NX NX 2212 licensing changes: Mandatory use of Siemens License Server

Last year Siemens initially released a new license server that will replace and consolidate multiple existing license servers and vendor daemons (e.g. "ugslmd" for NX, Tc, and other PL products; "mgcld" for most Mentor products; "cdlmd", for CD Adapco products; etc…).

The new combined vendor daemon is named “saltd” and the new license server is named “Siemens License Server” (SLS).

For more information on SLS, see this page on Support Center:

https://support.sw.siemens.com/en-US/product/1586485382

SLS v1.0.x has been available for more than a year, and like the current SLS 2.0.x release, is backward compatible with the legacy ugslmd and other daemons from older releases of NX and other PL products, back to NX 5.0, so was optional to use SLS with NX releases up thru NX 2206 (you can continue to use SPLM licensing for older releases or move to SLS now).

Some NX sites have already begun using SLS with older NX releases, although officially NX has required the same v11.0.0 of the legacy "Siemens PLM Common Licensing" server for NX2206 in the past few releases, and older releases of Siemens PLM Licensing prior to that.

This change does not impact any existing functionality and should be mostly transparent to users and admins.

One difference that will be apparent to admins is a minor change to the License File structure.

When you Upgrade from the existing legacy license server (or do a fresh install of SLS on a machine that never had the previous license server), the SLS installer will automatically make the required edits to your existing license file.

If you upgrade your existing Siemens PL License Server to SLS prior to installing your new NX 2212 license file, then your best approach is to re-run the SLS installer again so it can automatically make those edits to your new license file (described below).

Before the automatic edits, if you take the default port numbers with in the SLS installer UI, your old license file header looked like this before:

######################################################################

SERVER <your server hostname> <your composite ID> 28000

VENDOR ugslmd

And here it is the after:

######################################################################

SERVER <your server hostname> <your composite ID> 29000

VENDOR saltd saltd PORT=29001

The use of a dedicated in-coming port, using PORT=, and the duplicate vendor daemon entry were always optional FlexLM settings in previous releases of the legacy PLM License Server, but is now required to be consistent with non-PLM legacy servers.

As part of the SLS introduction, another licensing change to note, as already mentioned above, is that the default out-going Port number is being changed to 29000 to avoid a conflict with the existing 28000.

If you use this new default port number, it does mean the admin would need to change the SPLM_LICENSE_SERVER variable on the users’ client machines from :

SPLM_LICENSE_SERVER=28000@<your server hostname>

to:

SPLM_LICENSE_SERVER=29000@<your server hostname>

If you are not using port 28000 for other purposes, you can choose to continue using 28000 (and 28001 for in-coming) in your license file and then you will not need to make any edits to the SPLM_LICENSE_SERVER setting on the NX clients.

Or you may be using unique ports that have been validated by your IT team.

To use non-default ports you can change these during the install by using the "advanced edit" in the SLS installer:

You can also make changes after an install for a new license file or to make port changes by re-running the SLS installing. You will select the "Update License Server Software" toggle then toggle the "Add/Replace License File" to ON:

These changes apply not only to NX CAD, but to all NX-platform products, including NX CAD, NX CAM, Simcenter 3D, and Nastran NX.

If your license file includes Tc products, and you chose to switch to the 29000 port, you will also need to change the licensing definition in your Tc server from 28000 to 29000. Or you can change the license file to stay with 28000 as just described.

If you have any questions, please contact Siemens Support Center for assistance.

Sincerely,  

Siemens Digital Industries Software