SolidWorks License Management

SolidWorks is a parametric 3D design and drafting software developed and marketed by Dassault Systèmes. Designed for mechanical engineering, it is particularly well-suited for the design of mechanical devices, even complex ones.
SolidWorks allows users to create 2D and 3D drawings of solids and surfaces, thanks to a parametric geometric system that is fully customizable. SolidWorks is particularly easy to use, making it accessible even to users who are less experienced or more familiar with other CAD systems. Additionally, SolidWorks allows you to import 2D and 3D drawings and vice versa (such as AutoCAD projects).

Dassault Systèmes has announced that more than two million engineers and designers at over 165,000 companies have been using SolidWorks since 2013. Furthermore, according to the company, revenue for SolidWorks in the 2011–12 fiscal year totaled $483 million.
Most of these companies use SolidWorks via servers on which a license manager is installed and which issues the necessary licenses to designers (so-called “floating” licenses).

How can you manage SolidWorks floating licenses?

SolidWorks uses the FlexLM license manager to manage its floating licenses. For this reason, the only way to determine how the software is being used is to run remote commands (either from Linux or Windows) to query the system.

To query a FlexLM license manager where the SolidWorks daemon is running, the first essential step is to download the lmutil application from the manufacturer’s website. It is essential that the version of lmutil you download be the same as or later than the one in use on the license server; otherwise, you may receive inaccurate or incorrect output, or, in some cases, no response at all from the queried server.

The second step is to identify the connection port (which we should already know, since it is the same port on which the clients were configured to obtain the license) listed in the server’s license file, as well as the server name.

Many guides omit the fact that the server name must be entered in full, without adding any domain suffixes. This is because the license manager might not be able to find a match between the name (including the suffix) and the name that responds to the query. If the name cannot be resolved without the suffix, we recommend adding the suffix to your WINS settings (or RESOLV if you’re performing the query from a Linux machine), or adding the machine name to the client’s hosts file.

Once we have obtained these two key pieces of information, we will be able to query the FlexLM on which SolidWorks is running for the required information using lmutil.

What commands can we issue, and what information can we obtain?

How do I check the available SolidWorks licenses?
To check the available SolidWorks licenses on FlexLM, we can enter the following command:

lmutil.exe lmstat -i -c porta@nomeserver 

Warning! There are issues with this command in SolidWorks (unlike all other software managed by FlexLM). We recommend adding the -a parameter to the command options to obtain all relevant license information; otherwise, the output will be incomplete.

If you are querying a license triad, you must enter the command that includes all three servers, specifying port@servername1;port@servername2;port@servername3.
For Linux, the same command is used as for Windows, with the only differences being that the command is run without the .exe extension and the separators for the triad are commas rather than semicolons.

At this point, the output will provide the information we need, and at the end of the output, we will find the license information, with the feature name in the first column, the version in the second, the expiration date in the third, and the vendor daemon in the fourth.

Here is an example of FlexLM output:

Feature                         Version     #licenses    Expires      Vendor
_______                         _________   _________    __________   ______
solidworks                      27.0         17          15-may-2021  SW_D
swofficepro                     27.0         4           15-may-2021  SW_D
swpdmstd_cadeditor              27.0         12          15-may-2021  SW_D
camstd                          27.0         12          15-may-2021  SW_D
visustd                         27.0         12          15-may-2021  SW_D
swofficepremium                 27.0         8           15-may-2021  SW_D
cae_cwpro                       27.0         1           15-may-2021  SW_D
swcomposer                      27.0         2           15-may-2021  SW_D
swepdm_processor                27.0         25          15-may-2021  SW_D

In this example, we see that there are 17 SolidWorks features available, which expire on May 15, 2021.

How do I check SolidWorks license usage?

To check the usage of SolidWorks licenses on FlexLM, we can enter the following command:

lmutil.exe lmstat -S -c porta@nomeserver 

As noted above, the same differences apply to the triads and the Windows version.

Here is an example of FlexLM output:

lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2013 Flexera Software LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Flexible License Manager status on Wed 12/11/2019 17:41
License server status: 25734@SERVER1,25734@SERVER2,25734@SERVER3
License file(s) on SERVER1: D:\flexall\SOLIDWORKS_KONGSKILDE\licenses\sw_d.lic:
SERVER1: license server UP (MASTER) v11.14.1
SERVER2: license server UP v11.14.1
SERVER3: license server UP v11.14.1
Vendor daemon status (on SERVER1):
SW_D: UP v11.14.1
Feature usage info:
Users of solidworks: (Total of 17 licenses issued; Total of 1 license in use)
"solidworks" v27.0, vendor: SW_D
floating license
US0001 ABC0001 ABC0001 (v26.0) (SERVER1/25734 635), start Wed 12/11 17:38
Users of swofficepro: (Total of 4 licenses issued; Total of 1 license in use)
"swofficepro" v27.0, vendor: SW_D
floating license
US0001 ABC0001 ABC0001 (v26.0) (SERVER1/25734 2677), start Wed 12/11 17:38
Users of swpdmstd_cadeditor: (Total of 12 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of camstd: (Total of 12 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of visustd: (Total of 12 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of swofficepremium: (Total of 8 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of cae_cwpro: (Total of 1 license issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of swcomposer: (Total of 2 licenses issued; Total of 0 licenses in use)
Users of swepdm_processor: (Total of 25 licenses issued; Total of 1 license in use)
"swepdm_processor" v27.0, vendor: SW_D
floating license
US0001 ABC0001 ABC0001 (v26.0) (SERVER1/25734 1278), start Wed 12/11 12:41

In the first highlighted row, we can immediately see that 1 of the 17 SolidWorks licenses is in use. In the second highlighted row, we see the user’s information (the account used to log in to the computer) and the name of the client that is connected.

The process is fairly simple and straightforward, but there isn’t an equally simple system for regularly monitoring this information.
For this reason, Observer is the best solution for monitoring SolidWorks licenses.

Observer sends commands at regular intervals, downloads the command output, formats it, and uploads it to its database. This allows the data to be presented in easy-to-read graphs and reports for in-depth analysis of average usage, usage peaks, and much more. Furthermore, with Observer, you can query the SolidWorks license manager in real time without having to open a command shell or send complex commands.
With just one click, you can view the license usage, which is already formatted and easy to understand without any interpretation. Finally, Observer constantly monitors license expiration dates, sending advance email notifications before they expire to give the IT department time to arrange for the software vendor to send us new license files.

Contact us to learn more about Observer or to try a free demo on your internal servers.