The vendor daemon is a program (rational.exe or ibmratl.exe) developed by IBM Rational® implementing FLEXlm. The vendor daemon keeps track of how many licenses are checked out and who has them. The path to the vendor daemon is specified using the VENDOR line in the license key file. The path to the options file is also specified on the VENDOR line after the vendor daemon path. The VENDOR line uses the following syntax:
For example, a typical VENDOR line for Windows® systems is displayed as:
VENDOR rational C:\Rational\common\rational.exe
or
VENDOR ibmratl C:\Rational\common\ibmratl.exe
A typical VENDOR line for UNIX® systems is displayed as:
VENDOR rational /opt/rational/common/rational
Item in VENDOR Line | Description |
---|---|
VENDOR | The license daemon name and path are specified in this line. |
rational, ibmratl | The name of the license server daemon. Both floating and authorized user licenses have this value defined in the VENDOR string. |
install_path\Rational\common\rational.exe or ibmratl.exe | The path to the IBM Rational License Server executable. |
License keys are granted by active processes. Only one process, or vendor daemon, manages keys for all licensed IBM Rational products on the network.
If the vendor daemon terminates for any reason, all users lose their licenses (They do not see a warning that the vendor daemon has terminated). However, this does not mean the applications suddenly stop. Users can continue working, save their work, and exit safely, because the lmgrd (license manager) automatically restarts the vendor daemon.
The application program communicates with the vendor daemon, usually through TCP/IP network communications. You can use the application program and the daemon processes (the license server) on separate nodes on your network, across any size wide-area network.
The format of the traffic between the client and the vendor daemon is system-independent, allowing for heterogeneous networks. This means the license server and the client can use different hardware platforms or even different operating systems.