V-Ray Licensing System

V-Ray uses a floating licensing system and it can obtain licenses from the V-Ray license server, running on any machine, which can be accessed through your network, or even over Internet. The access to the license server is done over TCP/IP protocol on port 30304. Make sure that your anti-virus or firewall software is not blocking the communication to the license server.

The V-Ray license server requires one or more dongles (hardware lock containing your licenses, similar to a USB flash drive) installed on the same machine to operate. You should receive your dongle(s) and information whether it is already reprogrammed with the necessary licenses from your reseller.

After the installation, please make sure that you have the necessary licenses as described in V-Ray license server status below.

If your dongle doesn't contain the necessary licenses, please go to Dongle reprogramming.

Dongles are not node locked, they can be transferred without any restrictions between V-Ray license servers. This allows you to quickly set up a new license server after a computer failure or to move a dongle to different locations when necessary.

V-Ray License Server Status

The V-Ray license server has a web interface that allows you to check its status and available licenses. The license server must be running to view the status web page. Please open the link http://<IP_address>:30304/getstatus in a web browser, where <IP_address> is the IP address of the license server. For example:

http://10.0.0.100:30304/getstatus

The status page shows information about the total number of licenses available to the license server; how many of them are engaged and from which IP address they are engaged.

If you have problems opening the license server status page, see the Troubleshooting section.

You have to make sure that you have V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max licenses.

In the “Licenses usage summary” section you can see information about the licenses on the license server. In the Total column you can see all the available licenses on the dongle; in the Engaged column you can see how many of the licenses are currently being used, and in the Free column you can see the number of the licenses that are currently free.

In the example above there are:

V-Ray for 3ds Max 1.5/2.0 – these are the licenses for V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max

• Render licenses - these are used by V-Ray during rendering. In the table you can see that we have one license that is not being used now.

• Interface licenses - these licenses are used from the V-Ray interface inside 3ds Max. In the table you can see that we have one license that is not being used now.

• DR licenses - these are used when V-Ray is used in Distributed Rendering mode. There are 10 licenses that are not being used right now.

VRayRT/Adv GPU for 3dsmax - these are V-Ray RT for 3dsMax licenses

• Render licenses - these are used by V-Ray RT during rendering. In the table you can see that we have one license that is not being used now.

• Interface licenses - these licenses are used from the V-Ray RT interface inside 3ds Max. In the table you can see that we have one license that is not being used now.

• DR licenses - these are used when V-Ray RT is used in Distributed Rendering mode. There are 10 licenses that are not being used right now.

The “Stored licenses details” is useful when more than one dongle is plugged in the license server. Here you can see a summary of all available licenses and the serial number of the dongle on which they are placed. If the license has an expiration date this is also displayed. In the example below, you can see that we only have one dongle connected, the serial number of the dongle is 10552214 and it has one V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max license and one V-Ray RT license. All licenses are non-expiring.

The “Active sessions” list shows the IP addresses of all computers currently connected to the license server and the types of licenses they are using. In the example below you can see that there is only one active session. A machine with IP 127.0.0.1 (localhost) is taking one V-Ray for 3ds Max 2.0 GUI and RENDER license.

The “Global dongle expiration dates” shows a list of all dongles plugged in the license server and their expiration dates (different from license expiration dates explained above). In the example below there is one dongle with serial number 10085152 and it does not have an expiration date.

If you do not see V-Ray 2.0 licenses, your dongle has to be reprogrammed as described in Dongle reprogramming section below.

Dongle Reprogramming

If you do not have the necessary V-Ray licenses on your dongle, it will have to be reprogrammed. Reprogramming a dongle is a two-part process:

• Creating a .wbc file – you will need to create and send to Chaos Group a remote programming context file, which contains information identifying your specific dongle.

• Updating the contents of the dongle – Chaos Group will send you file called “.rtu” file which can be used to update the licenses on your dongle.