General License Questions

1. Content

2. Contract licenses

3. Operating System

4. License Product

Terminology

Subtopics

What is an entitlement certificate?

Example for an entitlement certificate:entitlement_certificate.jpg

In the example above

What is the expiration date of a license?

What is a license?

A license allows the use of a specific hardware or software capability. 

What is a license feature?

What is a license product?

Is a license server on a virtual machine (VM) supported

The license server setup on a VM is supported. Support details:

Cloning of licenses is strictly forbidden according to the Advantest terms of conditions.

Contract licenses

Subtopics 

What is SSBXSUS_VALUEPKG1 used for?

License product SSBXSUS_VALUEPKG1 provides the license feature S&S_Value_Package_SOC with version 1.0. It is not node-locked and only used for the cal converter for SmarTest 6.5.

What is the Tools package used for?

The license products for the Tools package are SSBXS-TOOLPKG or SSBXS-TOOLPKG-PERSYS.

The Tools package license enables the following applications:

How many Tools packages are on a contract?

License product SSBXS-TOOLPKG provides the license feature S&S_Tools_Package. It is a floating licenses. Normally there is also a S&S_Tools_Package available for each tester under the contract. For the testers still on warranty, which do not have an S&S_Tools_Package, the product SSBXS-TOOLPKG is provided with a quantity of 200 to cover the testers on warranty for a contract customer. 

How many SSBXSUS-VALUEPKG1 are on a contract?

There is only one SSBXSUS_VALUEPKG1 on the contract. The appropriate feature S&S_Value_Package_SOC has the quantity 200. So if you activate this the license product SSBXSUS_VALUEPKG1, you will get 200 features S&S_Value_Package_SOC on the selected licesne server. It is not possible to split up the 200 features on different license servers. 

What are the differences of SSBXS-TOOLPKG, SSBXS-TOOLPKG-PERSYS, SSBXSUS-VALUEPKG1 and SSBXS-VALUEPKG-NL?

SSBXSUS-VALUEPKG1 is for the calibration converter on SMT 6.5. It is not node-locked as the system serial number node-locking was introduced with SMT 7.
 

SSBXS-VALUEPKG-NL is for calibration converter for SMT 7 and higher and is node locked to the system serial number.

SSBXS-TOOLPKG-PERSYS is a license for each system in case you install the license on a local license server on each tester workstation and do not use a central server.

How many Tools packages are needed to run different applications?

Here different scenarios are described.

Online scenarios

Scenario 1 - online scenario with SmarTest 7
  1. Start SmarTest 7 online: this will check out 1st Tools package license automatically
  2. Start TCCT: this will check out 2nd Tools package license
  3. The 2nd Tools package license will be returned within a minute by TCCT (after the minute, only one Tools package is checked out)
  4. Start TP360: the 2nd Tools package license will be checked out again.
  5. SMT online is shut down or TP360 is turned off, then the tools package licenses will be returned.

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 2.

Scenario 2 - online scenario with SmarTest 7
  1. Start SmarTest 7 online: this will check out 1st Tools package license automatically
  2. Start TCCT: if a Tools package license is not available, TCCT will look for the license feature Testcell_GUI and check it out.    
  3. The license feature Testcell_GUI will stay checked in as long as TCCT runs.
  4. Start TP360: if a Tools package license is not available, TP360 will look for the license feature TP360_Basic and check it out.
  5. TCCT is turned off, the TCCT license feature Testcell_GUI will be returned.

  6. TP360 is turned off, the TP360 license feature TP360_Basic will be returned.

  7. SMT online is turned off, the Tools package license will be returned.

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 1.

Besides this also a TCCT and TP360 license is needed.

Scenario 3 - online scenario with SmarTest 7
  1. Start TCCT: this will check out the 1st Tools package license.
  2. The 1st Tools package license will be returned within a minute by TCCT (after the minute, only one Tools package is checked out)
  3. Start SmarTest 7 online:  the 1st Tools package license will be checked out again.
  4. Start TP360: the 2nd Tools package license will be checked out.
  5. SMT online is shut down or TP360 is turned off, then the tools package licenses will be returned.

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 2.

Scenario 4 - online scenario with SmarTest 7
  1. Start SmarTest 7 online: this will check out 1st Tools package license automatically

  2. Start TP360: the 2nd Tools package license will be checked out.

  3. Start TCCT: this will check out the 3rd Tools package license.

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 3.

Note: TP360 normally is not used in online mode, especially not with TCCT.

Scenario 5  - online scenario with SmarTest 8
  1. Start SmarTest 8 online: the Tools package license will NOT be checked out.
  2. Start TCCT: this will check out the 1st Tools package license.
  3. The 1st Tools package license will be returned within a minute by TCCT.

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 1.

Offline scenarios

Note: Normally TP360 is not used so frequently with SmarTest offline. 

Scenario 6  - offline scenario with SmarTest 7
  1. Start SmarTest 7 offline:  SmarTest 7 offline license is checked out and 1st Tools package license is checked out automatically
  2. TCCT will not be started with SmarTest offline.
  3. Start ORE:  this will be enabled by the 1st tools package
  4. Start TP360: the 2nd Tools package license will be checked out.

  5. (Start TACO: Not sure whether it is running together with SMT7)

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 2.

Scenario 7  - offline scenario with SmarTest 8
  1. Start SmarTest 8 offline: SmarTest 8 offline requires a SmarTest offline license or the Tools package license
  2. TCCT will not be started with SmarTest offline.
  3. Start ORE: no license needed in SmarTest 8 before SmarTest 8.7.3.
    With SMT 8.7.3: ORE will be enabled if SMT8 offline is using the Tools Package license
  4. Start TP360: the 2nd Tools package license will be checked out.
  5. Start TACO: no license needed for SMT8

Number of Tools package licenses needed: 2.

Operating System

Subtopics

How to check if the system is synchronized?

On RHEL7 the time synchronization is done via ntp and on RHEL9 via chrony. For license checkout either the license server(s) and the clients need to be synchronized timely.

Please check with 

timedatectl

if the system is synchronized.

13.webp
timedatectl output

In the screenshot above the system is not configured for time synchronization and ntp is disabled.

How to configure RHEL7 with ntp?

Note: In general customer IT is responsible to set up the time synchronization. The information below is just for your convenience, but is not part of GLPT support.

Prerequisite: 

You need a reliable time server. 

Steps to be checked:

  1. Check if ntp is installed with
    rpm -q ntp

    If it is not installed, you can try to get it with
    sudo yum install ntp

  2. open /etc/ntp.conf with an editor (you need editing permissions or sudo rights)
    Here you can add the NTP server with adding the line
    server hostname iburst
    Example:
    server time.google.com iburst

  3. Check if ntp service is enabled / started with
    systemctl status ntpd

    If it is not started / enabled

    1. Enable ntp service for being started with a reboot:
      sudo systemctl enable ntpd

    2. Start ntp service with
      sudo systemctl start ntpd

  4. Check the time synchronization: 
    sudo ntpq -p
    The ntpq command queries the ntp servers defined and you get with option -p a table back with statistics.

  5. Check with timedatectl, if ntp is enabled and synchronized.
    If ntp is still not enabled, use:

    sudo timedatectl set-ntp true
    sudo systemctl start ntpd
    Wait a minute and check with timedatectl again.

Addition from user experience

From user experience: even with configuring, enabling and starting the ntp daemon the synchronization status was still no (because the time servers configured had an offset). Using

sudo systemctl stop ntpd

sudo ntpd -gq

sudo systemctl start ntpd

helped here. The options are for (see also https://www.tekopolis.com/sync-ntp-immediately-linux/)

  1. option -q: overrides the built in sanity check of 1000s. If the system time is over 1000s off from the configured server time, the ntpd process would quit otherwise.

  2. option -q: for quitting the daemon after the clock has been set

How to configure RHEL9 with chrony?

Note: In general customer IT is responsible to set up the time synchronization. The information below is just for your convenience, but is not part of GLPT support.

Prerequisite: 

You need a reliable time server. 

Steps to be checked:

  1. Check if chrony is installed with
    rpm -q chrony

    If it is not installed, you can try to install it with
    sudo yum install chrony

  2. open /etc/chrony.conf with an editor (you need editing permissions or sudo rights)
    Here you can add the time server with adding the line
    server hostname iburst

    Example:
    server time.google.com iburst

  3. Check if chrony service is enabled / started with
    systemctl status chronyd

    If it is not started / enabled

    1. Enable chrony service for being started with a reboot:
      sudo systemctl enable chronyd

    2. Start chronyd service with
      sudo systemctl start chronyd

  4. Check with timedatectl, if chrony is enabled and synchronized.

License Product

Subtopics

What is SSBXC-SMT-REL-FNX-NL

SSBXC-SMT-REL-FNX-NL belongs to SSBXC-SMT-REL-NL (SmarTest one-time upgrade license). SSBXC-SMT-REL-FNX-NL is not visible on the activation or rehosting page of the license portal, but it is visible on the entitlement overview page and if activated to an FNE server, the appropriate SmarTest_SOC license with vendor string  %%SERIALNUMBER:<SN> , PROXY:FNP%% is visible in the FNE server viewer. 

If you activate SSBXC-SMT-REL-NL

For the SmarTest license product like SSBXS-SMARTEST-NL such a hidden associated license for the proxy is not needed.

What is the difference between SSBXC-SMT-REL-NL and SSBXS-SMT-REL-NL

The license products SSBXC-SMT-REL-NL and SSBXS-SMT-REL-NL are SmarTest one-time update products, which allow the use of exactly one specific 3-digit SmarTest release, e.g. 8.5.4.

The difference between the two license products: