Thursday, March 13. 2008
UNC Paths
A few days ago we had an inquiry in regard to the license server used for the floating license model. Our customer configured the license server, however, he did not bear in mind the note: Use UNC path. Therefore, I have decided to make a small entry here in order to leave a reference for future inquiries.
UNC path is the Universal/Uniform Naming Convention that describes the location of a volume, directory, or file. The format for a UNC path is \\server\volume\directory\file-name and is not case-sensitive. If the configuration of the license server is performed either directly onto the server or from another computer, this UNC path should remain identical throughout the network, since this information is encrypted within the license file.
For example, if a user installing SpeedTrace within a network (illustrated below) configures and activates the license server directly onto the server with a specific UNC path (e.g., \\192.145.342.5\SpeedTraceServer\License.lic), other computers attempting to connect to this license server need to use exactly the same UNC path, otherwise the license server interprets this request as either system tampering or “Installation code does not match”.
The same principle is applied when companies have teams abroad.
Server License Configuration
