ECLiPSe Runtime Subset and Licensing Issues
Scope: This note applies to ECLiPSe 5.2, Build #35 and later.
Author: Joachim Schimpf, IC-Parc
Date: 2001-10-28
Caution: inconsistent spelling of license/licence in different contexts!
Packaging Scheme
ECLiPSe is being distributed as a set of gzipped tar files. The supported
architectures are currently:
sun4 |
SunOS 4 (being phased out) |
sparc_sunos5 |
SunOS 5 (tested on 5.5 and 5.7) |
i386_linux |
Intel x86 Linux |
i386_nt |
Windows 95,98,2000,NT4 |
alpha_linux |
64-bit Alpha Linux |
Fore each of the architectures, there is the following set of packages
(except that not all CPLEX/XPRESS interfaces are available on allarchitectures):
eclipse_basic.tgz |
alternative |
ECLiPSe development system (flexlm-related predicates are dummy and
fail always) |
eclipse_rt.tgz |
alternative |
ECLiPSe runtime subset (a subset of eclipse_basic) plus flexlm functionality |
eclipse_misc.tgz |
optional |
Public domain libraries, probably not relevant for PT |
eclipse_doc_online.tgz |
optional |
Documentation in html format |
eclipse_doc_print.tgz |
optional |
Documentation in pdf format (does not include Reference Manual) |
if_cplex65.tgz |
optional |
Interface to CPLEX 6.5 with CPLEX statically linked (requires development
license) |
if_cplex71.tgz |
optional |
Interface to CPLEX 7.1 with CPLEX statically linked (requires runtime
or development license) |
if_xpress12.tgz |
optional |
Interface to XPRESS 12.20 (requires development license) |
if_xpress1250.tgz |
optional |
Interface to XPRESS 12.50 (requires development license) |
if_xpress12parcrisk.tgz |
optional |
Interface to XPRESS 12.20 (requires intialisation with 'parcrisk' runtime
key or development license) |
Installing a development system:
-
Unpack eclipse_basic
-
Only if you need the FlexLM functionality to be operational, unpack eclipse_rt
as well
-
Unpack eclipse_doc_online and eclipse_doc_print
-
Unpack the if_xxx interfaces that you want to use for your development
(if you install more than one, you will have to resolve ambiguities later,
see below)
-
Execute the RUNME script (on Unix) or the ecl_inst.tcl script (on Windows)
as explained in the README file.
Installing a deployment system:
-
Unpack eclipse_rt
-
Unpack one of the if_xxx interfaces, e.g. if_xpress12parcrisk for Riskwise
-
If eclipse is used in embedded form, no further installation should be
needed. Otherwise some registry entries and/or environment variables may
need to be set, see README and Embedding Manual.
Runtime Subset
The ECLiPSe runtime subset is contained in the package eclipse_rt.tgz.
This subset does not contain:
-
the tkeclipse development environment
-
development-related libraries (asm, document, daVinci, fcompile, pretty_printer,
profile, remote_tools, toplevel, tracer etc)
-
various compatibility libraries
This means that you cannot get an "Eclipse prompt" with this subset. It
can only be used
-
together with a Java, C or C++ host program which loads the eclipse-library
-
using the eclipse (or eclipse.exe) standalone executable
with a -e <goal> command line option
FlexLM licensing
The ECLiPSe-API for the FlexLM licensing functionality is described in
Reference
Manual/Non-public libraries/flexlm. It consists of the four predicates:
licence_checkin(?Feature)
Check in a FlexLM licence
licence_checkout(+Feature, ++Policy, +Version, +Path, -Message, -Status)
Check out a licenced feature from FlexLM
licence_heartbeat(+Feature, +Minutes, -Reconnects, -FailedReconnects)
Refresh a checked out FlexLM licence
licence_held(+Feature)
Check whether we already have a licence for a particular feature
This functionality is only operational in the runtime subset.
An ECLiPSe development system by default contains only a dummy implementation
of this API, which behaves as if there were no licenses available at all,
i.e. licence_checkout/6 returns with Status=error and Message="ECLiPSe
licence check failed", licence_checkin/1 always succeeds, and licence_heartbeat/4
and licence_held/1 always fail.
To create a development environment with operational FlexLM licensing
functionality, simply unpack both packages eclipse_basic.tgz and eclipse_rt.tgz
into the same location.
Eplex Library (interface to CPLEX and XPRESS-MP)
The ECLiPSe library eplex is an interface between ECLiPSe and a
third-party LP/MIP solver (currently supported are CPLEX and XPRESS-MP
in various versions). The interface hides the differences between those
solvers from the ECLiPSe programmer. However, the interface needs to be
ported or at least rebuilt for every new release of the third-party solver.
That's why the distribution contains several variants of if_xpress and
if_cplex packages. They all implement the same functionality on the ECLiPSe
side, but contain different versions of the solver. In addition, these
solvers usually require a license to run.
Loading the library
Within ECLiPSe code, the use of the eplex library should normally be specified
in generic form as
:- lib(eplex).
If only one variant of the library is installed (i.e. only a single if_cplex
or if_xpress package has been unpacked), then this one gets loaded by ECLiPSe.
This should normally be the case for a runtime installation of ECLiPSe.
Selecting a particular library variant (development systems mainly)
If an ECLiPSe installation has several variants of eplex installed, the
ambiguity must be resolved. This can be done by specifically requesting
a CPLEX or an XPRESS-MP variant by using either of the following:
:- lib(eplex_xpress).
:- lib(eplex_cplex).
If this is still ambiguous (e.g. different versions installed), ECLiPSe
will pick an arbitrary one.
A further way to select a particular solver is to make an entry in the
eplex_lic_info.ecl
file, which is located in the lib subdirectory of the ECLiPSe installation.
This method is only recommended for development installations. The file
contains entries of the form:
licence(Hostname, Solver, Version, LicStr, LicNum).
e.g.
licence('breeze.icparc.ic.ac.uk', cplex, '65', '', 0).
which specifies that on the given machine the if_cplex65 version of the
interface should be used (the last two arguments will be passed to lp_get_license/2
when ECLiPSe tries to obtain a license for the solver, see below). A default
entry is written by giving an ECLiPSe variable in place of the machine
name, e.g.
licence(_Default, xpress, '12', default, 0).
This line will match any machine and select if_xpress12 and expect XPRESS
licensing information in a default location. Whenever an eplex_lic_info.ecl
file is present, ECLiPSe will load the solver variant that corresponds
to the first matching line in that file.
After loading the eplex library, it tries to obtain a license immediately
by implicitly calling lp_get_license/0. lp_get_license/0 calls lp_get_license/2
with the arguments being the last two arguments of the matching line in
eplex_lic_info.ecl. Failure to obtain a license is not fatal (a warning
may be printed), a license can always be obtained subsequently using lp_get_license/2.
Obtaining a development license for CPLEX >= 7.1
CPLEX 7 uses the ILOG license manager (ilm). You need to have a license
file either in the default location /ilog/ilm/access.ilm, or in another
location, in which case you need to set the environment variable ILOG_LICENSE_FILE
to the absolute pathname of that file. For TOKEN type licenses, you also
need to have a license demon (ilmd) running. With this setup, ECLiPSe needs
no further information, and you can get a license by simply calling
:- lp_get_license('', 0).
or by making an entry in the eplex_lic_info.ecl file (see above) with the
last two arguments being '' and 0, i.e.
licence(..., ..., ..., '', 0).
The license will then be automatically obtained when the library gets loaded
or when you call lp_get_license/0.
Obtaining a development license for XPRESS-MP
XPRESS-MP uses a license file called xpress.pwd and possibly a dongle on
Windows machines. There is a default xpress.pwd file which is included
in the if_xpress package. This default file allows to use a restricted
"student version" of XPRESS-MP, and it is also sufficient if you
have a dongle plugged into your Windows machine. Otherwise, the location
of the proper xpress.pwd file must be specified explicitly as an argument,
or it can be given in the XPRESS environment variable.
For using the student version, or if you have a dongle, use
:- lp_get_license(default, 0).
For using an xpress.pwd file in the directory /my/pwd/location, use
:- lp_get_license('/my/pwd/location', 0).
If you want the value of the XPRESS environment variable to be used instead,
give an empty string, i.e.
:- lp_get_license('', 0).
In all three cases, you can alternatively make an entry in the eplex_lic_info.ecl
file with the last two arguments corresponding to the arguments of lp_get_license_info/2.
The license will then be automatically obtained when the library gets loaded
or when you call lp_get_license/0.
Obtaining a runtime license for CPLEX >= 7.1
This should work as follows, but it is an untested example since we don't
have such a RUNTIME license yet:
:- lib(eplex).
:- ( lp_get_license("LICENSE parctechnologies-london\nRUNTIME CPLEX ...", 9999999) ->
true % got a runtime license
; lp_get_license ->
true % got a development license
;
writeln(error, "No license"), % got nothing
abort
).
lp_get_license/2 gets called with a license string and a number which is
the signature for the string.
Obtaining the Riskwise VAR license for XPRESS-MP
XPRESS-MP uses a challenge-response scheme for its VAR (value added reseller)
licenses. The VAR version for XPRESS-MP generates a random number, the
ECLiPSe code has to apply a magic formula to it and pass the result back.
For Riskwise, the ECLiPSe code should look as follows:
:- lib(eplex).
:- (
( lp_get_license_challenge(N) ->
Response is 90057741 - (N*N)//19,
lp_get_license("", Response) % get runtime license
;
lp_get_license % try development license
)
->
true % got it
;
writeln(error, "No license"),
abort
).
Note that lp_get_license_challenge/1 will succeed for VAR versions of XPRESS-MP
(e.g. if_xpress12parcrisk) and fail for non-VAR versions (e.g. if_xpress12).
You can therefore write the code such that it works for both.
Completely generic code
Unfortunately the differences in licensing between CPLEX and XPRESS-MP
cannot be completely hidden by the eplex library. But you can use lp_get/2
to write completely generic code as follows:
:- lib(eplex).
:- ( lp_get(optimizer, xpress) ->
... code to get XPRESS-MP license ...
; lp_get(optimizer, cplex) ->
... code to get CPLEX license ...
;
abort % should not occur
).