How to Monitor Cadence Licenses with FlexLM

Cadence Design Systems is a suite of electronic design automation (EDA) tools widely used in the industry for the design of integrated circuits, PCBs, and digital and analog systems. The main tools include Virtuoso, Spectre, Allegro, and OrCAD. The use of floating licenses makes continuous monitoring and control essential to ensure the tools are available to users.

How can you manage Cadence floating licenses?

Cadence uses the FlexLM license manager. To monitor the status of licenses, you must run remote commands that query the ` cdslmd ` daemon directly as it runs on the license server.

1. Preparation

Download the tool lmutil from the Flexera website. Make sure the version is the same as or higher than the server’s version; otherwise, the output may be incomplete or empty.

2. Required Information

• Communication port (e.g., 27000)
• Server name (e.g., cadence-licsrv01)

Note: Enter the server name without any domain suffixes. If necessary, edit the ` hosts ` file or your DNS configuration to ensure proper resolution.

How to Check Available Cadence Licenses

Run the following command:

lmutil lmstat -a -c 27000@cadence-licsrv01

Sample output:

License server status: 27000@cadence-licsrv01
    License file(s) on cadence-licsrv01: /cadence/licenses/license.dat:
cadence-licsrv01: license server UP (MASTER) v11.14.1

Vendor daemon status (on cadence-licsrv01):
    cdslmd: UP v11.14.1

Feature usage info:
Users of virtuoso:  (Total of 10 licenses issued;  Total of 3 licenses in use)
  "virtuoso" v12.0, vendor: cdslmd
  floating license

Users of spectre:  (Total of 8 licenses issued;  Total of 2 licenses in use)
  "spectre" v17.1, vendor: cdslmd
  floating license

Users of allegro_pcb:  (Total of 5 licenses issued;  Total of 0 licenses in use)
  "allegro_pcb" v16.6, vendor: cdslmd
  floating license

Users of orcad_capture:  (Total of 6 licenses issued;  Total of 1 license in use)
  "orcad_capture" v17.4, vendor: cdslmd
  floating license

In this example:

• virtuoso It has 10 licenses; 3 are in use
• spectre has 8 licenses, 2 in use
• orcad_capture It has 6 licenses, 1 in use

How to Monitor Users Who Use Cadence Licenses

Run this command:

lmutil lmstat -S -c 27000@cadence-licsrv01

Sample output:

Users of virtuoso:  (Total of 10 licenses issued;  Total of 3 licenses in use)
  "virtuoso" v12.0, vendor: cdslmd
  floating license
    user01 workstation01 (v12.0) (cadence-licsrv01/27000 1523), start Tue 04/09 09:12
    user02 workstation02 (v12.0) (cadence-licsrv01/27000 1524), start Tue 04/09 09:15
    user03 workstation03 (v12.0) (cadence-licsrv01/27000 1525), start Tue 04/09 09:17

Here you can see:

• Users currently online (user01, user02, user03)
• The respective clients (workstation01, etc.)
• The start time of the session

Automate Everything with Observer

Although these commands are useful, they are not suitable for continuous, centralized monitoring. That’s why Observer exists.

Observer:

• It queries the FlexLM server (and thus Cadence) at configurable intervals
• It collects the output and transforms it into interactive charts and reports
• Shows real-time usage without having to use lmutil
• Track feature deadlines by sending automatic email notifications to IT managers

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