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Floating License Server

Floating license server for products that offer Floating and/or Render Only licenses. This server is free when purchased in combination with 5 or more floating licenses*. Discount automatically applied in the shopping cart when purchased at the same time as the floating licenses. There is a limit of one free server per customer.

Do not buy floating licenses if you are not comfortable with the command-line. 

Learn about license types
  • Trial
  • EULA
Description

This is a command-line application intended for groups, not for single users.

You will need to use the terminal to install and use this server. Do not buy a floating license if you are not comfortable with the command-line.

This is a floating license server for products that offer Floating and/or Render Only licenses. This server is required to be able to use Floating Licenses.

Once installed on your local network, any compatible product can be assigned a floating license from the server.

Please note that only Floating (FLT) and Render Only (REN) licenses are able to be used with the server

This server is only required for Floating (FLT) licenses, Single User Licenses (SUL) do not require this server.

This server is a command-line application that requires setup using the Terminal and is intended for customers who need to manage a large number of licenses.

This server is free when purchased in combination with 5 or more floating licenses (other license types do not qualify)*. Discount automatically applied in the shopping cart when purchased at the same time as the floating licenses. *There is a limit of one free server per customer and only when purchased at the same time as the floating licenses. Previously purchased licenses or licenses purchased via resellers or purchase orders do not qualify for discount.

Features

  • Light-weight command-line application.
  • Runs on Linux, Windows and macOS with a simple config file.
  • Can be run on any machine including Virtual Machines (VM) and works without issues alongside other servers such as RLM.
  • Simple address:port plist configuration for clients. A command-line tool is included to facilitate the creation of this file.
  • Clients can also optionally be configured with an environment variable.
  • Licenses can be requested and released from the client machine as well as directly on the server.
  • Optional failover backup server configuration. (Backup server included in license)
  • Configurable logging level.
  • Optional hero list. These are machines that will automatically get a license when they request it. If the maximum number of licenses are already in use the oldest lease not on the hero list will be released without warning. You can use this feature if you have a machine that must always be licensed such as a rendering node for example.
  • Optional blacklist. Machines on this list will never be issued a license.
  • Optional whitelist. Only machines on this list will be issued a license.
  • License code aggregation (add multiple license codes and they will be combined).

System Requirements

  • Windows: Windows 7 x64 (probably also runs on 64bit Vista or even XP but these are not officially supported) or newer
  • Mac: macOS 10.7 (Lion) or newer
  • Linux: Intel x64 based architecture running Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS compatible distribution

Notices

  • Products released after November 2021 require version 4.x or higher of the Floating License Server.
  • There are some products that offer Render Only licenses that are not yet supported by this server. Please check the Floating License FAQ or open a support request if you have any questions

Discussions

Want to talk about it?

Head over to r/aescripts to chat with fellow users about this product.

Need Support?

Please open a support ticket to be connected directly with the author of this product

Version History

4.1.46 -

Nov 5, 2025

- fix for error code -33, Cannot connect to online activation server issue
- updated to liclib framework 4.1.4

4.1.43 -

Jun 23, 2025

- improved error message when another instance of the server is running on the network

- updated to liclib framework 4.1.4

4.1.40 -

Aug 29, 2024

- new option logFileAppend=1 in the server.ini file to prevent logfile from being rewritten on each start, alternatively an option "-nolog" can be given on startup as a command line parameter to disable writing to a logfile for that instance

- added verbose messages for license errors to log file

- lease expire time set to fixed 60 minutes (cannot be configured anymore)

- floating licenses configured in server get online validated whenever the server license gets validated successfully

- changed error text for invalid license types

4.0.35 -

Feb 28, 2023

- improved socket multithreading

- improved wording of plist saving message

- grace period for server online activation extended

- fixed stripping of symbols on macOS

- improved validation of licenses on server start

- lowest supported macOS version is now 10.13

4.0.33 -

Jan 5, 2023

- improved debugging output (logLevel=3)

- bugfix for VPN adapters reporting invalid data

- improved Linux platform support

- better reporting of OS version of Linux systems

- bugfix for invalidating invalid licenses (segmentation fault on Linux)

- improved log output for ping command

- increased connection timeout from aescriptsLicTool to 2.5 seconds

4.0.33a -

Jan 4, 2023

- downgrading back to 4.0.33 as there is an issue with 4.0.34 not recognizing certain licenses.

4.0.34 -

Jan 4, 2023

- grace period for server online activation extended

- fixed stripping of symbols on macOS

- validate licenses on server start

- lowest supported macOS version is now 10.13

4.0.29 -

Mar 9, 2022

- improved log level 2 output

- improved thread safety

- improved handling of invalid requests

4.0.28 -

Nov 23, 2021

- macOS builds are universal binaries now that support M1/Apple Silicon

- floating licenses get auto-released on exit

- support for new V4 license formats

4.0.27 -

Nov 23, 2021

-- Do not use this version --

3.9.22 -

May 31, 2020

- minor bugfix for trial check, it should now always report the correct amount of days

3.9.21 -

May 26, 2020

- Fixed critical bug which failed to detect valid licenses on some systems (returned error -2)

3.9.20 -

May 9, 2020

- improved detection of network adapters on all systems

- machineid now requires a match of at least 2 MAC addresses (instead of 1)

3.8.16 -

Jan 13, 2020

- bugfix for dropping licenses with 64bit addresses

3.8.14a -

Dec 19, 2019

- Fixed issue with aescriptsLicenseServerTool

3.8.14 -

Dec 6, 2019

aescriptsLicenseServer:

- also accepts uppercase key input

- server can be run as a background/daemon process with the "-d" command line switch

- if other application is using the server port, name of the application will be shown (Windows only)

- improved check for server/port availability, new message if other application is using the port



aescriptsLicenseServerTool:

- also accepts uppercase key input

- better error reporting when ports are in use

- new error message when no server configuration (plist/env) is found

- improved check for server/port availability

- new message if other application is using the port

3.8.13 -

Nov 15, 2019

- Better error reporting when chosen port is in use

3.8.12 -

Oct 8, 2019

- support for remote network users who don't have a local home directory

- more robust against special characters in user and computer names

- support for additional library plist configuration file for license server config

- bugfixes for license server communication

- improved handling of floating licenses

3.7.11 -

Sep 2, 2019

- Applications are hardened and notarized to be compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina

- Computer names with a space character in it (only possible on macOS) are now correctly supported in all tools.

- If the licensing server has licenses for both full and render-only variants and a plugin requests a license in headerless mode, it will now default to a render-only request on the server.

- Besides the configuration in a plist file, a plugin/client will now also look if the environment variable "aescriptsLicensingServer" is set. If it is and has the format "server:port" (or the extended form "server:port;backupserver:backupport") then this will be used. So the plist file is not required anymore if this variable exists. If both the plist and the variable are present, plist takes preference.

The aescriptsLicenseServerTool now also checks for the presence of this variable.

- If a plugin does not find a local license file, but a plist or the server environment variable is set, and the plugin is running in a headless host, it will automatically ask the server for a render-only license. This makes it unnecessary to register render-only licenses with the command line tool.

- There was an issue with the licensing server running on Windows with socket handling, especially when several clients were requesting the same license. This resulted in the server still running but no longer responding to client requests at some point. This has been fixed.

- The licensing server now has a minimum lease expiry time of 15 minutes (any values lower than that in the ini file will be set to 15 minutes). An exception is a value of -1 which now disables the expiry time completely.

3.6.8 -

Jun 23, 2019

- added whitelist functionality

- improved setup and usage documentation

- terminate socket messages correctly

- allow binding to specific local IP using new "localIP" setting in config file

- better error handling for socket functions

(OS specific error code checking and printing of socket error messages)

- improved error message when full license is requested but server only

has render-only licenses

3.5.6 -

Sep 18, 2018

- bugfix in CentOS/Linux version for "chflags" error

- allow "@" character in server license

- messages to secondary server get ignored when primary is still active

- handling full licenses to render-only requests if applicable now works better (even when no FLT licenses available initially)

- now only one entry in the herolist is allowed, and that needs to be a full IP address (no wildcards)

3.5.5 -

Aug 29, 2018

- update to support 3.5 license framework

- bugfix for incorrect behavior when missing blacklist/herolist entries in server.ini file

3.4.3 -

Jul 6, 2018

- Updated to work with Floating and Render licenses only.

- Bug fixes

1.0.2 -

Jan 4, 2018

- Added trial mode

- Updated licensing, config and instructions file

1.0.1 -

Dec 14, 2017

Initial Release

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