How Activation Pro chooses a Hostid

RLM Activation Pro will choose a hostid for the generated license based on the input from the RLM-licensed application.

If your application does not specify a hostid to the rlm_act_request() or rlm_activate() call, then the RLM client library supplies the standard set of hostids for the machine on which the software is running. Alternatively, you can specify a hostid-list in the rlm_act_request() call, or via the rlm_act_set_handle() call if you use rlm_activate().

Prior to v11.0, RLM would only activate licenses with rehostable, non-zero RLM_HOSTID_32BIT, RLM_HOSTID_ETHER, RLMIDn, RLM_DISKSN, or ISV-defined hostids. Any other hostid will return an RLM_ACT_BAD_HOSTID_TYPE status from rlm_act_request(). You can specify exactly the hostids you will accept with the rlm_isv_cfg_actpro_allowed_hostids() call in rlm_isv_config.c, then either re-build your license generator or create a new generator settings file. See Customizing RLM with rlm_isv_config for more details.

The priority is (assuming the particular hostid type is enabled):

  1. Rehostable Hostid

  2. ISV-defined Hostid

  3. ISV-string Hostid

  4. rlmid1 Hostid

  5. Alternate Server Hostid

  6. Disk Serial Number

  7. Ethernet Address

  8. UUID

  9. 32-bit Hostid

  10. IP Address Hostid

  11. User-based Hostid

  12. Host-based Hostid

  13. Serial Number Hostid

  14. String Hostid

  15. DEMO Hostid

  16. ANY Hostid

If none of the hostid types above are present (or enabled), the activation software will return RLM_ACT_BAD_HOSTID_TYPE.

You can override RLM’s notion of the hostid and specify an exact hostid to be used by the activation server by calling rlm_act_set_handle() with the RLM_ACT_HANDLE_HOSTID_LIST parameter (or passing the hostid-list parameter to rlm_act_request()). The hostid_list parameter can contain a list of hostids for use in nodelocked licenses. This is specified with the following syntax:

list:<list-of-hostids>

For example:

list:user=joe host=sam ip=192.16.7.23 3f902d8b0027

If a list is supplied, note the following:

  • The activation software uses the hostids in the list as you specified, even if they are not enabled or “Secure.”

  • If the license to be activated is a served license (floating), only the first hostid in the list is used.

  • The number of available activations on the activation key is decremented by 1 regardless of the number of hostids in the license created.

  • The hostid list must be less than RLM_ACT_MAX_HOSTID_LIST characters long (205) including the “list:” prefix.

  • The hostid list can contain no more than RLM_MAX_HOSTID_LIST (25) hostids.

This capability can be used to create a license which works on 2 (or more) systems, e.g. to create a license for a primary and a backup system. It can also be used to pass a hostid of a less secure type, or which is not enabled by default, to be used, e.g. the hostid-list “list:ip=172.16.7.12” will cause the activation software to use the IP address as a hostid without returning RLM_ACT_BAD_HOSTID_TYPE.