Ansys 5.7 license manager (windows based) on Linux

Our professional version of Ansys 5.7 has been bound to a license manager running on a windows NT server. Once mighty server rests in peace already, but our professional Ansys is worth to use. At least time to time.

Our license is based on serial number of hard disc, from which is the flexlm started. OK, wine emulator allows to specify the label and serial of its (virtual) disks.

Wine installation on CentOS 6.4 x86_64

Remark: use just zypper in wine on (open)SUSE. However, Ansys on CentOS is said to be "oficially supported". It does not apply to this case, I guess.
Wine is not part of the official repository tree. As a first step configure EPEL repository (thanks to this link ).

yum install wget
wget https://fedoraproject.org/static/0608B895.txt --no-check-certificate
mv 0608B895.txt /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
rpm -ivh http://mirror.slu.cz/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

check success:

[root@localhost ~]# yum repolist

repo id     repo name                                         status
base        CentOS-6 - Base                                   6,381
epel        Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64    10,031
extras      CentOS-6 - Extras                                 13
updates     CentOS-6 - Updates                                1,555

install Wine:

[root@localhost ~]# yum install wine

Yum finds and installs a huge number of 32bit dependencies. 

License manager configuration

Run winecfg and specify Windows NT compatibility. In the Drives panel press Advanced options and specify the serial number of the disk C: (or use ~/.wine/drive_c/.windows-serial file containing the serial number)

copy flexlm directory to C: (.wine/drive_c)

┌┌<─ ~/.wine/drive_c/flexlm ───────────────────────────.[^]>┐
││'n               Name                │ Size  │Modify time │
││/..                                  │UP--DIR│Nov 29 01:19│
││/Intel                               │   4096│Apr 26  2004│
││ ansyslmd                            │      0│Nov 29 01:45│
││ ansyslmd.ini                        │     33│Apr 26  2004│
││ license.dat                         │    224│Nov 29 01:38│
││ license.log                         │   1351│Nov 29 01:45│
││ lmgrd.8                             │    144│Nov 29 01:45│
││ startup.log                         │    227│Nov 29 01:45│
││                                     │       │            │

startup.sh :

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/flexlm
date >>startup.log
LOGF=license.log
mv -f $LOGF license.log-`date +"%F+%T"`
nohup wine Intel/lmgrd.exe -z >> $LOGF 2>>startup.log  &

Check the status (it takes some time to start up the server)

[root@plchova3 flexlm]# wine Intel/lmutil.exe lmdiag -c license.dat

lmutil - Copyright (C) 1989-2001 Globetrotter Software, Inc.
FLEXlm diagnostics on Fri 11/29/2013 11:06

-----------------------------------------------------
License file: license.dat
-----------------------------------------------------
"ansys" v2001.0630, vendor: ansyslmd
  License server: hostname
  floating license no expiration date


This license can be checked out
-----------------------------------------------------

or:

[root@plchova3 flexlm]# wine Intel/lmutil.exe lmstat -a -c license.dat

For shutdown:

[root@plchova3 flexlm]# wine Intel/lmutil.exe lmdown -c license.dat

lmutil - Copyright (C) 1989-2001 Globetrotter Software, Inc.
[Detecting lmgrd processes...]

   Port@Host            Vendors
1) 1057@hostname        ansyslmd 

Are you sure (y/n)?  y
    1 FLEXlm License Server shut down

Troubleshooting

• check the drive serial number
  

  [root@localhost flexlm]# wine cmd
  

  CMD Version 1.4.1
  
  C:\flexlm>dir
  Volume in drive C has no label.
  Volume Serial Number is 70fa-1234
  
  Directory of C:\flexlm
  
  11/29/2013   1:45 AM  <dir>         .
  11/29/2013   1:19 AM  <dir>         ..
  11/29/2013   1:45 AM             0  ansyslmd
   4/26/2004   8:34 PM            33  ansyslmd.ini
   4/26/2004   8:23 PM  <dir>         Intel
  11/29/2013   1:38 AM           224  license.dat
  11/29/2013   2:05 AM         1,452  license.plchova.log
  11/29/2013   2:15 AM           144  lmgrd.8
  11/29/2013   1:45 AM           227  startup.log
         6 files                    2,080 bytes
         3 directories      7,727,013,888 bytes free
  

  
  
• check the if hostname in the license.dat match the hostname, specify the same hostname in /etc/hosts
• check the firewall settings. The two ports specified in the license file have to be opened fog incoming traffic

  SERVER hostname DISK_SERIAL_NUM=70fa1234 1057
  VENDOR ansyslmd PORT=1058
  
  INCREMENT ansys ansyslmd 2001.0630 permanent 1 3A8F12345678 \
   VENDOR_STRING=customer:00000001 SUPERSEDE ISSUED=24-May-2001 \
   START=03-Apr-2001
  
  

  The two ports are 1057 and 1058 in our case:

  iptables -A INPUT -m state -s $LAN --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 1057 -j ACCEPT
  iptables -A INPUT -m state -s $LAN --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 1058 -j ACCEPT
  

  or specify the corresponding rules in /etc/sysconfig/iptables (in CentOS).