The License Manager can record all license requests and releases in the usage log file. Refer to the following sections for details:
The name and location of the usage file is set by the License Manager startup options. The License Manager records all license requests and releases in this file. Usage reports can be generated using lsusage.
Element | Description |
---|---|
Server-LFE |
Customer-defined log file encryption level as specified by the License Manager -lfe option. See Encrypting License Manager Log File Entries. |
License-LFE |
Vendor-defined log file encryption level. If this is non-zero, it overrides the Server-LFE. |
Date |
The date and time at which the usage log entry is made in the format: Day-of-week Month Date Time (hh:mm:ss) Year |
Time-stamp |
The time stamp at which the transaction took place. |
Feature |
Product feature name. |
Ver |
Product version name. |
The transaction types are categorized and described below:
|
|
Numkeys |
The number of licenses in use after the current request/release. (Encrypted if encryption level is set to 3 or 4.) |
Keylife |
For how long (in seconds) the license was in use. Only applicable in a license release entry. |
User |
The user name of the application associated with the entry. This element can be logged anonymously if the anonymous logging option is set. When the License Manager is not started with the extended log option, LM_SERVER appears in the user name. When the License Manager is started with the extended log option, the actual user name appears in the user name field of each dummy record. If clients are connected to the License Manager when the backup file is created, dummy records are created only for in-use license tokens in the backup file (and not for the tokens whose key lifetime has expired). Correspondingly, their dummy records are created in the new file. The dummy entries are differentiated from rest of the entries by specific transaction IDs (13 and 15). |
Host |
The host name of the application associated with the entry. This element can be logged anonymously if the anonymous logging option is set. |
LSver |
The version of the License Manager. |
Currency |
The number of licenses handled during the transaction. (Encrypted if encryption level is set to 3 or 4.) |
Comment |
The data passed in by the vendor's licensed application. This element can be logged anonymously if both the given conditions are met:
Further, the comment can be fully or partially anonymized depending on the vendor's implementation. |
Queue key ID |
When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the queue key ID—a unique identifier of the queued key. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Absolute position | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes position of the queued client in the queue. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Group position | When the system administrator has created a group reservation file and license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the position of the queued client in its group. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Group name | When the system administrator has created a group reservation file and the queued key is granted from the reserved group, the group name (as specified in reservation file) will appear. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Queue length | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the queue length—the total number of clients existing in the queue at that particular time. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Capacity Flag |
0 - When capacity licensing is not used by the vendor. 1 - When capacity licensing is used by the vendor. |
License capacity | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains license capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Team capacity | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains team capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as below. |
User capacity | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains user capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as below. |
Record number | Encrypted record number |
Client ID |
A 16-byte value that uniquely identifies each client request and is logged in the following transactions types (defined above): 0, 2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. Using the client ID, each request log entry can be mapped with the corresponding release log entry. Also note the following behavior:
|
Readable checksum | Readable checksum of the record |
Encrypted checksum | Encrypted cumulative checksum |
The information is recorded in the log file one entry per line in the following format. A typical entry might appear as:
# Startup Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:36:23 2014 1408961183 Machine1 197 1708 2 1 ODA= Mon Aug 25 15:36:27 2014 1408961187 f1 v1 0 1 0 JSmith Machine1 8.6.0.0036 1 request_comment - - - - - 0 - - - MA== 3724690 MTQxMjY4NTg3Nw== # Shutdown Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:36:43 2014 1408961203 Machine1 1708 Mg== 532318
If the License Manager is started with extended log option, an entry in the log file might appear as:
# # Startup Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:22:34 2014 1408960354 Machine1 25 5976 v2.0 437875 2 1 ODA= Mon Aug 25 15:27:55 2014 1408960675 f1 v1 15 1 0 JSmith Machine1 8.6.0.0036 1 request_comment - - - - - 0 - - - 3fd76b52b2d23b445e5a1e253068b3f1 MA== 295147 NzMzMDI0 Shutdown Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:28:48 2014 1408960728 Machine1 5976 Ng== 642326 OTc1MjUx
The table below describes the various fields of the first entry reading from left to right:
Fields in Plain Log | Fields in Extended Log | Description |
---|---|---|
Startup Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:36:23 2014 1408961183 Machine1 197 1708 |
# Startup Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:22:34 2014 1408960354 Machine1 25 5976 v2.0 437875 |
License Manager's startup messages.
|
2 |
2 |
(Server-LFE) Customer-defined log file encryption level. 2 is the default level for encrypting log file entries. |
1 |
1 |
(License-LFE) Vendor-defined log file encryption level. The log file encryption level set by the vendor will override any level set by the system administrator. |
Mon Aug 25 15:36:27 2014 |
Mon Aug 25 15:27:55 2014 |
(Date and Time) The date and time at which the usage log entry is made in the format: Day-of-week Month Date Time (hh:mm:ss) Year |
1408961187 |
1408960675 | (Timestamp) The time stamp at which the transaction took place |
f1 v1 |
f1 v1 |
(Feature/Ver) Feature name f1 and version v1 |
0 |
15 |
(Trans) Implicit license request entry |
1 |
1 |
(Numkeys) 1 token was in use after the request. |
0 |
0 |
(Keylife) Only applicable for a license release. |
JSmith |
JSmith |
(User) The user requesting the license. |
Machine1 |
Machine1 |
(Host) The host name of the computer on which the license request was made. |
8.6.0.0036 |
8.6.0.0036 |
(LSver) The License Manager version. |
1 |
1 |
(Currency) The number of license requested for that key. Only 1 license was handled in both the transactions. |
request_comment | request_comment | The log comment specified by the vendor. |
- | - |
(The hyphen shown in the example record). When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the queue key ID. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the absolute position. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the group position. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the group name. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When license queuing is enabled, this value denotes the queue length. Otherwise, it contains a hyphen as here. |
0 | 0 |
0 - When capacity licensing is not used by the vendor. 1 - When capacity licensing is used by the vendor. |
- | - | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains license capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains team capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | - | When capacity licensing is used by the vendor, this field contains user capacity. Else, it contains a hyphen as here. |
- | 3fd76b52b2d23b445e5a1e253068b3f1 | The client ID for the request. The same client ID will appear in the case of the corresponding token release entry. |
MA== | MA== | Encrypted record number |
3724690 | 295147 | Readable checksum of the record |
MTQxMjY4NTg3Nw== | NzMzMDI0 | Encrypted cumulative checksum |
# Shutdown Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:36:43 2014 1408961203 Machine1 1708 Mg== 532318 | # Shutdown Sentinel RMS License Manager v8.6.0.0036 Mon Aug 25 15:28:48 2014 1408960728 Machine1 5976 Ng== 642326 OTc1MjUx |
License Manager's shutdown messages.
|
If the Sentinel RMS usage log file contains characters that
are not 7-bit ASCII (for example, if a user name contains multi-byte characters
such as Japanese Kanji
characters), those characters will not be viewable when looking directly
at the log file. However, if you use the lsusage -c
option to create CSV-format
output from the log file, you will be able to view the multi-byte
characters if you view the CSV-format
file with an appropriate text editor on an operating system that displays
the multi-byte language. Also, when anonymous usage logging option is enabled, that multi byte user and host names will be logged anonymously.
You can also create Microsoft Access reports
from the CSV-format file that can be viewed on a computer using the appropriate
multi-byte operating system. (For information on creating reports from
log file CSV-format output, see Creating
License Manager Use Reports)
Sentinel RMS License Manager writes records into the log file until it reaches its maximum size. If you don’t have much disk space, you can restrict the size of the log. The default value for maximum size is 50,00000 bytes (approximately 4.76MB). The default maximum size can be changed using the -z option in the LSERVOPTS environment variable or at the command-line. Once the maximum size is reached, the contents of the current log file will be saved into a backup file unless the no-backup -x option has been explicitly used. If -x has been selected, the License Manager will simply stop logging when the maximum size is reached. Though it is best to use the -z option to specify the maximum size limit for the log file and to leave automatic backup of log file enabled. Under some cases, as a part of your payment arrangement with your vendor, your vendor may recommend you to not use the -x option to stop log file backups.
By default, when the automatic backup of log file is left enabled, the contents of the log file are moved into a new file in the case of overflow. The new file has the same name as the original log file but has few numeric digits appended to its name. For example, if the original log file is named lserv.log, the first backup file will be named lserv.log.00. The next time a backup file is created, the new file will use the next available backup number (for example, lserv.log.01).
The maximum number of backup files allowed are:
Once these limits are reached, the existing files will be overwritten sequentially, beginning from lserv.log.00. So, if the License Manager shuts down while it has overwritten some intermediate file number (for example, lserv.log.12) and is started again, then it will start overwriting from lserv.log.00 onward and not from lserv.log.13 onward.
If disk space is not an issue, you may want to go ahead with default maximum size of your log file fairly high to minimize the number of backup files created. For example, if you want to have 2 megabyte as the log file limit and no other License Manager options, LSERVOPTS would just be set to -z 2m.
Though the number of backup log files allowed seem sufficient to accommodate log data on a given day, still we recommend that you must devise a routine procedure to move the backup files to another location and hence avoid overwriting them. This can be particularly be helpful for usage log files where License Manager performance may degrade if many backup files are existing.
For example, let's suppose that you have set the maximum size of the log file as 2 MB. While creating trace logs, if the size reaches 2 MB, the License Manager starts adding suffix at the end of the trace file name as 00, 01.. till 9999, Example: lserv.log.00, lserv.log.01, lserv.log.02...lserv.log.9999. Once this limit reaches, the License Manager starts generating the same log file name series and overwrites the existing trace files. Example: the log file creation will begin from lserv.log.00.....lserv.log.9999; after reaching lserv.log.9999, the License Manager would again start logging from lserv.log.00—hence overwriting the previous lserv.log.00. In order to preserve the log files, write a script that should first backup the 1st 10000 log files. Once the limit of 10000 is reached, these log files (lserv.log.00 to lserv.log.9999) should be backed to another location and must be deleted from the original location.
For security reasons, you may wish to encrypt part or all of a license transaction record in the License Manager log file. To set the encryption level, use the -lfe License Manager startup option, with any of the following levels:
Encryption Level | Description |
---|---|
1 |
Allows no encryption. Transaction data will be logged for this license code with no encryption. |
2 |
No encryption, tags each record with checksum. Transaction data will be readable by the customer, but tampering with or deleting an entry can be detected if the appropriate usage utility (lsusage) is run on the log file. |
3 |
Encrypt usage only. Transaction data will be readable by the customer except for license usage data (which will be encrypted), but tampering with or deleting an entry can be detected if the appropriate usage utility (lsusage or vusage) is run on the log file. |
4 |
Encrypt entire record. All transaction data for the license code will be encrypted. Tampering with or deleting an entry will not be prevented, but can be detected if the appropriate usage utility (lsusage) is run on the log file. |
The vendor can also set the encryption level in the license, between 1 to 4. The vendor's setting will always override any level specified by you (see the possible scenarios in the examples below). As a result, all entries for that license code will be encrypted to the level set by vendor,
regardless of your encryption level settings. You may only set the encryption
level of transaction records for license codes for which your vendor has
allowed user-defined encryption.
Few examples of log encryption levels:
To learn more about lsusage, we recommend you to read through lsusage - Display the Usage Log File.