What is a license manager?

A license manager controls access to software products. The license manager allows software functionality to be shared (or float) between computers on your network. The software products you purchase can be shared between many machines, providing your users more flexibility.

The license manager runs on a machine, the license server, on your network. You only need one license manager per network to manage all of your ArcGIS products.  The license server can be either a UNIX or Windows server and will manage both UNIX and Windows ArcGIS products.  For example, a Windows installation of ArcGIS 8.1 can obtain a license from either a Windows or UNIX 8.x license manager.

ESRI uses the FLEXlm license manager from Globetrotter Software Inc. The license manager consists of a license daemon (process) called lmgrd, a vendor daemon (ESRI), a license manager utility and other related files. Each of these components are located in <System Drive>:\Program Files\ESRI\License for Windows installations or under $ARCHOME/sysgen or $SDEHOME/sysgen for UNIX installations.