| travelling idl license [message #32170] |
Mon, 23 September 2002 08:45  |
Robert Stockwell
Messages: 74
Registered: October 2001
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Member |
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Hi,
I have two computers that I'd like to be able to
move my idl license back and forth on (using only
computer at a time, but not necessarily connected
to each other).
Are there any users who currently do this? What was/is
your solution?
I've got a linux desktop (currently with IDL),
and a win2000 laptop (currently with no IDL).
I would use the laptop at home, and away from
the internet so I don't think that I could call in
to the license manager on my desktop and get a license.
In the past, I've used IDL on windows for years,
and have only recently moved to using IDL on linux.
IMHO, the IDE in windows is fantastic, and the IDE in
linux sucks the big one. (I know about IDLWAVE, but I haven't
got around to learning how to use it yet, i'm an emacs N00b).
So, i'd like to be able to move my current idl license (on linux)
to my laptop on occasion (mostly for development, and working from
home).
I thought a "HASP" license would be ideal (I use to have one of those
back at grad school), but RSI told me they are being phased out.
So anyways, if anyone has any good solutions for moving an idl license
from comp to comp I'd appreciate it. My request to our SA has died on
the news that there are no HASP licenses anymore.
thanks,
bob
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| sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32238 is a reply to message #32170] |
Tue, 24 September 2002 15:49  |
Andrew Cool
Messages: 219
Registered: January 1996
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Senior Member |
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Randall Skelton wrote:
>
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Andrew Cool wrote:
>
>> You could have both your laptops as dual boot Windows/Linux
>> machines, and transfer a removable hard drive between them, with the
>> licence being encrypted to the HD serial number?? Awkward though.
>
> In the past week both Remair and Andrew have made reference to a HD serial
> number? I have never heard of such a thing and thought that between the
> various IDE and SCSI interfaces that such a thing was absolutely
> impossible. It is certainly possible to use your ethernet hardware
> address for hardware licensing but this will obviously not work in this
> circumstance. One can also dream about using the serial number from an
> Intel P3/P4 chip but this leaves all of the AMD and other CPU users out in
> the dark. Can someone please post a link that describes an interface to
> the 'hard drive' serial number?
>
> Many thanks,
> Randall
Hi Randall,
On Windows at least, the MS Information tool will return the serial
number
of the Hard Drive.
Look under Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information
-> Components/Storage/Drives
Cheers,
Andrew Cool
Drive C:
Description Local Fixed Disk
Compressed False
File System NTFS
Size 37.27 GB (40,015,470,592 bytes)
Free Space 11.94 GB (12,825,831,424 bytes)
Volume Name DRIVE_C
******* Volume Serial Number 54D9C2D0 *********************************
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 37.27 GB (40,015,471,104 bytes)
Starting Offset 32256 bytes
Drive Description Disk drive
Drive Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Drive Model WDC WD400BB-60BNA1
Drive BytesPerSector 512
Drive MediaLoaded True
Drive MediaType Fixed hard disk media
Drive Partitions 1
Drive SCSIBus 0
Drive SCSILogicalUnit 0
Drive SCSIPort 0
Drive SCSITargetId 0
Drive SectorsPerTrack 63
Drive Size 40015503360 bytes
Drive TotalCylinders 5169
Drive TotalSectors 78155280
Drive TotalTracks 1240560
Drive TracksPerCylinder 240
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
Andrew D. Cool
Electromagnetics & Propagation Group
Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Division
Defence Science & Technology Organisation
PO Box 1500, Edinburgh
South Australia 5111
Phone : 061 8 8259 5740 Fax : 061 8 8259 6673
Email : andrew.cool@dsto.defence.gov.au
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
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| Re: travelling idl license [message #32243 is a reply to message #32170] |
Tue, 24 September 2002 09:06 |
Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998
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Senior Member |
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I think that you should push for a HASP license.
Demand one. Seriously. Get loud on the phone.
Worst case scenario you get a years use out of it before support is dropped
entirely. Even then you would be able to continue to use your HASP dongle
with the last version that supported it. This would buy you some time until
RSI can come up with a suitable replacement.
Which, I am under the assumption, they are beavering away on as we type.
They have to be since they understand that some of their users require the
flexibility of HASP to license their product when we are in the field, or on
travel, or at home.
-Rick
"Robert Stockwell" <rgs1967@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3D8F371D.1030702@hotmail.com...
> Hi,
> I have two computers that I'd like to be able to
> move my idl license back and forth on (using only
> computer at a time, but not necessarily connected
> to each other).
>
> Are there any users who currently do this? What was/is
> your solution?
>
> I've got a linux desktop (currently with IDL),
> and a win2000 laptop (currently with no IDL).
> I would use the laptop at home, and away from
> the internet so I don't think that I could call in
> to the license manager on my desktop and get a license.
>
> In the past, I've used IDL on windows for years,
> and have only recently moved to using IDL on linux.
> IMHO, the IDE in windows is fantastic, and the IDE in
> linux sucks the big one. (I know about IDLWAVE, but I haven't
> got around to learning how to use it yet, i'm an emacs N00b).
>
> So, i'd like to be able to move my current idl license (on linux)
> to my laptop on occasion (mostly for development, and working from
> home).
> I thought a "HASP" license would be ideal (I use to have one of those
> back at grad school), but RSI told me they are being phased out.
>
> So anyways, if anyone has any good solutions for moving an idl license
> from comp to comp I'd appreciate it. My request to our SA has died on
> the news that there are no HASP licenses anymore.
>
> thanks,
> bob
>
>
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| Re: sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32244 is a reply to message #32238] |
Tue, 24 September 2002 07:14 |
Robert Stockwell
Messages: 74
Registered: October 2001
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Member |
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Andrew Cool wrote:
> Robert Stockwell wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I have two computers that I'd like to be able to
>> move my idl license back and forth on (using only
>> computer at a time, but not necessarily connected
>> to each other).
>>
>> I've got a linux desktop (currently with IDL),
>> and a win2000 laptop (currently with no IDL).
>> I would use the laptop at home, and away from
>> the internet so I don't think that I could call in
>> to the license manager on my desktop and get a license.
>>
>>
>> thanks,
>> bob
>
>
> Howdy Bob,
>
>
> You could have both your laptops as dual boot Windows/Linux
> machines, and transfer a removable hard drive between them, with the
> licence being encrypted to the HD serial number?? Awkward though.
>
> Or, if both machines are dual boot, then you might be able to use
> the new Personal Licence anyway?
>
> Andrew
>
> PS : Your Hotmail email bounces...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
>
> Andrew D. Cool
> Electromagnetics & Propagation Group
> Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Division
> Defence Science & Technology Organisation
> PO Box 1500, Edinburgh
> South Australia 5111
>
> Phone : 061 8 8259 5740 Fax : 061 8 8259 6673
> Email : andrew.cool@dsto.defence.gov.au
> ------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
thanks, that's a good suggestion. I'm not sure I am up to the
hassle of it though. :)
Does RSI actually use a hardrive as a key, hmmmm, how about a firewire
external drive (or even a CD, like games use for copy protection)?
I think I'll call up rsi and explore that.
I might just end up moving the license to the laptop, but I hate that
I will have a 1.4 ghz,512M Ram,320Gb hardrive, desktop just sitting there doing
nothing all day. It would be nice if I could use the $2000 software package
I bought in a way that did not cause me great inconvenience. argh.
Cheers,
bob
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| sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32251 is a reply to message #32170] |
Mon, 23 September 2002 16:36 |
Andrew Cool
Messages: 219
Registered: January 1996
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Senior Member |
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Robert Stockwell wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I have two computers that I'd like to be able to
> move my idl license back and forth on (using only
> computer at a time, but not necessarily connected
> to each other).
>
> I've got a linux desktop (currently with IDL),
> and a win2000 laptop (currently with no IDL).
> I would use the laptop at home, and away from
> the internet so I don't think that I could call in
> to the license manager on my desktop and get a license.
>
>
> thanks,
> bob
Howdy Bob,
You could have both your laptops as dual boot Windows/Linux
machines, and transfer a removable hard drive between them, with the
licence being encrypted to the HD serial number?? Awkward though.
Or, if both machines are dual boot, then you might be able to use
the new Personal Licence anyway?
Andrew
PS : Your Hotmail email bounces...
------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------
Andrew D. Cool
Electromagnetics & Propagation Group
Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Division
Defence Science & Technology Organisation
PO Box 1500, Edinburgh
South Australia 5111
Phone : 061 8 8259 5740 Fax : 061 8 8259 6673
Email : andrew.cool@dsto.defence.gov.au
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
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| Re: sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32302 is a reply to message #32251] |
Thu, 26 September 2002 07:05 |
Robert Stockwell
Messages: 74
Registered: October 2001
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Member |
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Rick Towler wrote:
>
> Bob: You could be the guinea pig for us HASP users. It would be worth
> trying to license IDL to a PCMCIA NIC and use that as your dongle. You of
> course would have to get a PCMCIA card reader for your desktop. It should
> work, the only issue would be managing the multiple NIC's in the machine. I
> don't know how the license manager selects the NIC on a machine with
> multiple network interfaces though. It looks like it takes the first one it
> finds which would complicate this a bit. You want to try that out and get
> back to us? ;)
Hmmm, let's see, my laptop has a basestation at my office, a wireless PCMCIA
card at home, and a PCMCIA NIC when I work other places, plus a modem card which
I may occasionally use, in addition to my desktop at work, and my desktop at
home.
I don't like the idea of having to disconnect from the (wireless) network to put
in a useless PCMCIA NIC card in my laptop. Especially since I almost always
use my one centrally located IDL library (so as to avoid duplicate libs), i.e. I
map a network drive containing all my code to my laptop.
> Also, How does this personal license work. Say I have a work machine,
> laptop, and home machine (all running the same OS). Currently I can carry
> my dongle in my pocket and work wherever I want. How does the personal
> license "float"?
I am not clear on that. But if it does travel across OSes then I am not interested
in it
Here's my point of view on the subject. I am not concerned with RSI's perceived
threats of piracy, or what they do about it. All I want is to be able to use
the IDL application that I bought. RSI does not provide the capability for me
use IDL in a way that is best for me, rather they choose to create some "scorched
earth" protection scheme that is not in the best interest of their customer's. :(
Thanks for all the resonses!
Cheers,
bob
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| sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32306 is a reply to message #32170] |
Wed, 25 September 2002 19:55 |
Andrew Cool
Messages: 219
Registered: January 1996
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
Gosh! So much prattle over a little matter like a licence ...
Here's a reply from RSI licensing people to my recent request for
a licence for IDL on my home PC, as supplied by my employer.
> You have been added as an authorized user of nnnnn. However, a floating
> license can not be built as a disk serial number. The only way this can be
> built as a disk serial number license is to downgrade it to a software node
> locked license. If you would like to downgrade your license, please read
> and agree to the below.
The licence work gave me was a floating licence. They opted instead to
also
loan me an Ethernet card rather than downgrade the licence to node
locked.
And here's the clincher. A segment of another of our licences keyed to
the
Disk Serial Number.
INCREMENT idl_drawx idl_lmgrd 1.000 1-jan-0000 uncounted \
BB13D4A1AF6143903D82 VENDOR_STRING="9844Surv Systems, \
DSTO" HOSTID=DISK_SERIAL_NUM=145f10e5 ck=239
Cheers,
Andrew
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
Andrew D. Cool
Electromagnetics & Propagation Group
Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance Division
Defence Science & Technology Organisation
PO Box 1500, Edinburgh
South Australia 5111
Phone : 061 8 8259 5740 Fax : 061 8 8259 6673
Email : andrew.cool@dsto.defence.gov.au
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
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| Re: sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32308 is a reply to message #32251] |
Wed, 25 September 2002 13:59 |
Rick Towler
Messages: 821
Registered: August 1998
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Senior Member |
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"Dave Greenwood" <greenwoodde@ornl.gov> wrote
> In a previous article, "Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>>
>> "Randall Skelton" <rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk> wrote >
> [snip]
>>> Second, it is impossible to have IDL for *nix and Windows on the
>>> same physical disk with the license tied to the VSN because
>>> provision for including it are not made by other file systems
>>> (ext2, xfs, ufs, hfs, hfs+, etc).
>>
>> Your points are valid, assuming that the FlexLM system uses the 4 byte
VSN.
>> From what I can tell it *does* which makes it pretty much useless. So
yes,
>
> ??? From what I can tell, FlexLM uses only the MAC address and *not* the
VSN.
> Do you have some evidence otherwise?
This diversion started when Andrew mentioned using the HD serial number in
regards to licensing. Then Randall chimed in on the VSN. I added my 2
cents suggesting that there is in fact a mostly unique serial number
attached to modern HDDs. But, I brought it back to the VSN since FlexLM has
the *ability* to use the VSN on Windows platforms (run lmutil.exe). I
didn't mean to imply that FlexLM as implemented by RSI uses the VSN.
>> I agree that HASP and MAC addresses are probably the most robust. And
all
>> of this is academic since RSI is only using the MAC address when
generating
>> licenses anyway.
>
> If RSI only uses the MAC address when generating licenses then FlexLM must
> only use the MAC address since RSI uses FlexLM for licensing.
No. FlexLM is, er, flexible in this regard. You can use IP, MAC, VSN,
Dongle, or "Vendor Defined" whatever that would be. Not all of these are
available for all platforms (which is what Randall was getting at in his
post regarding VSN).
See:
http://www.globetrotter.com/support/lmwinfaq.htm#How%20does% 20FLEXlm%20lock
> Actually, I don't much like the use of MAC addresses for licensing
> purposes - ethernet cards do break. Fortunately RSI has always been
> quick to respond when I've needed to move a license server to another
> MAC address.
Yes. Or machines change. Since more and more machines ship with integrated
NIC's this makes node locked licensing a little more of a pain. But we have
to be realistic and this is probably one of the better alternatives.
-Rick
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| Re: sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32309 is a reply to message #32251] |
Wed, 25 September 2002 13:21 |
Anthony J. Ferro
Messages: 6
Registered: February 2002
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Junior Member |
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Dave Greenwood wrote:
>
>
> Actually, I don't much like the use of MAC addresses for licensing
> purposes - ethernet cards do break. Fortunately RSI has always been
> quick to respond when I've needed to move a license server to another
> MAC address.
>
The problem is even worse for laptops. Our laptops change MAC
addresses
all the time, one for the dock at work, one for the dock at home, one
for
the PCMCIA card used when on travel (something you DON'T want to use if
you happen to want to run off a battery). Dongels are just as bad since
a lot of laptops don't have parallel ports anymore and people would
often
rather have a nice mouse in their USB port.
RSI (and Globetrotter) have _never_ done a good job in supporting
laptops,
regardless of the operating system (Win, Linux, Mac).
- Tony Ferro
--
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------
| Anthony Ferro tferro@as.arizona.edu |
| Steward Observatory, NICMOS Project |
| University of Arizona Phone: (520) 621-8683 |
| 933 N. Cherry Ave. FAX: (520) 621-1891 |
| Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 http://merlin.as.arizona.edu/~tferro/ |
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------
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| Re: sec : U Re: travelling idl license [message #32313 is a reply to message #32251] |
Wed, 25 September 2002 12:54 |
Dave Greenwood
Messages: 33
Registered: October 2000
|
Member |
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In a previous article, "Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> "Randall Skelton" <rhskelto@atm.ox.ac.uk> wrote >
[snip]
>> Second, it is impossible to have IDL for *nix and Windows on the
>> same physical disk with the license tied to the VSN because
>> provision for including it are not made by other file systems
>> (ext2, xfs, ufs, hfs, hfs+, etc).
>
> Your points are valid, assuming that the FlexLM system uses the 4 byte VSN.
> From what I can tell it *does* which makes it pretty much useless. So yes,
??? From what I can tell, FlexLM uses only the MAC address and *not* the VSN.
Do you have some evidence otherwise?
> I agree that HASP and MAC addresses are probably the most robust. And all
> of this is academic since RSI is only using the MAC address when generating
> licenses anyway.
If RSI only uses the MAC address when generating licenses then FlexLM must
only use the MAC address since RSI uses FlexLM for licensing.
Actually, I don't much like the use of MAC addresses for licensing
purposes - ethernet cards do break. Fortunately RSI has always been
quick to respond when I've needed to move a license server to another
MAC address.
Dave
--------------
Dave Greenwood Email: Greenwoodde@ORNL.GOV
Oak Ridge National Lab %STD-W-DISCLAIMER, I only speak for myself
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