Virtual Machine Support

The normal LDK soft‐locks that Global Graphics provides will not permit the LDK Server to serve a license on a virtual machine (VM). A specific VM‐lock can be provided instead, which does authorize the LDK Server to serve a license from a VM, although there are some limitations to that usage.

The previous paragraph discusses whether the LDK Server is allowed to serve licenses from a VM. In most Harlequin MultiRIP installations the LDK Server and the RIP itself are installed on the same operating system on the same physical server, so the same limitations will apply to the RIP as to the LDK Server.

Please note that:

  1. Global Graphics still does not formally support Harlequin RIPs running under VMs. This means that RIP releases are not tested under VMs, and any issues must be replicated in a non‐VM environment before reporting to Global Graphics. You may, if you so choose, perform configurations.
  2. A VM‐lock has re‐hosting disabled; this means that it cannot be transferred in a planned move from one computer to another. It is recommended that VM‐locks are only used for licenses that will be used under a VM to avoid unnecessarily restricting the ability to re‐host.
  3. VM‐locks will only work in a VM clustering solution if it is configured to restrict the image to be run on one specific physical server. Note: Initial testing with an unconstrained cluster installation may appear to indicate that the licensing is working if the image is installed, activated and then tested in one go, because the cluster manager may maintain it on a single server. If the manager later moves the image to a different server, the RIP will report that it does not have a license.
  4. The image must always be allocated the same MAC address.

Note: An installation with dynamically allocated MAC addresses can initially appear to work, but will fail later when a different MAC address is allocated.

Each software license ordered from Global Graphics must be selected as a soft‐lock or VM‐lock. It is not possible to migrate a license from one to the other.

Which VM platforms can an LDK VM-lock be used on?

At the time of writing LDK is officially supported by SafeNet on the following VMware technologies:

  • VMware Workstation 7.x.
  • VMware ESXi 4.1.0.
  • VMware ESXi 5.0.

VM‐locks can currently only be used under VM clustering technology such as VMware’s vMotion if the image is locked to a single CPU within the cluster.

What happens if I try to use a soft-lock under a VM or a VM-lock on a bare-metal OS?

If an attempt is made to activate a soft‐lock in a VM it will not be activated and the following message is displayed:

Activation failed (400); Could not generate the license because Product id 20410 will be completely unusable on virtual machine. VM enabled features are required for provided VM fingerprint/current-state.

An attempt to activate a VM‐lock in a bare‐metal OS (i.e. not in a VM), will succeed, but the resulting license cannot be re‐hosted. For this reason this combination is not recommended.

What happens if I roll-back a VM?

If a VM is rolled back to a snapshot taken before a Product Key or Protection Key Update was activated, the activation will be disabled on the VM, but the Global Graphics servers will still have a record that it was performed, so the same Product Key cannot be simply re‐used (unless you have spare activations on the license). There are two methods to recover from this situation:

  • If you backed up the V2C file after activating the license, that V2C file can be re‐applied.
  • If you did not back up the V2C file you can ask Harlequin Support for a copy of the V2C file by sending them your Product Key or Protection Key ID. That can then be applied to recover the activation.

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