Tip for usage of timeout to release network licenses

AutoCAD, ADT, Inventor and a lot of other products support the time-out feature for network licenses using FLEXnet/FLEXlm network license managers (from Microvision). Using this feature can save your company quite many licenses as you can see from this sample graph. If you don't use the time-out feature the usage might look like the blue curve but with the time-out feature on it can look like the green curve.

Tip for the CAD user

Don't leave a command running or a modal dialog box opened (a dialog box which needs to close before continuing to other tasks) unless you need to work in your application again within 15 minutes.

Make it a habit to check the above when you goes away from your desk, work with other software's, talking on the phone, eating or taking a break for a longer time than 15 minutes.

Tip for the IT/License/CAD Manager

Set the timeout to the minimum time, 900 seconds.

Use TIMEOUTALL so you don't forget to add new product features to the options file at a later occasion.

Make sure that to inform your users about how license timeout works.

Make sure that you can supervise your network license usage with license reports and statistics.

Using timeout solves problems when licenses not return to the Network License Manager pool for a long period of time after the connections with client workstations are lost.

Idle Period

Any of the following activity in the active application prevents the client workstation from being idle:

Any keystroke.

Any mouse click.

Any command, Lisp expression, menu macro or script in progress.

Any Modal dialog box opened (a dialog box which needs to close before continuing to other tasks).

Setting license inactivity timeout

You can configure the license manager to automatically reclaim inactive licenses after a specified time. Inactivity is defined as an idle product with no commands issued in the specified time. Users will be given the option to save their current drawing if a license is revoked by the license manager for inactivity. Note: Time is specified in seconds and the lowest acceptable value for these options is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

TIMEOUT [productfeature] [seconds]

TIMEOUTALL [seconds]

The following examples set inactivity timeouts of 15 minutes for AutoCAD 2007 and all respective products:

TIMEOUT 51200ACD_2007_0F 900

TIMEOUTALL 900

Creating the options file

1. Create a new text file named ADSKFLEX.OPT. It is strongly recommended that you only use a plain text editor, such as Notepad, for editing options files.
2. Place this file in the same directory as your Autodesk license file.   
3. Perform a ReRead License File operation from the Start/Stop/ReRead tab in LMTOOLS. 
4. Examine the debug log file to confirm that your options file changes have been implemented by the license manager.

To make sure that the Options file is read, you must stop and restart the network license server. Follow these steps:

1. Start LMTOOLS.
2. On the Service/License File tab, make sure that the Configuration Using Services option is selected.
3. Click the Start/Stop/Reread tab.
4. On the Start/Stop/Reread tab, click Stop Server.
5. Click Start Server.
6. To confirm that the TIMEOUT option has been set, open the debug.log file. If the TIMEOUT option has been set you will see a statement similar to the example below:
   
   FEATURE 51200ACD_2007_0F INACTIVITY TIMEOUT set to 900 seconds