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Last Updated: 16th June 2010 10:52:50 am

LM-X detects most virtualization technologies, including VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VirtualBox. Virtual machine environments are typically undesirable for licensed software due to the inherent risk of overuse. With LM-X, you can choose to allow or prohibit your application to run in a virtual environment.

Operating systems running in virtual environments are designed to be hardware independent, so ethernet or harddisk hostids no longer specify physical hardware identifiers. Duplicating the virtual machines and modifying the hostids is simple and takes minutes to perform.

However, with virtual appliances and virtual environments becoming more common, you may choose to allow your software to run on virtual machines in some situations; for example, for trusted and enterprise customers. There are a number of ways that LM-X makes it safe for you to deliver your application for use on virtual machines:

1. Use floating licenses. Your software can be safely allowed to run on a virtual machine, because the license server (an integral part of LM-X), which is located on a physical machine, will ensure there is no license overuse.
   
   
2. Use dongles. If your customer wants a license server running on a virtual machine, you can lock the license server to a dongle, which is a physical device that locks the application to the machine on which it’s installed. Dongles, obtained from X-Formation, provide adequate security to prevent cloning of the license server.
   
   
3. Lock the license to a BIOS hostid. This solution works for both local licenses and network licenses. The BIOS on most virtual machines is unique, because it contains a unique virtual machine ID (UUID). An example is shown below:
   
   LM-X End-user Utility v3.4
   Copyright (C) 2002-2010 X-Formation. All rights reserved.
   
   BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD - UNKNOWN
   Hostid: VMware-42321a30c22ce364-aca97bac6ea0bdb8
   
   Note that the UUID can easily be changed, so this is not an entirely secure solution. However, if the virtual machine is connected to a management control solution (e.g., VMware vCenter), duplication of UUID's is typically not permitted and causes problems for real-life production setups.