Ansys LSTC License Manager for LS-Dyna

Posted on Oct 18, 2022

tl;dr: Setup Ansys LSTC License Manager for LS-Dyna

LSTC License Manager

Instructions on how to download and setup the LS-Dyna License server from Ansys. Make sure you have the login credentials to the FTP site, i.e. you can access: https://ftp.lstc.com/user/license/License-Manager/LSTC_LicenseManager-InstallationGuide.pdf. If you don’t, contact Ansys.

Note: In this guide I’m showing an example of how to setup a dedicated license server, however these steps can also be done on the HeadNode of a cluster. I reccomend keeping a dedicated license server so you can upgrade the cluster overtime, however for one-off cases it might be make sense to setup the license locally, if so skip to step 2.

Launch a t3.medium instance in the same VPC as the cluster
1. Create it with it’s own security group, call it license server
2. We’re going to open up that SG to up to Master and Compute SG’s of the cluster like so:

Next we’re going to download and run the LSTC license server:

$ mkdir lstc_server && cd lstc_server 
$ wget https://ftp.lstc.com/user/license/Job-License-Manager/LSTC_LicenseManager_111345_xeon64_redhat50.
tgz --user [username] --password [password]
$ tar -xzf LSTC_LicenseManager_111345_xeon64_redhat50.tgz

Now we’re going to generate the server info to send to LSTC/Ansys. Edit the top 4 lines, as well as the IP ranges:

[ec2-user@ip-10-0-0-30 lstc]$ ./lstc_server info
Getting server information ...

The hostid and other server information has been written to LSTC_SERVER_INFO.
Please contact LSTC with this information to obtain a valid network license
[ec2-user@ip-10-0-0-30 lstc]$ vim LSTC_SERVER_INFO
AWS PoC
    EMAIL: seaam@amazon.com
    FAX: NONE
TELEPHONE: NONE
...
ALLOW_RANGE:  10.000.000.000 10.000.255.255

Email LSTC the LSTC_SERVER_INFO file, they’ll get back to you with a server_data file. Put this in the same directory then start the server:
```
scp server_data ec2-user@10.0.0.30:~
./lstc_server -l logfile.log
```

Once the server is started, you can check to make sure it’s running:

$ less logfile.log
LSTC License server version XXXXXX started...
Using configuration file 'server_data'

You can check the license count by running:

[ec2-user@ip-10-0-0-30 lstc]$ ./lstc_qrun -s localhost -r
Using user specified server 0@localhost

LICENSE INFORMATION

PROGRAM          EXPIRATION CPUS  USED   FREE    MAX | QUEUE
---------------- ----------      ----- ------ ------ | -----
MPPDYNA          04/05/2021        384    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_971      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_970      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_960      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA          04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_971      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_970      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_960      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
                LICENSE GROUP   384    216    600 |     0

Test Connectivity

From the compute cluster, first test connectivity by pinging the license server (assuming 10.0.0.30 is the IP of the license server):
```
$ ping 10.0.0.30
```

Next you can install and run lstc_qrun from the cluster, specifying the port (default is 31010) and ip like 31010@10.0.0.30:

$ mkdir lstc_server && cd lstc_server 
$ wget https://ftp.lstc.com/user/license/Job-License-Manager/LSTC_LicenseManager_111345_xeon64_redhat50.
tgz --user [username] --password [password]
$ tar -xzf LSTC_LicenseManager_111345_xeon64_redhat50.tgz
$ ./lstc_qrun -s 31010@10.0.0.30 -r
Using user specified server 31010@10.0.0.30

LICENSE INFORMATION

PROGRAM          EXPIRATION CPUS  USED   FREE    MAX | QUEUE
---------------- ----------      ----- ------ ------ | -----
MPPDYNA          04/05/2021        384    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_971      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_970      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
MPPDYNA_960      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA          04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_971      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_970      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
LS-DYNA_960      04/05/2021          0    216    600 |     0
                LICENSE GROUP   384    216    600 |     0

Next see my LS-Dyna Tutorial for instructions on how to use your new license.