There are 2 different licensing tools that can be used from a command-line interface (CLI):

> CommandlineLicense.exe
This tool can replicate all the actions that can be done manually when following a license activation process licensing on all our different types of licenses (anima® ALL, anima® PRO, and anima® Render Node). This tool will only work if used with an internet connection.

> CommandlineDeploy.exe
This tool can activate the licenses generated with the anima® Render Node License Manager tool (“Anima.RenderNodeLicManager.exe“). It is meant to be used to activate Render Node licenses on offline environments only.

Using the CommandlineLicense tool (Online)

To install this tool, in the install process, make sure to enable the License tool option that you will find under the Commandline section:

Once installed, you will find a new "CommandlineLicense.exe" file in the anima® install path.

If anima® was installed using the Render Node option, the name of the CLI tool will be "CommandlineLicense.Network.exe" instead. The functionality in both cases is almost the same, the only exception being that this alternative tool is only able to activate Render Node licenses


You can see the parameters available in the tools by executing them on your preferred CLI (admin mode needed):


Each of the options is self-explanatory. For example, if you want to use it to authorize one of the seats of anima® ALL, you can use one of the following options:

  1. Use your user credentials to activate a seat (username/password):
    > CommandlineLicense.exe --at all --un <your_user@account.email> --pw <your_password>
  2. Generate a new temporal Invitation Code in your subscription admin panel.
  3. Then use that code in the following command:
    > CommandlineLicense.exe --at all --ic <your_invitation_code>


To remove the current device from the list of devices from your subscription account, use the command below:

> CommandlineLicense.exe --at clear

You can also get the list of devices in your account with the following command:

> CommandlineLicense.exe --at all-device-list --un <your_user@account.email> --pw <your_password> --dlp "C:\myFolder\device_list.json"

That will return a JSON object similar to this one:


Then you can parse that information and remove any of those devices using the following command: >CommandlineLicense.exe --at all-device-delete --un <your_user@account.email> --pw <your_password> --dld 331231601234567890123456789

In case you want to use it to activate a Render Node, you can use the following command: >CommandlineLicense.Network.exe --at pro --em <your_user@account.email> --pc <your_purchase_code>


The following table shows all the options available:

OptionDescription
--at,
--action <action>

Specifies the action that will be performed. Actions:

pro: The purchase email and the purchase code must be provided.
This information can be found on the account on the AXYZ design website.
It is also possible to provide an activation code if you already have one for offline licensing.

all: A username and password combination of an account with a valid subscription must be provided or just an invitation code generated from that account on
the AXYZ design website.

all-device-list: A username and password combination of an account with a valid subscription must be provided as well as a path to write the resulting list of devices (–device-list-path). The resulting list will be formatted as a JSON (default) or a CSV file if the option is specified (–device-list-format).

all-device-delete: A username and password combination of an account with a valid subscription must be provided along with the list of devices to delete (–device-list-delete).

clear: Clear the device from all accounts, licenses and subscriptions present in the system.

--em,
--email <email>		The email address that was used to purchase the PRO license.
--pc,
--purchase-code <purchase-code>		The purchase code for the PRO license.
--ac,
--activation-code <activation-code>		The optional activation code for the PRO license. Used for offline licensing.
--fr,
--force-reset		Forces the license associated to the purchase code to be reset if possible. If this flag is not specified and the license is currently in use, the action will fail. Keep in mind this will use up one of the allowed resets if necessary.
--un,
--username <username>		The AXYZ design username.
--pw,
--password <password>		 The AXYZ design password.
--ic,
--invitation-code <invitation-code>		The anima all invitation code.
--dlp,
--device-list-path <device-list-path>		The path where the anima all device list will be saved.
--dlf,
--device-list-format <device-list-format>		The format to use when saving the anima all device list. Choose from ‘JSON’ (default) or ‘CSV’.
--dld,
--device-list-delete <device-list-delete>		A device ID to be deleted. You can specify this option multiple times to delete many devices at once. This option may not be available for all kinds of anima all subscriptions.

Using the CommandlineDeploy tool (Offline)

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

With the release of anima 5.6.0, the Render Node installations will no longer require a license and will be free for everyone to use. However, older versions of anima will still require the use of a Render Node license.

To use the free version, please download and install anima® 5.6.0 or newer in Render Node mode. If you want to keep using anima® Render Node version 5.5.0 or older, please follow the activation methods described below.

Before you start, keep in mind that this is an old tool whose functionality has been shadowed by the new Commandline License tool (described above). Now we only recommend to use this tool if you need to activate multiple render nodes in an offline environment. If your nodes have internet access, use the new tool because it is much simpler to use and fully compatible with a pure CLI environment.

The CommandlineDeploy tool will only work on Render Node licenses so, in the install process, make sure to first enable the Render Node option:


...and then you will be able to also enable the Deploy tool option that you will find under the Commandline section:


Licensing render nodes using the command-line tool is a 3 step process:

  1. Generate a Hardware ID for each node on your farm using the Command Line Deploy tool. Hardware IDs are saved in a file with a .hid file extension
  2. Use the hardware ID (.hid) to generate a valid License using the Render Node License Manager tool. Licenses are saved in a file with a .acc extension.
  3. Authorize the installation on each node using the generated license (.acc) using the Command Line Deploy tool.

Step 1 - Generating hardware IDs

Use the command:

  • commandlinedeploy.exe -generatelic

To generate a hardware file just run the commandlinedeploy.exe tool using the -generatelic parameter. This will create a .hid file. In the filename, the word that follows the @ symbol is the Windows name of the computer for the hardware ID.

Run this on every machine for which you need a license and copy the .hid files to the same directory as the anima® Render Node License Manager tool and then move on to the next step.



Step 2 - Generating licenses

Open the anima® Render Node License Manager tool ("Anima.RenderNodeLicManager.exe") and it will automatically detect the .hid files created in the previous step. .hid files that are not currently licensed are highlighted in red whereas those shown in black are already licensed and have an associated .acc file.


To retrieve all the licenses from your account, paste any of your Purchase Codes (no matter which one) and your Email and then click the button "READ LICENSES".

Then, all your licenses will be listed in the left side of the window (available licenses), both the already used ones, the ones that cannot be used due to a recent reset ("not available"), and the ones available to be used by your new ".hid" files from the right side of the window.

Finally, you can click on "USE LICENSES" and then all the .acc files will be generated automatically, one for each .hid file present in the same directory as the command line deploy tool. Please, before you click on "USE LICENSES", make sure that you have started the anima® Render Node License Manager tool with writing privileges granted in the same folder where the .hid files are.

Once this process is complete you’ll have matching pairs of .hid and .acc files, one set for each computer. Those .acc files will be used in the next step to activate the licenses of the node machines.


Step 3 - Installing licenses

After all the .acc files have been generated, you can generate a script to be executed in each node that copies each file to the corresponding node (the machine name is after the @) and reads that .acc file to activate its local license, using the command:

  • commandlinedeploy.exe -readlic 

For example, when you execute that command from a node machine whose network name is "RN0001" and System Code is "KVQCQ90VTDQFIE4411", that command will search the file "KVQCQ90VTDQFIE4411@RN0001.acc" in the same path where you executed "commandlinedeploy.exe".

Please note that you also must execute that "readlic" command from an admin account as it would need to access the registry to store that activation code. And you can use this kind of command line in a bat file to allow you to deploy the software across a large farm.

Semi-Offline licensing using CommandlineDeploy

With the process described, the only moment that you need a machine with an internet connection is in step 2, when you are executing the anima® Render Node License Manager to generate all the .acc activation files. Steps 1 and 3 can be executed in machines that don't have any kind of internet access but can copy to and from the local LAN network.

That means that you can actually use the Manager from one single machine with internet access to generate the activation codes that will later be used by all the other render node machines, even if they haven't internet access.

We hope these tools save you time and make installing on multiple machines easier but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our support team.