You can find the hlmanager application in the hlserver install folder on the server, but under Windows it can be run from the Start->Programs->headus License Server menu too.

Figure 1. Running HLManager from the GUI

Sometimes under Windows Server 2003, hlmanager can only be run from another host.

Adding Manager Users

Using HLManager

When first started up, something like the following will be displayed:

Server roley:11668 up 19 minutes and 46 seconds
<--------- Licenses ---------->  <------------------- Users ------------------>
Name        Status    Free Used  Id Hostname User     App       Age      Idle   
cyslicev2   23 days      0    1   1 roley    architec cyslice  0:16.53  0:05.40
                                             architec cyeat    0:16.48  0:06.45
cyslicev2   <1 day       1    0
cysurf      permanent    3    0
plyedit     <1 day       1    0
decimate    18 days      1    1   2 lunacy   architec mtool   11:23.14 11:23.13

Note: If you're running the Windows version, the default console window may be too narrow, wrapping the longer lines around and making the display rather confusing. You can fix this by:

1. Right click on the console window title bar, and select Properties.
2. Click on the Layout tab, and change both the buffer width and window width to 93.
3. Click on OK, pick Modify shortcut, then OK finally to make the change permanent.

The first line of the status report tells you where the server is and how long its been up.

The Licenses section lists all available licenses: in the example there is one cyslicev2 license with 23 days left, another cyslicev2 license with less than 1 day left, three permanent cysurf licenses, one plyedit license also about to expire, and two decimate licenses with 18 days to expirey.

The Users section lists all currently used licenses: in the example there is one of the cyslicev2 licenses being used on roley by architec, and architec also has a decimate license on lunacy.

You can see that the license name and application names don't always match. For example, the decimate license has been grabbed by the mtool application. When mtool starts up it'll grab a decimate license, if one is free, so that the Decimate panel can be enabled. If no decimate license is available, it'll look for other licenses from CySurf, CySlice, CyDir and finally, as a last resort, Mtool.

The Age and Idle columns show how long ago a license was grabbed, and for how long the application has been idle. In the example it looks like CySlice was started about 15 minutes ago, and hasn't been used for the last 5 minutes. The Mtool application was started over 11 hours ago and hasnt been used since; its a likely candidate for a "boot" if you run out of decimate licenses.

After the initial status listing, you will be presented with a command prompt where you can type one of the following commands:

<Enter> 

Display current status. The status listing doesn't update by itself as licenses come and go. You need to hit <Enter> whenever you want it refreshed.

add 

Add a license key to the keys file on the server. HLServer v2 installs only.

last <num> 

Show the last num lines of the log file. If you leave off the num, it defaults to 10 lines.

conf 

Show the contents of the hlserver.conf file, with all commented lines stripped out.

reload 

Tell the server to reload its key and config files. You will need to do this if you edit these files while the server is running.

boot <id> 

Release a license, making it free for other users to access. Get the id number from the Id column in the status listing.

boot me 

Release all of your own licenses, leaving others untouched.

shutdown 

Tell the server to shut itself down.

quit 

Quit from the manager application.

? 

Show the command help.

Command Line Access

All of the above hlmanager commands can be run from the command line.

Some examples:

Reload the config file after any change:
  hlmanager reload

Get the current status:
  hlmanager status

Get a list of current CySlice users:
  hlmanager status | grep ' cyslice' | cut -c37-60 | \
         sort -u | awk '{print $2 "@" $1;}' 

User Mode

There are 3 possible levels of access to hlmanager for normal (non Manager) users. This level of access is set globally in the hlserver.conf file with the ACC parameter. Requires hlserver v1.7+.

0 - No access 

Only users listed in the Manager group can run hlmanager.

1 - Self only 

Users can only see and boot their own licenses. In the situation where two users might share a license and one boots it (e.g. two different users are running CySlice on the same workstation), only the user running the boot command loses their license. This will not free up that license, because the other user will still be using it.

2 - Others OK 

Users can see all licenses, but only boot their own. In the situation where two users share a license, both will lose their license if one boots it. This will free up that license.