This is a very obscure tip that I thought I'd post on the off chance someone in the future does a search for this, so that it might be of help.
My lab just bought a copy of the shiny, very expensive physics simulation software FEMLAB. It came with a "floating network license", which basically lets you install a little license daemon on a server, and have other computers check that to make sure you're not running more simultaneous copies than you're suposed to. The daemon is Macrovision's FLEXlm, something that it seems many high end software packages also use.
My problem: I installed everything on my OSX Server box, followed the instructions to the letter, and then tried to start it. Instead of it loading up, I get an "Unknown Host: [myserver]" error, even though that is the correct hostname. Try to set the license up with any other host and it needs the hostname that you tried in the first place. Essentially, it knows what your hostname is, but it still doesn't like it.
As it turns out, the solution is simple: Your /etc/hosts file needs to have the machine's hostname mapped to 127.0.0.1. It's not that, in retrospect, this fix doesn't make sense, but the manual, despite having specific MacOS X install instructions, apparently doesn't take into account that a default 10.3 install (probably other versions as well) do not add this to /etc/hosts, and never mention that it's necessary. Heck, even the tech I talked to was totally stumped till he talked with someone else about it.
Anyway: FLEXlm wants your hostname in /etc/hosts or it apparently won't work. That's a few hours of learning about Macrovision software protection and long distance phone calls worth of learnin' there.
My lab just bought a copy of the shiny, very expensive physics simulation software FEMLAB. It came with a "floating network license", which basically lets you install a little license daemon on a server, and have other computers check that to make sure you're not running more simultaneous copies than you're suposed to. The daemon is Macrovision's FLEXlm, something that it seems many high end software packages also use.
My problem: I installed everything on my OSX Server box, followed the instructions to the letter, and then tried to start it. Instead of it loading up, I get an "Unknown Host: [myserver]" error, even though that is the correct hostname. Try to set the license up with any other host and it needs the hostname that you tried in the first place. Essentially, it knows what your hostname is, but it still doesn't like it.
As it turns out, the solution is simple: Your /etc/hosts file needs to have the machine's hostname mapped to 127.0.0.1. It's not that, in retrospect, this fix doesn't make sense, but the manual, despite having specific MacOS X install instructions, apparently doesn't take into account that a default 10.3 install (probably other versions as well) do not add this to /etc/hosts, and never mention that it's necessary. Heck, even the tech I talked to was totally stumped till he talked with someone else about it.
Anyway: FLEXlm wants your hostname in /etc/hosts or it apparently won't work. That's a few hours of learning about Macrovision software protection and long distance phone calls worth of learnin' there.