Hi,

Setup:
Houdini 9.5 beta on Vista 64x Ultimate Edition
Second PC as a License server

I installed Houdini 9.5 (64bit) on on my Vista 64x (64bit) Ultimate Edition and want to use a second PC as the license server.

From what I understand I should be able to change in the “License Administrator” tool the license server to be used. However the option “Change License Server” is greyed out and I can't select it to point to the second PC.

Is it possible to use Apprentice HD on one PC and have the license availabled on a second PC where the license server runs?

Cheers,

Thorsten
www.strongmocha.com
DFX (Digital Effects) VFX (Visual Effects) Photo Food Travel

Apprentice licenses are node-locked, so you can't use another computer as the license server.
It's in the FAQs: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1039&Itemid=273 [sidefx.com]

Dragos

also, if you are using “local licensing” (often used by apprentice users), there is no hserver/sesinetd involved in licensing. In this mode, Houdini verifies the licenses by itself, and thus it does not make sense to switch servers. This is the reason why the “Change License Server” is grayed out.

It would been nice to depend on a license server, but I installed the license locally and Houdini works fine.

you can still use the license server for Apprentice license the way it was used in 9.1 and earlier. Though there is no advantage to doing that, since Apprentice licenses are always node-locked (ie, no floating network licenses). The complicated mechanisms of houdini/hserver/sesinetd had the reputation of posing many problems, which is the reason why we added an option of simplified apprentice licensing (i.e., local licensing).

Btw, if it is not documented yet. Local licensing uses licenses.local file instead of “licenses”. And you can edit the $HH/Licensing.opt file to switch between sesinetd and local licensing.

rafal
Btw, if it is not documented yet. Local licensing uses licenses.local file instead of “licenses”. And you can edit the $HH/Licensing.opt file to switch between sesinetd and local licensing.

Isn't this exactly where the Licensing.opt file should NOT be.

Imagine a networked installation with houdini on a single server mounted on mant workstations. In this case I may have some real production jobs running using central floating licences from a sesinetd machine tucked away in safety somewhere but want to have a couple of apprentice boxes for training. The last place I need the opt file is in the served root.

It should be either on a local machine or preferably in the user home so we can control it in a far more differentiated manner. Sort of like the $HOME/.sesi_licenses.pref

The local licensing mode is intended mainly for home users (Apprentice and Apprentice HD) and this mode accepts only non-commercial node-locked licenses. When a home user installs Houdini and configures it to local licensing mode, we wanted this option to take effect for all other user logins on that machine, thus we needed a central place (ie, Licensing.opt) for license configuration.

But you are right that it can be sometimes useful to tweak that configuration on a per-user basis. We will try to add the entry to $HOME/.sesi_licenses.pref and/or add an environment variable.

For more discussion on the local licensing please see this thread
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=12468 [sidefx.com]