All boils down to: Automatic wordwrap in received license-files from VMware.

Totally sucks ! - Yes, it does:

Basically, the problem is seen in the license increment, having a line starting with "server", like this:

"

<something and other>; desc=ESX \

Server enterprise; <a lot of other stuff>

"

The word "Server" at the start of the line to the license server means, that the next work is the name of the server, serving this license. We have no server called "enterprise" = The license is rejected.

Fix: Manually edit the license-file, making the word "SERVER" not appear at the start of a line, like this:

<something and other>; \

desc=ESX Server enterprise; \

<a lot of other stuff>

Now, this is not supported and supportpersonnel will tell you to retrieve the licensefile again (you will have the same issue, though...).

One supporter (yay, India, go !) told me, that if should be so bold as to edit the licensefile by hand, inserting even a space in it, it would be corrupt and unusable. = Nonsense !

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Bottomline:

VMWare flexnet licensing sucks. The license file, you recieve, is not always valid, but (sometimes) has to be edited by hand.

Having ~ 120 hosts and 36 clusters, this is not an easy task, especially, when VMware admins are hard to get. You're killing my weekends, people.

VMware: You need to get up to speed on the licensing. Everybody wants virtual servers (we know why), but the admins are getting killed - by licensing !

Plz get a move on the wordwrap-"feature" of the licensing files.

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Cheers, Richter