You can set up High Availability Licensing (HAL) servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, as described here. 

Every EC2 instance has both a public and private address. The LM-X server requires that HAL license server settings are identical for all three HAL peers (redundant servers). To provide access for redundant EC2 machines and ensure that the LM-X server will recognize the HAL type, use the private IP address for the LM-X configuration and map the private IP addresses to their corresponding public IP addresses.

For Linux, set this mapping in the /etc/hosts file. For Windows, set this mapping in the {Windows folder}\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

Example

The following shows an example for three EC2 instances with a Linux OS.

For this example, the private IP to public IP mappings are as follows:

HAL1: Private IP - 172.31.5.33, Public IP - 34.253.25.122
HAL2: Private IP - 172.31.6.253, Public IP - 34.245.22.38
HAL3: Private IP - 172.31.10.194, Public IP - 46.137.69.84

The configuration settings to add to LM-X for the example mappings are as follows:

HAL_SERVER1 = 6200@172.31.5.33
HAL_SERVER2 = 6200@172.31.6.253
HAL_SERVER3 = 6200@172.31.10.194

The settings to add to the /etc/hosts file for the example mappings are as follows:

172.31.5.33    34.253.25.122
172.31.6.253   34.245.22.38
172.31.10.194  46.137.69.84

It is recommended to use an Elastic IP address to reserve your public IP address. For more information about using Elastic IP addresses, see https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/intro-elastic-ip-addresses.

After completing the setup steps as described in the example above, you must start or restart the LMX server.

When setting up HAL from the LM-X License Server Client, the server state "Down" indicates that the private IP isn't reachable from outside the network.

Troubleshooting

Always check the logs after setting up HAL to ensure that HAL has been set up correctly and to verify that a connection has been made.

The most common mistakes that may occur when setting up HAL on AWS include the following:

  • The LMX server port is not reachable
  • The private IP address is not reachable from outside the network (indicated by the server state being reported as "Down" when setting up HAL from the LM-X License Server Client)
  • The public IP address was changed (and didn't use Elastic), but the host map was not updated accordingly
  • The public IP address was used instead of the private IP address in the HAL configuration

For more information about AWS addressing, see the official AWS website at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-instance-addressing.html

For more information about LM-X's HAL feature, see High Availability Licensing.