This is used for node-locked and floating licenses. A FLEXlm license is generated from the output of the lmhostid command. SGI s products support mostly node-locked uncounted and floating licenses. Another type of licensing used by SGI products is licensing by accounting for the number of CPUs. SGI's proprietary licensing software for licenses that support number of CPUs utilizes lmhostid and system calls to identify the number of CPUs.
Customers purchase licenses that support the total number of CPUs for the system.
Below is an explanation of how software licenses behave in a partitioned system environment. Note that lmhostid returns the identical value for each partition on a system. No restrictions - can be run on any number of copies of IRIX on a partitioned system. If you purchase a node-locked license, you will be able to use it on any of the partitions concurrently. If you purchase a set number of concurrent licenses to be used over a network, N licenses will be available from your license server that is installed either on the partitioned system or somewhere else in the network.