HPC/Application licenses

Introduction

Licenses for several high-profile commercial applications are hosted on servers within the Carbon HPC cluster. Applications consuming these licenses can run at the following network locations:

1. As a standalone application on an external computer.
2. Interactively on Carbon's login nodes, either in a virtual desktop (VNC), or displaying on your own X11 display.
3. Non-interactively (as a batch job) on Carbon's compute node.

The current page describes network requirements for situation 1 only. The others require no networking considerations for license access, though they do for remote graphics.

License servers

Carbon's license servers are:

clicense1
clicense2
clicense3

Enter these specific short host names (having no domain part) in application configuration dialogs or configuration files. Learn more below.

Eligible remote computers

The target computer must meet all of the following requirements:

• be Argonne-owned,
• have the application pre-installed, or hold a download of the application's online or offline installer,
• be able to reach the Carbon license servers (components of the Carbon HPC cluster) over the network by short host name.

Thus, the computer must be networked on:

• a wired connection in building 440/441 at Argonne, or
• the Argonne-auth WiFi network in the same building, or
• a VPN connection that has been opened by the user account of a CNM staff member, which includes regular employees, postdocs, and students, since only this HR status will place the user in the correct firewall perimeter,

or the computer must:

• have an SSH connection open to mega that has been configured to forward ("tunnel)" Carbon's license server network ports.

To resolve the license servers' short host names, the target computer's network profile settings must include the DNS domains cnm.anl.gov and nst.anl.gov. That is automatic for SSH-tunnels over mega, but in all other cases the domains usually must be added explicitly in the computer's network configuration.

Eligible user accounts

For installing and running a licensed application on a non-HPC computer, the user account that is active to run the application, and sometimes even its installer, must:

• belong to the end user (who must be an Argonne employee, not an external CNM Facility User), or an IT colleague, and
• have the ability to install applications on the target computer (already be local admin, as opposed to become local admin), and
• have been authorized to access the application license. If not already done, send the specific account name and application name requested to Dr. Sternberg, then await confirmation.

The user accounts used for installation vs. running an application need not and often are not the same, though some installers require and verify license access. This is done under the user account that runs the installer, meaning that administrator accounts must be authorized by name.

Available license tokens

• A license must be available to run the application, and for some applications, even to run the installer.

Applications

Find applications-specific details at:

• HPC/Applications/comsol
• HPC/Applications/lumerical