[comp.unix.admin] license manager software for workstation clusters?

pst@Stanford.EDU (Paul Traina) (03/22/91)

I'm looking for a piece of software,  either C library routines,  or a
front-end for existing programs,  that would control the number of
simultaneous invocations of a given binary.

In english,  what I mean is that we've got a workstation cluster with
40 machines,  but certain packages that we purchase from the vendors
are only purchased for 10 or 20 of the 40 machines.  We'd like to
insure that no more than the licensed number of copies of the program
are run at any one time.

The system doesn't have to be bullet-proof, and in fact should fail in
favor of the user, rather than deny service.  I can think of about 15
different ways to hack this together,  but I'd like to start with
something that people have invested some time and effort in,  rather
than produce some kludgy hack-job to do it.

Paul