Licensing and Installing:

Important Information for Customers
Introducing…pixar.license

The latest release introduces a significant change to the licensing scheme for Pixar's RenderMan products. For a number of reasons, we are now using a proprietary licensing system. While the basic functionality is virtually unchanged from our previous licensing mechanism, there are some important things to be aware of to ensure proper setup.

The license file is now an XML-formatted file named pixar.license. The file is provided to you either by the Pixar license administrator, via the Pixar LicenseApp, or via Pixar's Web-based licensing tools using an Entitlement system. The Entitlement system is an efficient way to manage licensing and is capable of delivering a floating license to your license server and “stub” licenses to your artists' desktops and renderfarm nodes.

RenderMan Pro Server finds the license file via a preference set in the rendermn.ini file (in the /etc directory of your installation): 

	/licenseserver 9010@your.license.server
For this reason, we heartily discourage putting your license file elsewhere.

Floating Licenses

First, you will need to download and install a new license server. RenderMan Studio and Pro Server users should use one of the following packages:

Installation is otherwise basically unchanged, please consult the installation documentation for further information.

Installing and Running the License Server

on Windows

  1. Double-click on the appropriate .msi file to invoke the installer. This must be done on the machine that you intend to use as your license server. The installer will take you through the installation process, step-by-step.
  2. By default, the license server is installed in C:\Program Files\Pixar\license-5.0.1 and contains the following components and scripts:
  3. Near the end of the installation, the licensing application, LicenseApp.exe, will be invoked. It will ask you for an “Entitlement Serial Number”, and your Forum login and password. Enter the information in the appropriate fields (if you use a proxy server, your proxy information should be added as host:port, e.g. foo.mydomain.com:8080) and click on the Get License button.

    NOTE: If you received your license file directly from the Pixar license administrator you can skip this step, and the next. At this point, you can simply copy the pixar.license file to C:\Program Files\Pixar\license-5.0.1.

  4. The application will contact Pixar's servers and download your license to the appropriate location. Once that is finished, quit LicenseApp and the license server installer will run to completion.
  5. The license server will be installed as a windows service, and should automatically start upon reboot. You can manually start the license server using the services control panel.

on Macintosh OS X

  1. Download and unzip the appropriate .tgz file.
  2. Double-click on the .pkg to start the installer. The installer will take you through the installation process step by step.
  3. The license server is installed, by default, in /Applications/Pixar/license-5.0.1 and contains the following components and scripts:
  4. Near the end of the installation, the licensing application, LicenseApp, will be invoked. It will ask you for an “Entitlement Serial Number”, and your Forum login and password. Enter the information in the appropriate fields (if you use a proxy server, your proxy information should be added as host:port, e.g. foo.mydomain.com:8080) and click on the Get License button.

    NOTE: If you received your license file directly from the Pixar license administrator you can skip this step, and the next. At this point, you can simply copy the pixar.license file to /Applications/Pixar/license-5.0.1.

  5. The application will contact Pixar's servers and download your license to the appropriate location. Once that is finished, quit LicenseApp and the license server installer will run to completion.
  6. The license server should automaticall restart upon reboot, or you can run via the following shell commands:
  7. To start the license server, run the following command from a Terminal window: 
        ./startMaitred.sh
    To stop the license server, run the following command from a Terminal window: 
        ./stopMaitred.tcl
    Please note that each of these scripts can be edited to accommodate your site's configuration.

on Linux

  1. Download the appropriate installed based upon your systems current gcc/glibc configuration.
    Note: There are 32 and 64 bit versions of all license servers.
  2. To install the license server to the default location, in a root shell, navigate (cd) to the directory where the license rpm file was downloaded is located and type: (Note: using license-5.0.1-0.gcc333glibc233_ix86.i386.rpm as an example below) 
    > rpm -i license-5.0.1-0.gcc333glibc233_ix86.i386.rpm
  3. To install the packages to a different location, the /opt prefix of the default path can be replaced. For example, to install to /usr/local/pixar/license-5.0.1, from a root shell type: 
    > rpm -i --prefix /usr/local license-5.0.1-0.gcc333glibc233_ix86.i386.rpm
  4. The installation includes the following components and scripts:
  5. After installing the license server you will need a valid license file. There is currently no LicenseApp program available for Linux, however the license can be retrieved using a standard web browser and connecting to Pixar.
  6. To generate your license, Pixar will need the license server's unique hostid number. To determine the hostid, you must run a utility that is part of the license server installation. If you have installed to the default directories, run: 
    > /opt/pixar/license-5.0.1/PixarLicenseServer -hostid
  7. This will print out information similar to the following: 
    	Pixar RenderMan host identifier: honda 0d4ys54s6ey
  8. This script returns both the hostname and the hostid. In this example the hostname is "honda", while the hostid is "0d4ys54s6ey".
  9. To retrieve a license point a web browser to https://renderman.pixar.com/forum/entitlement.php
  10. Click Next to get to the license entry form.
  11. Enter your forum login and password, along with the Entitlement serial number received from Pixar.
  12. Enter the hostname and hostid as determined above.
  13. Click the "License Server" checkbox
  14. Click on "Next" to download "pixar.license" to your compuater.
  15. Copy the "pixar.license" file to your license server directory.
  16. After installing your license, you will need to start a license server daemon on the license server host. The license server daemon can be manually started on a host by using the shell script /opt/pixar/license-5.0/startPixarLicenseServer.sh and stopped with /opt/pixar/license-5.0/stopPixarLicenseServer.tcl. The script may be invoked interactively by any user or from the system startup. The license manager needs no special privileges to run.

In order to have the license server be started automatically, you may want to install an rc.d script. For example: 


#!/bin/sh
#
# 
# description: start/stop control for Pixar License Server
# processname: PixarLicenseServer

# source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

LICENSE_DIR=/opt/pixar/license-5.0.1
LICENSE_FILE="$LICENSE_DIR/pixar.license"
SU="/bin/su nobody -c"

case "$1" in
  start)
        echo "Starting Pixar License Server Daemon for RenderMan software"
        if [ -x "$LICENSE_DIR/PixarLicenseServer" ]; then
                if [ -f "$LICENSE_FILE" ] ; then
                        cd "$LICENSE_DIR"
                        $SU startPixarLicenseServer.sh
                        echo    
                else
                        echo "ERROR Cannot run Pixar Licensing daemon: PixarLicenseServer"
                        echo "$LICENSE_FILE does not exist."
                fi
        else
                echo "ERROR Cannot run Pixar Licensing daemon: PixarLicenseServer"
                echo "$LICENSE_DIR/PixarLicenseServer does not exist or is not executable"
        fi
        ;;
  stop)
        echo "Shutting Down Pixar License Server Daemon for RenderMan software"
        cd "$LICENSE_DIR"
        /usr/bin/tclsh stopPixarLicenseServer.tcl
        echo
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: pixarlicenseserver {start|stop}"
        exit 1
esac

exit 0
 

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