License Proxy – IP Forwarding

A step-by-step guide for Rescale customers to setup a license proxy using IP forwarding mode on the Rescale admin page.

IP forwarding is a quick and easy-to-configure way of allowing Rescale to access your on-premise licenses for batch jobs and desktops. It involves rerouting packets sent to one IP address and port to another. It is a self service solution, and once configured, it requires no ongoing maintenance.

Pros :

  • It is the simplest setup to access on-premise licenses.
  • It only needs the Rescale license proxy public IP address to be allowlisted on the customer gateway/firewall device.
  • Does not require maintenance.
  • It is a robust solution and doesn’t rely on a tunnel being kept open.

Cons :

  • It does not have any encryption.

User’s role with the company:

  • The user should be an IT/network admin.
  • The user should be able to make changes on the gateway device, including firewall rules.
  • The user should have admin rights on the on-premise license server.

User’s role relative to Rescale:

  • The user should have an account on Rescale.
  • The user’s Rescale account should be a company administrator for the company’s Rescale account. To become a company admin, email support@rescale.com.

License prerequisites:

  • The license file must be a floating license, not node-locked.
  • The vendor port in the license file must be fixed. For how to fix license port in FlexLM and RLM (e.g. ANSYS, STAR-CCM+, Converge, Comsol, etc.), see How to Fix Vendor Port.
  • The public IP address of your internal network. This is ideally the public IP of your gateway/router/network device.
    • On Mac/Linux you can run curl ifconfig.me from a terminal to get your public IP.
    • On Windows, run nslookup myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com from a terminal and use the non-authoritative answer.
  • The hostname for the on-premise license server. The hostname can be obtained by running hostname on your license server
  • List of software for which you have licenses, and associated license and vendor ports.
    • License ports can be found in the same line as above – they’re the number at the end of the SERVER (FLEXlm)/HOST (RLM) line. Some standard license ports:
SoftwareLicense port
ANSYS1055 or 2325
STAR-CCM+1999
ABAQUS27000
COMSOL1718
CONVERGE2765
LS-DYNA31010 (and no vendor port)

Vendor ports can be obtained from the license file as the number at the end of the VENDOR (FLEXlm) or ISV (RLM) line. If you don’t see a number there, make sure you fix your vendor ports before continuing. The linked article also has information on how to confirm your vendor port is set by checking license log files.

This section lists the steps to setup license proxy using IP forwarding mode on Rescale Admin page. The license proxy setup on the Company Administration Page can be accessed at license proxy page.

  • Navigate to the Rescale Admin page from your account to start the setup for the license proxy
  • Navigate to Integrations>>License Proxies
  • Select Add New
  • The page will look similar to the screenshot below:
  • Give a Unique Name for the license proxy
  • Select IP Forwarding mode as the license proxy mode
  • Now, add the IP Address and Hostname in the “License Hosts” section.
    • Information on how to find the public IP address and hostname can be found above.
    • Remember that the hostname isn’t a fully qualified domain name; that is, it shouldn’t have any periods (.) in it.
  • Select the software that you want to configure the license proxy for from the “Software(s) dropdown. Please choose all the softwares that you want to configure in the software section. For example if you are using COMSOL Multiphysics in batch as well as COMSOL Multiphysics GUI in a Rescale Desktop, then you should choose both COMSOL Multiphysics as well as COMSOL Multiphysics GUI in the software entry. Then, for each software:
    • Set the License Port. This port is the port that the job refers to while checking out license. This is the license port that is being used by the application on-premise on your license server machine.
    • Enter the Vendor Port . This is the vendor daemon port that is being used by this software application.
    • Information on how to find the license and vendor ports for FlexLM or RLM license services can be found above.
    • For application such as LS-DYNA that uses LSTC or Dynamore license service, the vendor port is not required and the “Vendor port” field can be left blank.

Advanced Settings

  • You can also use the small toggle icon on the bottom right corner in license hosts section for advanced settings as shown below:
  • This setting can be used when you have multiple software applications being hosted on different machines on-premise but using the same port. In such case you can choose a different or unique “Proxy” port to map to each different on-premise machine for those applications and choose those softwares from the list of softwares

Specify Additional Ports

  • This option can also be used if the application is using a single license port but multiple vendor ports (like PowerFLOW) or multiple license port (like ANSYS). You can choose “+ Specify an additional license port” option and add the multiple vendor ports or license port for the software as shown below:

Specify Another License Service

  • If you have multiple license services being hosted on a single host, and if you want to connect additional license services to same host, then you can choose the “+ Specify another license service” option as shown below and add the required port information for the same:

Connect this Proxy to another License Host

  • If you want to connect additional applications that are being hosted on-premise on a different license server which has a different hostname and IP, you can choose the “+Connect this proxy to another on-premise license host” option as shown below:
  • Once you are done with configuring all the details you can click on the Launch License Proxy button at the bottom of the license proxy page.
  • You will now see a screen like the one below:
  • Once the proxy is launched, you will see a Status and Info section at the top of the license proxy page. The Status section indicates :
  • Proxy: If the license proxy launch was successful or not. If that status shows as UP in green, that indicates that the proxy was launched properly.
  • Last Sync: If the last changes that you saved were successfully saved or not. If that status shows as SUCCESSFUL in green, that indicates that the last sync was successfull.
  • Connections: If there are active connections listening on that IP and port, this will show as ACTIVE in green.

Note: If you see any of the Status in the status section in Yellow or Red that indicates that either the last sync was not successful or there are no active connections for the proxy. In such cases, please reach out to support@rescale.com

  • Info – In this section you will see the public IP of the license proxy. This IP should be allowlisted on your internet gateway/firewall to allow inbound from the Rescale license proxy to the on-premise license server. This will allow the applications to checkout licenses when submitted on Rescale. If your on-premise gateway/firewall device does not have this IP (public IP of license proxy allowlisted) the jobs submitted on Rescale will not be able to checkout licenses.
  • Once all the settings are correctly configured on the license proxy settings page, you should then be able to run jobs and check out licenses.

To test your connection and verify if the settings made were properly configured:

  1. Click on the “Check License Availability” button in the “License Hosts” section on the company license proxy page and that should give you all the license features along with the number of license seats you have available.

Please note the “Check License Availability” currently only displays the status for applications using FlexLM and Dynamore (LSTC) type of license services such as, ANSYS, STAR-CCM+, ABAQUS (Flex), LS-DYNA. If you have an RLM license software configured (such as Converge, MixIT etc.) or DSLS type of license service, the “Check License Availability” will not display any information.

  • For FlexLM or RLM type of license service if the “Check License Availability” shows as “The license server is down or not responding”, this means:
    • That the public IP of the license proxy is not allowlisted on your gateway device to allow inbound traffic or
    • The on-premise license server is not active or there is no active license process currently being served on your on-premise license server. Please check with your IT/Network or the license server admin team to check for the firewall settings or the license server status.
  1. Submit a sample job by logging into your Rescale account
    • Create a new job by clicking the +New job button in the top left of the page. Select the Software you want in the software section and select Use Existing License option as shown below:
  • In the appropriate field type in port@hostname . For example if you have configured ANSYS software on the license proxy and your license port is 1055, then enter 1055@hostname then click “Check availability” button. The license prompt will provide you with immediate feedback for whether the license server address specified in the license settings is reachable from the Rescale platform by clicking the ”Check Availability” button. It will also display all the license features and the associated license seats available for your licenses.