I have no explanation for this, but it seems that this on startup user data is inadequate:
sudo -i -u $deadlineuser_name bash -c "cd /opt/hfs$houdini_major_version && source ./houdini_setup && hserver"
…And yet this variant resolves the permissions issues !!!
sudo -i -u $deadlineuser_name bash -c "cd /opt/hfs$houdini_major_version && source ./houdini_setup && hserver ; sleep 10 ; hserver ; hserver -S https://www.sidefx.com/license/sesinetd ; hserver -l"
My only guess is that the 10 second delay and running hserver twice is somehow doing something.
But @thinkbox isn’t it odd that we have to run hserver at all in user data? Thats an assumption of the software that seems unnecesary, and Deadline should simply start it if it is not already started.