Hi all,

Finally got things up and running, and am just trying to tidy up security and such on my nodes…

So I created a new user on one of my machines, a standard user instead of an administrator, and I notice that I get Flexlm errors -96, 491 on the slave, and it is unable to grab a license.
This happens only on the standard user account–it connects fine under administrator.

Is this normal behavior/do you have to be an administrator to run Slave in Deadline 9? Or is there something I should look at to get it to see my license server? I have already disabled the firewall.

I just want to get everything as secure and automated as possible before I turn the systems over to the IT dept. for permanent integration.

Thanks

Hello,

Can you share a bit on how your slaves are running? Are they running in the service context or as a logged in user? I don’t think elevated permissions are needed to reach the license server, so your IT should be able to help you work out why they cannot open a TCP/IP connection to the license server.

They are not running as services.

The slave machines are Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. The slaves run as logged in user.

After some forum searches, I did look into the elevated user stuff, and found the following:

If I simply log in as a standard user and let it start up, it will not reach the license server.
If I kill Slave, then run Slave as administrator WHILE Launcher is still running, it will not reach the license server.
If I kill Slave AND Launcher, then run Launcher as administrator, it WILL reach the license server.

And looking at the task manager processes, it shows that slave will only run as administrator is launcher is as well. --Regardless if I ask it to or not, it’s tied to the user running Launcher.

SO, it would seem that running as an elevated user is affecting the ability to connect to the license?
Bear in mind, it’s connecting to the repository fine, showing up in the monitor (albeit with a license problem). I’m just trying to figure out if it’s a must that it be run as admin every time. All our nodes have been up to this point.

Thanks,

A -96 error is usually generic winsock failure code, but may extend to general C errno return codes (I’ve only ever seen socket errors though). The “491” is helpful, but not nearly as helpful as the text of the error as that converts an underlying errno error code into the text representation from the OS. Can you give us that text? It’ll be pretty helpful here I think.

Dwight’s right in that TCP/IP comms aren’t affected by user permissions, but it could be some other error that is. I don’t think I’ve seen a 491 before, so hopefully I can do some digging with the text.

As far as the launcher changing the startup behaviour, that’s because secretly on Windows, when you use the application icons in the start menu, we’re actually calling Deadline Launcher with particular flags, which tells the originally running launcher to start app X or Y.

Here you go:

2017-04-05 15:35:56: Could not obtain license because: 2017-04-05 15:35:56: License server machine is down or not responding. 2017-04-05 15:35:56: See the system administrator about starting the license server system, or 2017-04-05 15:35:56: make sure you're referring to the right host (see LM_LICENSE_FILE). 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Feature: deadline 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Hostname: 198.105.254.228 2017-04-05 15:35:56: License path: 27008@Richards-Mac-Pro.local; 2017-04-05 15:35:56: FlexNet Licensing error:-96,491 2017-04-05 15:35:56: For further information, refer to the FlexNet Licensing documentation, 2017-04-05 15:35:56: available at "www.flexerasoftware.com". 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Failed to checkout a license using current configuration, checking for auto configuration... 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Auto Configuration: Picking configuration based on: Render3 / 10.8.88.154 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Auto Configuration: No auto configuration could be detected, using local configuration 2017-04-05 15:35:56: The Slave cannot run in LICENSE-FREE MODE because there are more than two Slaves in the Deadline Repository. For more information, please email sales@thinkboxsoftware.com. 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Could not obtain license because it has expired. 2017-04-05 15:35:56: Scheduler Thread - >>> LICENSE CHECK OUT FAILED, SKIPPING TASK DEQUEUING

Well, it looks like I was wrong about there being an errno text representation. I still haven’t seen this kind of thing happen with TCP sessions before.

Are you using some firewall product outside of what came with the OS? If so, could you try disabling it temporarily to see if it makes a difference? That would be on the machine running the Slave, not the license server.

No firewalls. This is a clean install, just windows, Maya, and deadline installed. Windows firewall only with all deadline stuff allowed through. But even disabling windows fw altogether doesn’t make a difference. Connects done as admin, doesn’t as user.

This is definitely a weird situation.

I guess the next test would be to use an app like PuTTY in telnet mode and see if it’s able to connect to port 27008 while as a standard user or not. Would you want to set up a call to do some testing? This is one of those fun problems I like to fight with, and I’ve finally got a little slack time.

Update: Had a little chat with someone here and they had an interesting idea that it may be hostname related. Now, multicast DNS doesn’t work very well between Windows and Mac, so the shot in the dark is this: Did you configure the IP address for the Mac in your hosts file (“c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts”), and is that hosts file denied read access for standard users?

You could also test by just using the IP address instead of the hostname.

Good morning,

Certainly, we can do a call whenever. I’m curious about this as well. I have not configured the hosts file in any way. Should I have? I can, however, access the hosts file just fine from the standard user account, even though it is simply a sample file (everything commented out). So I don’t think it’s related unless I somehow missed a step where I was supposed to configure a hosts file and did not.

We actually had another call with a client with the same error, but who had it fail regardless of admin or standard account. Can we coordinate a time via support@thinkboxsoftware.com? You can pick up a phone whenever and call too, I may just be in a meeting.