Run Linaro Forge Licence Server

This section describes the process for setting up the Linaro Forge Licence Server and configuring it to start automatically during system boot.

Before you begin

For security reasons, ensure that Linaro Forge Licence Server runs as an unprivileged user. For example, nobody, or preferably a dedicated user. Furthermore, Linaro recommends restricting the visibility of the host running the Linaro Forge Licence Server only to trusted users, and hidden externally.
Linaro Forge Licence Server includes a systemd init configuration file for Linux systems.
If Linaro Forge Licence Server runs without arguments, it uses licenses in the current directory (files matching Licence* or the variant spelling License*). You can include an optional argument to specify an alternative directory location instead of the current directory.
Floating license server files are stored by default in the Linaro Forge Licence Server installation directory (/opt/linaro/licenceserver/<version>/licences). This is also the directory the systemd unit configuration uses by default.

To create an unprivileged user and allocate a log directory, run these commands as root.
```
useradd --system --user-group --no-create-home \
     --home-dir /opt/linaro/licenceserver/<version> allinea
mkdir /var/log/linaro
chown allinea: /var/log/linaro
```
This creates the user allinea and the log directory /var/log/linaro. The user is assigned ownership of the log directory. The /opt/linaro/licenceserver/<version> directory is the location of the Linaro Forge Licence Server installation. The license server log file is /var/log/linaro/allinea.log.

Note

If you install the Linaro Forge Licence Server in a custom installation path, set the FORGE_LICENSE_DIR environment variable to point to the custom license directory. ALLINEA_LICENSE_DIR is still supported and can be used instead of FORGE_LICENSE_DIR.

Caution

Ensure that the directory /var/log has appropriate access controls to limit access to the log files.
Edit lib/systemd/system/allinea-licenceserver.service in your Linaro Forge Licence Server installation. Make sure that the Environment, ExecStart and User settings in the [Service] section are correct for your system.

Create a symbolic link to the systemd directory:

ln -s lib/systemd/system/allinea-licenceserver.service \
     /etc/systemd/system/

Enable Linaro Forge Licence Server on future boots:
```
systemctl enable allinea-licenceserver
```
Start the Linaro Forge Licence Server:
```
systemctl start allinea-licenceserver
```
Check that the Linaro Forge Licence Server has started correctly:
```
systemctl status allinea-licenceserver
```