Forums Technical Discussion License partitioning

License partitioning

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adlabac
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Hello,

We are interested in setting up license partitioning, but we have some questions that we could not find answers to in the documentation. We would appreciate if someone could clarify the following points for us:

• If we turn on partitioning, we need to restart the license server. What happens with the connected clients? Will they be forcefully disconnected and lose their work?
• Do we need to restart the server after editing the .partition.json file to apply the changes?
• What happens with users who do not belong to any group? Will they be granted or denied a license by default?
• Is there any way to test the syntax validity of the .partition.json file without restarting the server?
• Is there a way to see which rule from the .partition.json file was applied to a user requesting a license in the log?
• What happens to a user who borrowed a license from a group if all the licenses from that group are used? Does a user with a dedicated license have precedence over a user with a borrowed license?

Thank you.

AD
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adlabac
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and one more thing.

Let presume user1 belong to Studio group. User2 took 1 shared license from the "Experimental Users" group. Will user1 get another license from Studio group? Does group definition order matter?


{
    "user_groups": [
    {
        "name": "Studio",
        "if": "machine_name matches '^[a-zA-Z0-9_.]*.render.com$'"
    },
    {
        "name": "Experimental Users",
        "if": "username in ['user1', 'user2', 'user3']"
    }
    ],
    "license_partitions": [
    {
        "if": "(product == 'Houdini Engine' or product == 'Houdini FX') and version >= 17.0",
        "user_group": "Studio",
        "quantity": 10
    },
    {
        "if": "product == 'Houdini Engine' or product == 'Houdini FX') and version >= 17.0",
        "user_group": "Experimental Users",
        "quantity": 1
    }
    ]
}

Edited by adlabac - Nov. 16, 2023 06:56:36
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mattw
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adlabac
If we turn on partitioning, we need to restart the license server. What happens with the connected clients? Will they be forcefully disconnected and lose their work?
This is no longer required in H20. Partitioning is always enabled and live editable so there is no need to restart sesinetd on each change. Just be mindful of that change affecting current users and can take a second for sesinetd to process depending on the change.

adlabac
What happens with users who do not belong to any group? Will they be granted or denied a license by default?
If a user does not belong to a group they are placed in the "none" or "empty" group (still workshoping the name). The empty group has access to any seats that have not been partitioned. If all seats have been partitioned then these users will not have access to a seat.

adlabac
Is there any way to test the syntax validity of the .partition.json file without restarting the server?
With hkey in H20 it will verify the syntax and will report any errors.

adlabac
Is there a way to see which rule from the .partition.json file was applied to a user requesting a license in the log?
There is currently no way to see which rule was applied to the user.

adlabac
What happens to a user who borrowed a license from a group if all the licenses from that group are used? Does a user with a dedicated license have precedence over a user with a borrowed license?
A non-borrowing user will kick a borrowing user from the pool if there are no more seats in that pool. So kicking a user out of their seat is a last resort measure.


adlabac
Does group definition order matter?
No the order of group definition does not matter. One thing to note is the .partition.json file is no longer used in H20.

adlabac
Will user1 get another license from Studio group?
That is correct. If a user loses its seat it will try to grab a new seat either in the same pool as before or in another pool that it has access to.

I would recommend checking out the h20 documentation [www.sidefx.com] for partitioning as there are a number of improvements and new features.

Cheers,
Matt Warner
Software Developer - Licensing
SideFX
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adlabac
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thanks for the response. It's cool it's now controlled via hkey. I have one question thou, I'm unable to publish my modifications and I think it's because I'm not admin user. How to add user to admins via cmd line without GUI?
EDIT: reason I'm asking this is we have headless license server and I didn't find a way how to add user as admin locally on the server. If I tried from my machine using hkey it just gives me an error "Error while adding admin user"

Thank you
Edited by adlabac - Nov. 20, 2023 10:51:23
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mattw
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adlabac
How to add user to admins via cmd line without GUI?
I dont believe we added a way to add users headless. I can file bugs to add these. Note that the next version will change this slightly. Admin users will be actual users (username + password) and not user@machine as this poses a security risk.
Matt Warner
Software Developer - Licensing
SideFX
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adlabac
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Good to know. Do you think not being an admin is why I can't add partition rules?
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mattw
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adlabac
Do you think not being an admin is why I can't add partition rules?
Yes, I believe so. You can reach out to support and they can assist you further.
Matt Warner
Software Developer - Licensing
SideFX
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