Something stronger than SMAC or Windows Guest reg hack for spoofing MAC at hardware level? FlexLM grrr.....

[LiamCurtis]

Ugh....

FLexLM and FlexNet licensing should be OUTLAWED!!!! If I had a dollar for the time I have wasted in my career fiddling with it and the companies that run it...grrrr.

Anyho, due to some licensing upgrade or mixup by my predecessors, PTC is refusing to allow me to change my existing flexlm running license over to a new hostID (mac address). I have tried SMAC, reg hacks on the guest OS, but no go--FlexLM still sees the 'hardware' VMWare mac address . VMWare only allows you a certain arbitrary static MAC, and from what I hear, changing it in the vmx file to a number outside of the 00:50:56:xx:xx:xx range errors out.

Does anyone have a workaround or has anyone been able to achieve this outside of the Gues OS? I am wondering where in the registry the mac address might pop up so the OS/FLexLM Softwareknow the true identity of the hardware MAC address...

On a side note, Autodesk was very helpful in assisting me with an old ACAD2005 flexlm transfer...

thnx!

[maxaha1]

Hi LiamCurtis

Did you get anywhere with this issue ?

I am trying to migrate an Autodesk license server to VMWare esx and having lots of trouble - don't know why. I did the MAC spoof thing, tried the convertor, and have now built a new XP pro system to run it.

Even with the licenses re-hosted to the new Guest OS, the client cannot see the licenses.

Now I don't think this is actually a FLEXlm issue - I've build another one running in the same farm, and it dishes out licenses OK.

And the lmtools on the new Autodesk Flex svr sees all the features.

But the Autodesk Moldflow has this license proxy - presumably to interface the moldflow products with the flex svr (they only started using flex after autodesk bought out moldflow I think - before this they had their own licensing system).

This proxy is running on the same server as the flexlm, and it cannot access the license features.

So - yes, it sounds like an Autodesk issue, but this works on hardware (and it worked on my old VMWare Server 2.0 system). Its only after we moved to ESX that it fails.

I have tried switching off acceleration in the guest settings, and I'm playing with others, but no lock as yet.

Do you have any ideas ? - Anyone ?

[maxaha1]

Solved this.

It was an Autodesk version compatability issue. The 2011 and 2010 software could not read licenses from the 2010 version of the license proxy.

Thanks anyway.