprise English licenses after 1 hour of inactivity, add the following line to the mvsn.opt file:

TIMEOUT IAEE 3600

To configure the server to revoke the InstallAnywhere Enterprise English licenses and the InstallAnywhere Enterprise Build Only licenses after 45 minutes, add the following lines to the mvsn.opt file:

• TIMEOUT IAEB 2700
• TIMEOUT IAEE 2700

If a license time out period is set, when an instance of InstallAnywhere is idle for more than the specified period, the license is revoked by the server and the following message dialog is displayed when a user attempts to use that instance of InstallAnywhere:

The License Timeout dialog box provides the following options:

• Edit Settings: Click to change the license server configuration. You could point to a different license server or use a serial number to register the product.
• Save and Quit: Click to save the current project and close InstallAnywhere.
• Continue: Click to request a new license from the server if one is available (assuming that someone has recently checked one in).

For more details about the license idle configuration see the FLEXnet License Administration Guide.