Using EDA tools at home

Need to use your company EDA tools from home, here are some tips:

1) First of all, the most important solution is to speak to your EDA vendor=
, I am sure all have solutions for you and some even give you a free tempor=
ary license (if you are an existing customer).
2) If you have a node locked license, simply take the dongle home.
3) If you have a MAC based license then try to spoof the MAC address on you=
r home PC. If this fails, buy a cheap USB Wifi dongle from eBay and try aga=
in. I would recommend not using a USB Ethernet cable dongle as they tend to=
 go into low power mode when no cable is plugged in and you will loose your=
 MAC address (goes to FFFFFFFFFFFF)
4) If you use a floating license at work then ask your IT to set up a VPN c=
onnection so that you can check out a license at home. Once you have a conn=
ection you can use:

lmutil lmstat -a

to see how many licenses are available, and

lmutil lmstat -A

to see who has checked out a license.

5) Moving a license server home is very easy. Just make sure you have the l=
icense file, license key and license utilities. For Flexnet/Flexlm, which t=
he majority of EDA vendors use you only need 2 (Linux) or 3 (Windows) execu=
tables. You need lmgrd(.exe) which is the license server and the daemon whi=
ch is supplied by your EDA vendor. For windows you also need lmtools.exe to=
 setup the license server. The license key is as per point 2 and 3.
6) If you are not allowed to take the dongle home or they are shared by mul=
tiple engineers then use one of those "USB over Ethernet" utilities. Make s=
ure you pick one that works with USB dongles (not all do).
7) Some node locked licenses do not allow you to use Windows RDP (remote de=
sktop)
# ** License Issue: Cannot checkout an uncounted license within a Windows T=
erminal Services guest session.
Fortunately this is only applies to RDP, TightVNC, Logmein, Teamviewer etc =
all work fine!

As I mentioned number 1 is the option you should start with, I would NOT an=
d I stress this point, use a hacked license/daemon! Not only are you riskin=
g getting all sorts of nasties on your PC (which you use to access your ban=
k right?) some EDA vendors can actually track where their software is used.=
 They might not sue you at this time but they do remember.

And a final note, some of the above suggestions could be somewhat questiona=
ble wrt your license agreement, if you are worried speak to your EDA vendor=
, there is no point in breaking your license agreement as I am sure your ED=
A vendor will help you out.

Happy working from home (I have been for the past 20 years...)