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    Elastic GPU Service:Configure a Windows license server for an NVIDIA GRID driver

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    Elastic GPU Service:Configure a Windows license server for an NVIDIA GRID driver

    Last Updated:Oct 19, 2023

    Before you use an NVIDIA GRID driver, you must apply for the driver license and install the license on a license server. This topic describes how to configure a Windows license server.

    Background information

    For more information about how NVIDIA GRID license works, see official NVIDIA documentation.

    You must obtain the license file of a GRID driver from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal and import the file to a license server that you configured. Then, you must connect your GPU-accelerated or vGPU-accelerated instance to the license server over the Internet and activate the license of the GRID driver.

    Step 1: Create an ECS instance

    Create a Windows Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance that works as a license server. For more information, see Create an instance by using the wizard.

    When you create the instance, you must configure parameters based on the descriptions that are provided in the following table. You can configure the parameters that are not provided in the table based on your business requirements.

    Parameter

    Description

    Instance type

    Select an ECS instance whose specifications are higher than the specifications of 2 vCPUs and 4 GB memory. If you require a large number of licenses, we recommend that you select an ECS instance whose specifications are higher than the specifications of 4 vCPUs and 16 GB of memory to ensure high performance and stability.

    Image

    Select a Windows image. In this example, an image of Windows Server 2019 Datacenter 64-bit (English) is used.

    Storage

    Select a system disk whose size is larger than 40 GiB.

    Bandwidth

    We recommend that you select the pay-by-data-transfer metering method and set the peak bandwidth to 100 Mbit/s.

    Step 2: Install JRE

    1. Connect to the ECS instance that works as the license server.

    2. Go to the ojdkbuild page on GitHub to download the installation package of OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

    3. Install JRE.

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    4. Create the JAVA_HOME system variable and set the system variable to the absolute path to the jre folder of your JRE.

      For example, set JAVA_HOME to C:\Program Files\ojdkbuild\java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.322-1\jre.

      Note

      Make sure that the path does not contain trailing characters, such as backslashes (\) or spaces.

    5. Check whether the Path system variable contains the absolute path to the java.exe file.

      In most cases, the path is added when JRE is installed.

    Step 3: Install the license server software

    Before you install the license server software, make sure that you have obtained the installation package of the license server software.

    1. Decompress the .zip file of the license server software and run setup.exe.

    2. On the Introduction page, click Next.

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    3. On the License Agreement page, select I accept the terms of the License Agreement and click Next.

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    4. On the Apache License Agreement page, select I accept the terms of the License Agreement and click Next.

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    5. On the Choose Install Folder page, specify a folder in which you want the license server software to be installed and click Next.

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    6. On the Choose Firewall Options page, keep the default setting License server(port 7070), and then click Next.

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    7. On the Pre-Installation Summary page, confirm your settings and click Install.

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    8. After the license server software is installed, click Done.

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    Step 4: Create the license server on the NVIDIA Licensing Portal

    1. Log on to the NVIDIA Licensing Portal by using the email address that you have used to apply for the driver license.

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    2. On the Dashboard page, click the CREATE LICENSE SERVER button in the License Servers section.

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      The Entitlements section displays all your licenses.

    3. In the Create License Server dialog box, configure the parameters and click CREATE LICENSE SERVER.

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      The following table describes the required parameters.

      Parameter

      Description

      Server Name

      Specify a custom name for the license server.

      MAC Address

      Enter the MAC address of the ECS instance you want to use as the license server.

      To query the MAC address, log on to the instance and run the ipconfig /all command.

      Feature

      Select features based on your business requirements, enter the number of licenses that you want to add to the server, and then click ADD.

    4. After you create the license server on the NVIDIA Licensing Portal, go to the License Servers section and click the 2022-01-27_15-52-40 icon to download the license file.

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    Step 5: Upload the license file

    1. Open http://localhost:8080/licserver in your web browser. You are redirected to the license management page.

      Note

      Replace localhost in the URL with the public IP address of your ECS instance.

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    2. In the License Server section of the left-side navigation pane, click License Management.

    3. On the License Management page, click Choose File next to the Upload license file (.bin file), select the license file from your computer, and then click Open.

    4. Click Upload.

      If the message that is shown in the following figure appears, the license file is uploaded.

      To view the number of licenses on the server and the usage details of the licenses, click License Feature Usage in the License Server section of the left-side navigation pane.

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    Step 6: Test the network connectivity and access to the license server

    In this example, a Windows vGPU-accelerated instance that belongs to the vgn6i instance family is used. If you have a GPU-accelerated instance, you can use the instance.

    1. Create a GPU-accelerated instance.

      For more information, see Create a GPU-accelerated instance that is not configured with a driver.

      In this example, a vGPU-accelerated instance that belongs to the vgn6i instance family and whose image is of Windows Server 2019 Datacenter 64-bit (English) is used.

    2. Install the GRID driver, add the license server, and then activate the license.

      For more information, see Install a GRID driver on a Windows GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance or a Windows vGPU-accelerated instance.

      When you activate the license, enter the public IP address of the ECS instance that works as the license server and set the port number to 7070.

    3. Open http://localhost:8080/licserver in your local web browser. You are redirected to the license management page. In the License Server section of the left-side navigation pane, click Licensed Clients. On the Client Details page, check whether the information about the vGPU-accelerated instance appears. If the information appears, your vGPU-accelerated instance that works as a virtual machine of the NVIDIA vGPU software client is using the license.

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      You can click the client ID to view the details of the vGPU-accelerated instance.

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