ArcGIS Pro DSC Licensing

[julian_svcs]

Hi @CameronKroeker.

When installing and licensing ArcGIS Pro using the DSC, if I run the InstallLicense again when updating with the installation of a new patch, the licensing part is run again. Will this use/checkout another license in the backend of Esri's licenses or does it make use of the same license already checked out/authorized?

[CameronKroeker]

Hi @julian_svcs,

That is quite possible. Each time -Mode InstallLicense is run, the ArcGIS Module authorizes the license silently using the C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\SoftwareAuthorizationPro.exe tool. 

If Pro is already authorized, I suggest using -Mode Install to apply the patch rather than -Mode InstallLicense.

Thanks,
Cameron K.

[julian_svcs]

Thanks for the reply @CameronKroeker. 

As a slight follow up to this:

1. If we use the Uninstall, does this de-authorize Pro?
2. Is there any option to make use of the offline respc file to license Pro using InstallLicense?
3. Will there be any future option to use License only as a separate command?

Thank once again.

Julian.

[CameronKroeker]

Hi @julian_svcs,

1. If we use the Uninstall, does this de-authorize Pro?
   • -Mode Uninstall does not de-authorize licenses for ArcGIS Pro, or ArcGIS Desktop.
2. Is there any option to make use of the offline respc file to license Pro using InstallLicense?
   • If you already have a .respc file you should be able to specify it in your json configuration file using the "LicenseFilePath" attribute.
3. Will there be any future option to use License only as a separate command?
   • No there are no future plans for a standalone License mode.

Thanks,
Cameron K.

[julian_svcs]

Thanks once again for your reply @CameronKroeker.

I see there is an option of "ForceLicenseUpdate". The wiki describes this as "(Optional - true | false) - Will force an update of ArcGIS Server license".

1. What does this mean? Will it force an update of the license if it requires it for a new version or is this around enforcing (or not) the authorization of the software?
2. Is this also valid for Pro as I see there is a "Force = $ForceLicenseUpdate" in the ArcGISLicense.ps1 file for Pro and LicenseManager (lines 96 and 109 respectively)?

[CameronKroeker]

Hi @julian_svcs,

The ArcGIS module has some soft checks in place for checking if ArcGIS Server is already authorized or not, if already authorized then authorization is skipped. When the ForceLicenseUpdate is true, these checks are ignored and authorization is performed. This is useful for when needing to replace an expiring/expired ArcGIS Server license.

However, we have not found a reliable method to check if ArcGIS Pro/ArcGIS Desktop is already authorized or not which is why the authorization is ran each time -Mode InstallLicense is invoked.

Thanks,

Cameron K.

[julian_svcs]

Hi @CameronKroeker . This query is kind of related to this.

We are deploying ArcGIS Pro Standard Single Use software to multiple machines. Currently the configuration for the Pro installation caters for multiple nodes (server) to be installed synchronously. As it is now, we have been requesting Esri to supply 5 Pro Single Use licenses in one license file as there is only place for one license file in the config. We have since been told that this type of license is actually should not be available.

I was wondering how do you cater for installing ArcGIS Pro Single Use on multiple machines with multiple SU licenses if Esri intends supplying multiple license files? We would prefer to not use multiple configuration files per machine.

Thanks very much.

Julian

[CameronKroeker]

Hi @julian_svcs,

The current solution (albeit not the most ideal), is to ensure each license file resides on every target node in the same local path with the same file name (but each file will have a different license inside of it). Then this path and file name is what you would define in your json configuration file (ConfigData.Pro.LicenseFilePath).

A more ideal solution though would be to have the ability to define the license file in the AllNodes section of the json configuration file so that a different license file path/file name can be defined for each target node. This is perhaps something we can aim to tackle in a future release of the module.

Thanks,
Cameron K.

[julian_svcs]

Thanks very much for the quick response @CameronKroeker. Unfortunately the first solution you mentioned will not work for our environment. We are installing through Pipelines and all licenses reside in the same shared drive where the individual machines access the resources.

I was also thinking it would be a good option to have the license file paths in the AllNodes for each individual node. This would be the perfect solution for what we are looking at deploying. This is not a once of thing and could potenially be across many environments over the next year or two.

Thanks for the recomendation and I would like to endorse the license file paths to be included in the AllNodes section. Can I do anything to include this in a possible future enhancement?

[CameronKroeker · Accepted solution]

Hi @julian_svcs,

We have added the ability to pass in individual single use pro license files per node starting in v4.2.0.

https://github.com/Esri/arcgis-powershell-dsc/releases/tag/v4.2.0

Here is an example:

https://github.com/Esri/arcgis-powershell-dsc/blob/3d056fe815c68e9676789afe9d4ca71c05cefc8d/SampleCo...