Hex-Rays License Server Migration Guide

Introduction

Up to now our floating license management has been based around the following components:

• the license server manager, lmadmin, provided by Flexera

• the vendor daemon, hexrays, provided by Hex-Rays

As of the IDA Pro new release (9.0) and its new licensing model these have been replaced by:

• The Hex-Rays License Server, and

• lsadm command line tool

Both components are provided by Hex-Rays.

Differences between the servers

Flexera: two binaries and processes: lmadmin or lmgdr + hexrays vendor daemon. Hex-Rays: single binary (license_server)

Flexera: two ports required, plaintext communication Hex-Rays: single TCP port, communication protected by TLS

Flexera: server available for Windows, Linux, or macOS x64. Manual service configuration on Linux. Hex-Rays: server available for Linux x64 only. Automatic configuration of systemd service.

Migration steps

Moving from the 8.4 to the 9.0 license server management infrastructure is really easy:

• First make sure that you have the license server admin guide at hand.

• Follow the installation steps (section 2 of the admin guide).

• Install an IDA 9.0 instance and test your installation by trying to connect to the license server, to select a license, borrow and finally return it.

You are now ready to switch.

Attention points for the switch

Since an 8.4 client will not be able to connect to the new license server (and a 9.0 client won't be able to connect to the 8.4 license server), you should make sure that all users are using the new clients which are configured with the correct server and port. If your workflow requires using 8.4, you can keep the old server running until all users have switched to the new IDA version. Then you can stop and decommission the old server.