The steps:

1. Add the free Engine Indie license to your account if you have more than two computers on the farm.
2. Install Houdini on each machine according to your operating system.
3. License each computer.
4. Choose a machine to be the HQueue server. HQueue comes with Houdini.
5. Choose a machine to be the central file server that will share the files between all machines.
6. Add the client computers to HQueue.
7. Test job submission.

With each Indie subscription you are issued a supplementary license for use in a dual boot configuration or on a secondary computer.

Go to the online store to put Engine Indie into your account if you have more than 2 machines on your farm.
Engine Indie licenses are free. You are allowed a maximum of 3 Engine Indie licenses per account.

Indie and Engine Indie licenses are locked to each computer. You cannot float them on the network.
Each computer will be both the license server and client to itself.

A typical setup with a single subscription of Indie.
The same operating system on each node is recommended.

Install and License Houdini

Machine 1:

• Install Houdini, including the License Server component.
  
• Launch the License Administrator.
• Install the licenses: 1 Indie, 1 Mantra, 1 Karma license. Or, use Login-Based Licensing.
  
• Do not put Engine Indie on the computers with regular Indie licenses. Save those for the render nodes.
  

Farm machines:

• Install Houdini, including the License Server component.
• Grab an Engine Indie license from the online store to your account. You are allowed a maximum of 3.
• Each Engine license comes with a Mantra and Karma license.
• Launch the License Administrator.
• Install the licenses on each computer that will act as a render node: 1 Engine, 1 Mantra, 1 Karma. Or, use Login-Based Licensing.
• Don't install the Engine Indie license on a computer that has the regular Indie license.

About licensing your farm

• The HQueue Server does not require a license to run.
• The HQueue Clients do require valid licenses in order to run Houdini commands (hython, mantra).
  
• Mantra render jobs require Renderer licenses on each node.
• In order to cook .hip files, Indie or Engine Indie licenses are required on each node.
• The .ifd files are written to memory by the software then rendered to disk. Indie licenses can also create .ifd files to be rendered directly to Mantra (Houdini 18.0.460+).
• Each task in the job is responsible for loading the .hip file, cooking a particular frame and then rendering that frame. Each task in the job will require an Engine license.
• If the machine does not have a regular Indie license, then you must use the Engine Indie license including a Renderer license on your render node to allow the .ifd file to be written to memory before the Mantra render job will start.

Install HQueue

• Setup the HQueue server.
• Add your machines as client nodes.
• HQueue FAQs

Shared network folder

• Which machine will store the files and share them with the client computers?
• How will you share these files? A shared network folder or filesystem.
  • NFS
  • OSX AFP
  • Samba
  • Windows File Sharing
• Ensure all nodes can access the shared network folder.

If things aren't working...

• Licensing: Ensure each machine has properly installed licenses.
  • The License Administrator will report any issues.
  • For machines with an Indie license, launch the Indie interface to test.
  • For machines with Engine Indie licenses, launch the hython command to test.
• Communication: Check any firewall settings.
  • HQueue Server listens by default for incoming connections on port 5000.
  • HQueue Clients listen by default for incoming connections on port 5001.
• Permissions: Try reading/writing to the shared network folder on each client machine.