Documentation

Creating a Compute Server client license

If you are a Compute Server user, we recommend that you read the Gurobi Remote Services Reference Manual for information about configuring and using Remote Services. We'll provide a few relevant details here, but this other document provides a much broader overview.

You have two options for indicating that a Gurobi program will act as a client of a Compute Server. If you are writing a program that calls Gurobi from a programming language API, these APIs provide parameters that allow you to specify the name of a Compute Server node (ComputeServer) and the appropriate credentials (CSAPIAccessID and CSAPISecret) before starting your Gurobi envirnoment. With this approach, Gurobi license files aren't required on the client.

Alternately, you can set up a gurobi.lic file that points to the Compute Server. This option allows you to use a Compute Server with nearly any program that calls Gurobi, without the need to modify the calling program. You can create your client gurobi.lic with a text editor like vim. The file should contain a line that looks like this:

COMPUTESERVER=server.mydomain.com:61000

or like this:

COMPUTESERVER=192.168.1.100:61000

This line should provide the name or IP address of any machine in your Compute Server cluster, optionally followed by the chosen port number on that server (which was chosen when you set up the Compute Server on that machine). If your Compute Server uses a password, you should also include a line that gives the password:

PASSWORD=cspwd

Please consult the Using Remote Services section of the Gurobi Remote Services Reference Manual for more information.

Note that if your client and server are both running on the same machine, you'll need to set the GRB_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to point to the Compute Server license. You'll then need to create a separate gurobi.lic file for the client, and temporarily set the GRB_LICENSE_FILE environment variable to point to this file (following the earlier instructions for using a non-default license location).

Once your client license is in place, you can test the license. If you are unable to connect to the server, you'll need to make sure the server is installed and running. Please consult the Cluster Setup and Administration section of the Gurobi Remote Services Reference Manual for more information.