ClearOS is going to need a static IP whichever way you go here. First you need to log on to your router and note its DHCP range. It is normally either a from and to address or a from address and a number of IP addresses/leases. Typically they will start at x.y.z.10 or x.y.z.100. You are looking for a free address outside this range, but not .0, .255 and not the router IP which is generally .1 or .254. Typically .2 is free, but you need to confirm it. Also note the subnet mask. It is normally 255.255.255.0. Then in the Webconfig > Network > Settings > IP Settings change your interface to Static. Give ClearOS an IP address of whatever you've chosen (x.y.z.2). Use the same subnet mask as the router and use the router's IP address as both the Gateway and DNS server.

While you are at it, If you are considering VPN's you should really try to avoid the 192.168.0.0/24 and 192.168.1.0/24 subnets. Valid subnets are anywhere in the ranges 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12 and 10.0.0.0/8. You'd need to change the IP address in the router to change subnets. After this you'll probably need to reboot every device on your LAN (or, for Windows devices do an "ipconfig /release" then "ipconfig /renew" from the command prompt).

Once you have a static IP you can move onto the next bit. The most basic way to use the license server is to port forward the relevant port from your router to ClearOS. If you don't know which port, you can see which port the license server is listening on with a:

netstat -npl | grep lmgrd

This is not recommended because you have no way of stopping anyone externally using you license server.

The alternative way is to connect to ClearOS by VPN from externally. It can be done with ClearOS in standalone mode. If you use OpenVPN in ClearOS, you would need to forward UDP port 1194 from your router to ClearOS. This would allow you to connect to ClearOS. If you have control over your Router's routing table you can give the OpenVPN users full access to your LAN as well. In this mode ClearOS is even better if it works as a gateway so all traffic passes through it. Then OpenVPN users automatically get full access to the LAN without any special configuration.

Hi again! Thanks for all the aid I have received in this thread.

After some more tinkering I have got the licens manager up and running correctly!
When I connect with AutoCAD to it locally it works perfectly!

However now I am standing at hopefully my last step in the journey which is. How do i connect to it from and external network?
I feel like there should be some basic way of handling this? I assumed I could just connect via the external IP adress.

This is however where I got two problem.
When I run commands to find my external IP adress for example: curl ipecho.net/plain
I get my routers IPadress not my servers? Is this correct?

Secondly I do not think my router has the ability to set a static IP adress. Is there a better way off doing it? Can I solve this with a VPN? Like the one the marketplace has?

Nick - from the chapter 6 quoted

lmgrd Command-Line Syntax

lmgrd is the main daemon for FLEXnet Licensing. When you invoke lmgrd, it looks for a license file which contains information about vendors and features and starts those vendor daemons.

Understood from this that it was a one time command that actually started the daemons that did the real work, but the wording is confusing and you could well be right - continually scanning for added license files - so your addition wouldn't hurt and could well be required... probably becomes clearer if the whole documentation was read - but that is a job for Rasmus to roll his sleeves up and get stuck into it.

Rasmus - it this for some home study you are doing in your own time - or are we doing the work your company is paying you for?

One thought comes to my mind to check. Does the command daemonise automatically? If it does not, it will at least need a trailing "&" or an init/systemctl startup script.

su rasmus opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd –c license_file_list –l debug_log_path

1) Please read Nicks appends again - you should be substituting real file names for your particular system instead of "license_file_list" and "debug_log_path"
see http://media.3ds.com/support/simulia/public/flexlm108/EndUser/chap6.htm for more information in the top half of that page
2) What happened to the leading "/" in the path to the executable i.e. should be /opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd - yet another typo?
3) There should be quotes ie " " around the actual command that will be executed by the user
e.g. su - someuserid "some command or other"
4) It is better to use the su command like this so you get the users proper environment - have made up some fictitious file names to give a better idea what the command line should look like... Note the "-" between su and the userid

su - rasmus -c "/opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd –c /autodesk/mylicences.lic –l /var/log/autodesk.log"

5) As for permissions - the executable should work for all users...

[root@alice ~]# ls -lad /opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1538528 Dec 13 13:36 /opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd

No permission problems here with my personal user id

[root@alice ~]# su - sraellis -c "/opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd -v"

lmgrd v11.14.1.3 build 212549 x64_lsb - Copyright (c) 1988-2017 Flexera Software LLC. All Rights Reserved.

I suspect your permissions problem maybe came from the missing /, lack of quotes or more typos?
You should have seen this rather helpful message - gives a good idea of where to put your license files...

[root@alice ~]# su - sraellis -c "/opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd –c /autodesk/mylicences.lic –l /var/log/autodesk.log"

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) -----------------------------------------------

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   Please Note:

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) 

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   This log is intended for debug purposes only.

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   In order to capture accurate license

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   usage data into an organized repository,

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   please enable report logging. Use Flexera Software LLC's

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   software license administration  solution,

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   FlexNet Manager, to  readily gain visibility

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   into license usage data and to create

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   insightful reports on critical information like

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   license availability and usage. FlexNet Manager

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   can be fully automated to run these reports on

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   schedule and can be used to track license

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   servers and usage across a heterogeneous

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   network of servers including Windows NT, Linux

 3:23:59 (lmgrd)   and UNIX.

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) 

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) -----------------------------------------------

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) 

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) 

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) Server's System Date and Time: Wed Mar 28 2018 03:23:59 AEDT

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) SLOG: Summary LOG statistics is enabled.

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) license manager: can't initialize:Cannot find license file.

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) The license files (or license server system network addresses) attempted are

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) listed below.  Use LM_LICENSE_FILE to use a different license file,

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) or contact your software provider for a license file.

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) Filename: "/usr/local/flexlm/licenses/license.dat"

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) License Path: "/usr/local/flexlm/licenses/license.dat"

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) FlexNet Licensing error:-1,359

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) System Error:2 No such file or directory

 3:23:59 (lmgrd) Using license file "/usr/local/flexlm/licenses/license.dat"

Suggest if you are going to use the command line that you read some decent tutorials and study each command thoroughly before you use it so you understand fully the correct syntax. Don't rely that other people have each command correct - and that includes me - already seen too much sloppy work on the Autodesk site... Also, remember Linux acts on what you actually type and not what you intended to type - no typos

@Tony Elis

Wow I thank you for that very detailed explanation! I feel like I learned alot from that!

When it comes to the error in the copy I feel kinda ashamed now because I didn't know you could copy from the command prompt (just tried ctrl+c) and it just said "copy^c" so I figured I had to type the whole thing in manually, probobly should have tested abit more there. (figured it out now!)
When it comes to copying the whole message that is noted and I will remember it for future!

Thankfully that seems to have solved the current issue I was at.
Now I just have to learn how to assign permissions to useraccounts.

[root@server ~]# su rasmus opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd –c license_file_list –l debug_log_path
bash: opt/flexnetserver/lmgrd: Permission denied
[root@server ~]#

Rasmus - intrigued by this - as it advertises itself as a 64-bit rpm, so there should be no dependency on 32-bit libraries...

Downloaded the software and tried the command as you described (as Nick pointed out you should really substitute your own values - but nevertheless wanted to see what happened).. and also used a command as a test that makes a lot more sense... (-v)

[sraellis@alice ~]$ cd /opt/flexnetserver/

[sraellis@alice flexnetserver]$ ./lmgrd –c license_file_list –l debug_log_path

-bash: ./lmgrd: /lib64/ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory

[sraellis@alice flexnetserver]$ ./lmgrd -v

-bash: ./lmgrd: /lib64/ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory

As I suspected you had a typo in your quote of the output (tut tut) - but even more important you didn't copy the whole error - which provides much more important information - a missing file "/lib64/ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3"... ALWAYS provide the WHOLE message intact...

So how do we fix this?
Option 1) a yum search to find out what will supply this missing file...

[root@alice ~]# yum search lsb

[code]

... clipped

redhat-lsb-core.x86_64 : LSB Core module support

redhat-lsb-cxx.x86_64 : LSB CXX module support

redhat-lsb-desktop.x86_64 : LSB Desktop module support

redhat-lsb-languages.x86_64 : LSB Languages module support

redhat-lsb-printing.x86_64 : LSB Printing module support

redhat-lsb-submod-multimedia.x86_64 : LSB Multimedia submodule support

redhat-lsb-submod-security.x86_64 : LSB Security submodule support

redhat-lsb-supplemental.x86_64 : LSB supplemental dependencies required by LSB certification tests

redhat-lsb-trialuse.x86_64 : LSB Trialuse module support

redhat-lsb.x86_64 : Implementation of Linux Standard Base specification

  Name and summary matches only, use "search all" for everything.

So a "yum install redhat-lsb.x86_64" will probably help to, if not completely fix, this problem...

Option 2) Search the web
Well - what do you know - very first hit is this..
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Lmutil-error-lib64ld-lsb-x86-64-so-3-bad-ELF-interpreter.html
Which tells us exactly the same thing as did the first option

So we install the missing rpm and the multitude of dependencies that came along for the ride and now we have...

[sraellis@alice flexnetserver]$ ./lmgrd -v

lmgrd v11.14.1.3 build 212549 x64_lsb - Copyright (c) 1988-2017 Flexera Software LLC. All Rights Reserved.

That problem now fixed... you are one step closer. As have no license files here - that is the end of the line for this append...

So what did we learn?
1) Give the whole error message and avoid typos (copy and paste)
2) Don't install software from guesses - analyse the problem and search the web
3) Whoever put this rpm together neglected and/or ignored the whole point of rpms. The idea is that the rpm will check ALL the dependencies required to run the program/application being installed and add them to the install list. The nlm11.14.1.3_ipv4_ipv6_linux64.rpm installed without doing this - shame on the person who put that rpm together...

The supported systems are for this software are...
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
SUSE Linux Enterprise 12
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11
There should be a rpm for each that does the right thing and brings in all the necessary dependencies for each system - looks like someone is cutting corners and not doing the required work to ensure a trouble free installation...

Your first couple of posts get moderated so don't appear immediately. I'll tidy them up as they come through.

I hope you don't want the 32-bit library. ClearOS does not really support it.

If you look at the command you issued, it likes like it is expecting a licence file and a log file. I expect you need to replace license_file_list with the full path to your licence file list and debug_log_path with the full path to the debug log. I suggest for the log you use something like /var/log/autodesk.log. If it complains at not finding it, create it with a "touch /var/log/autodesk.log". I've no idea where you get a list of licenses from. but I expect you'd need to change license_file_list either to a folder containing a bunch of licence files or to a single file containing a list of licenses.

hmm i tried to reply but this seems abit wonky?

I am using the package you linked to. I got it installed fine. However when i try to use: ./lmgrd –c license_file_list –l debug_log_path
I get "bad ELD interpreter: No such file or directory.

SOmeone said It was because it was 32 bit so I tried running: yum install libgcc.i686 --enablerepo=centos-unverified.
Which installed fine!

however I still get the same error message.

Hi Nick!

I am useing the package you linked.
I have managed to get it on the server with bitwise. I got to step 2 of starting it up: ./lmgrd –c license_file_list –l debug_log_path

However whenever I try it says "bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory"
I tried tracking it and someone said I had to install 32bit library. I could not get it to work until I found: Yum install libgcc.i686 --enablerepo=centos-unverified.
It installed that fine!

however it still gives me same error message. Any more tips?

Possibly more info here, but you'll have to do your own research as I don't have autodesk.

For your MAC address, you can see all your NIC MAC addresses by doing an "ifconfig" and look for the "ether" value. This will give you a shorter output:

ifconfig | egrep '^(e|w)' -A 3

If you are in gateway made they may want the MAC address from your external interface

Are you using this package? You can download it with wget, so:

wget https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/file_downloads/nlm11.14.1.3_ipv4_ipv6_linux64.tar.gz

tar –zxvf nlm11.14.1.3_ipv4_ipv6_linux64.tar.gz

rpm -vhi nlm11.14.1.3_ipv4_ipv6_linux64.rpm

should install it to /opt. It also looks like the query tool, lmutil, is command line only - see here (don't use these installation instructions). It does not look like there is a gui to manage it.