Licensing server

Flair 1.2

Table of contents
  1. License distribution
  2. Setup
    1. Adding firewall rules
      1. On Windows
      2. On macOS
      3. On Linux
  3. Troubleshooting
    1. Test communication with Relay
      1. On Windows (PowerShell)
      2. On macOS and Linux
    2. Setting a hostname
      1. On Windows
      2. On macOS
      3. On Linux (RHEL 7+)

A licensing server can be used to Relay Flair licenses through a local network, floating the licenses between artists when needed. These licenses work well when artists need to share licenses or in air-gapped or otherwise offline environments.

Floating licenses are available when purchasing multiple Flair STUDIO or INDIE for Education licenses. Get in touch with our sales team for more information on purchasing floating licenses.

License distribution

The Flair Relay licensing server distributes the available licenses to whichever node claims it, be it an artist workstation or a computer in the farm in headless mode.

All Maya/Flair instances (sessions) opened on the same node share a claimed license. So if an artist has 5 Maya sessions open using Flair on their workstation, they are only using one Flair license.

Licenses are claimed the moment the Flair plugin loads, so make sure to turn off Auto load within the Plug-in Manager (Windows -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in Manager -> flairEngine) so that licenses are not automatically claimed even though they are not in use. The Flair plugin auto-loads whenever it is required by a node in the scene or a tool within the Flair Shelf.

Claimed licenses are released in two ways:

  • Once the last instance of Flair in a node is closed by either unloading the plugin or closing Maya where the Flair plugin was loaded.
  • The relay server doesn’t receive a heartbeat from the node within 60 seconds.

Once released, the license is free to be claimed by a new node again.

Setup

Once you receive the Flair Relay files from us, follow the steps below to setup the licensing server.

  1. Make sure the server has a human-readable hostname or a static IP address within your network
  2. Extract the Flair Relay files into a folder on the server machine.
  3. Open that folder within the Terminal or PowerShell.
  4. Run ./relay serve to start the floating license sever.
  5. (Optional) Relay will be served on port 6349 by default. To define a custom port, serve by specifying the port: ./relay serve --port ####.
  6. Open another Terminal/PowerShell in the same folder and run ./relay ls --plain to check the status of the server.
The available licenses are listed by running: ./relay ls

Adding firewall rules

Relay will need to be permitted through the firewall of the server machine for computers on the network to connect to it. Contact your network administrator so that they can configure the firewall for your environment.

Below are some basic instructions for Windows, macOS and Linux, but these may be quite different depending on how your environment is setup.

On Windows

Add a program exception

  1. Go to Settings → Privacy and Security → Windows Security → Firewall and Network Protection
  2. Click on Advanced Settings
  3. Navigate to Inbound Rules and click on New Rule...
  4. Select Program and click on Next >
  5. Choose This program path: , Browse... to the folder where relay is located and double-click on relay.exe. Click on Next > to continue.
  6. Choose Allow the connection and click on Next >
  7. Select all the checkboxes that apply to the rule. Domain, Private, and Public and click on Next >
  8. Specify a name for the rule e.g., Flair Server and click on Finish to complete the process

On macOS

Usually, a prompt will appear asking if you want the application “relay” to accept incoming network connections. When prompted, press on Allow.

If this does not occur, you can manually add an exception as follows:

  1. Open the Apple menu -> System Settings...
  2. Go to Network -> Firewall and click on Options...
  3. At the bottom of the list on the left, click on the + button
  4. Select the relay application from the folder where you have placed the Flair relay files

On Linux

  1. Check what firewall zone your Linux server is operating in

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     firewall-cmd --get-active-zones

  2. (Optional) Change the zone your Linux server is operating in for your interface (which you know from the previous command).

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     sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=work --change-interface=eth0

  3. Run this command to allow incoming traffic on the relay port for your configured zone (work in this case)

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     sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=work --add-port=6349/tcp
 sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Troubleshooting

Test communication with Relay

Once the relay server is running, you can check if it is reachable with curl

On Windows (PowerShell) 

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& curl.exe -v -X GET "http://SERVERNAME:PORT/v1/health"  ## HTTP/1.1 200 OK

On macOS and Linux 

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curl -v -X GET "http://SERVERNAME:PORT/v1/health"  ## HTTP/1.1 200 OK

If host cannot be reached, check your firewall configuration and enable the necessary ports.

Setting a hostname

On Windows

  1. Open Settings (Win + I)
  2. Go to System > About
  3. Click Rename this PC
  4. Enter a new name and restart your computer

On macOS

  1. Open the Apple menu -> System Settings...
  2. Go to General -> Sharing
  3. Under Local hostname click on Edit...
  4. Enter a new name and restart your computer

On Linux (RHEL 7+)

Run the following command where NEW-HOSTNAME is the new hostname of the server

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sudo hostnamectl set-hostname NEW-HOSTNAME