License Management

Starting with the release of Mathematica 4.1, Network Mathematica has allowed system administrators to easily deploy and administer Mathematica licenses in a central location, greatly simplifying system administration tasks. Network Mathematica also allows for concurrent use of Mathematica using MathLM, the Mathematica license manager. The new version of MathLM that ships with Mathematica 4.2 offers some major improvements and additional functionality.

Logging

The new MathLM logging facilities are extensive. The command syntax now defaults to W3C’s common logfile format but is entirely customizable. The level of detail can be configured to report anything from only critical failures to every incoming and outgoing packet. In addition, MathLM sends critical messages to the system event Log.

Language Support

A translation facility allows users to define their own translation files to support either a new language or their own customized logging syntax. Translation files for French, German, and Japanese are included by default.

Policy Settings

The new policy support functions in MathLM are modeled on .htaccess. This permits system administrators to allow or deny certain domains or computers, or certain groups or individual users. For easy administration, various groups of users, machines, or domains can be given names and then used.

Dynamic Updating of MathLM Activity with New MonitorLM

MonitorLM is an application that allows system administrators to monitor the activity of the license manager. MonitorLM has been changed from a Unix shell script to a stand-alone application available on all platforms except Mac OS 9 and earlier. MonitorLM now also has customizable output and built-in support for plain text, HTML, and CGI output.

MathLM Now Available on All Mathematica Platforms

With the release of MathLM for Mac OS X, MathLM is now available for all operating systems supported by Mathematica except Mac OS 9 and earlier. In particular this means that you can have Network Mathematica running for a Macintosh-only lab if you run Mac OS X on at least one lab machine. In addition, MathLM for all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux [PC, Alpha, PowerPC], Solaris, HP/UX, IRIX, AIX, and HP Tru64 Unix) will come on its own CD.