Shared Installations and Pre-Configured License Setup

If you would like to share one installation among a group of users, for example, using a network installation, some special considerations concerning the license setup are needed. The main issue with this scenario is how to apply a valid license at the time of installation, to prevent every user from doing this when starting DMA.

To avoid this problem and to configure the license setup for all users during the installation of DMA, the following must be considered:
  • Define a license policy file before installing DMA
  • Use the location of the license policy file during installation to avoid the manual license setup

In the following two sections we will look at the license policy file, the related system properties and how to fix a pre-configured license setup for a shared installation scenario. We will also discuss some constraints when using a read-only installation structure.

License Policy File and License Related System Properties

A license policy file is an xml file called licensep2.opt that is used by DMA to find out where to look for licenses. This file is in a single-user installation modified automatically when using the Help > Manage Licenses command in DMA. A simple example of a license policy file is the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<license key=" authorized-user-license-key">
   <flex enabled="false" readonly="false"/>
   <offeringorder readonly="false">
     <offering id="com.ibm.rational.dma.1" version="1.0.0" name="DMA"/>
   </offeringorder>
   <componentorder readonly="false"/>
</license>

Depending on whether you use floating licenses or authorized user licenses, this file will look slightly different. If only floating licensing is used then the “key” attribute for the “license” tag can be omitted. If only authorized user licensing is used, then the “enabled” attribute of the “flex” tag can be set to false.

The location of this file is given by a system property called com.ibm.cic.licensing.p2.home.dir that is defined in the config.ini file in the configuration folder in your DMA Eclipse installation. The folder identified by this property must contain the structure: ibm/p2/license/licensep2.opt.

Another system property that is relevant for license setup is install.lic.p2.home. The key feature of this property is that if this is defined when installing DMA, then the value will be used to define the license policy folder structure location and thus to define com.ibm.cic.licensing.p2.home.dir.

Pre-Configured License Setup

To pre-configure the license before installing DMA follow these steps:

  • Define a license policy file licensep2.opt with suitable contents located in a folder structure ibm/p2/ license.

  • Give the system property install.lic.p2.home the value of the folder containing the ibm/p2/license folder structure. This can be done e.g. by adding a definition in the eclipse.ini file in the target Eclipse installation or by providing the definition as a command line argument.

  • Install DMA as usual.

    NOTE: If you install without defining install.lic.p2.home you have to add manually the property com.ibm.cic.licensing.p2.home.dir to you config.ini file.

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