IDL software is licensed and paid for by specific research groups within the department. If you are not a member of these groups, then please do not try installing this software.

• Download the IDL CD image (eg, the version 6.4 image filename is IDL_64_win.iso) from our software downloads web page: https://www.physics.umn.edu/resources/computing/download/index.html (requires authentication).
• Burn a copy of the CD, and run the appropriate Windows installer (usually this will be setup32.exe)
• Next you need to define an environment variable to tell IDL the location of our license server.
  • Open the System control panel.
  • Click the Advanced tab, and click the Environment Variables button. Click the New button below the System Variables box and enter the following information:
    • In the Variable Name field, type LM_LICENSE_FILE in uppercase letters.
    • In the Variable Value field, enter 1700@idl.spa.umn.edu
  • If LM_LICENSE_FILE has already been defined for another software product, the definition of this license file can be appended using a semi-colon (;) as the delimiter. For example: C:\License\mylicense.dat;1700@idl.spa.umn.edu
  • Save the settings.

Note - IDL is preinstalled on the departmentally-managed linux systems, so these instructions should be unnecessary.

• Download the IDL CD image (eg, the version 6.4 image filename for MacOS is IDL_64_mac.iso) from our software downloads web page: https://www.physics.umn.edu/resources/computing/download/index.html (requires authentication).
• On Mac OS X, first insert your Mac OS CD or DVD and install “Apple X11” via the optional package installer program.
• Burn a copy of the downloaded IDL CD, insert it in your CD drive, and run the appropriate installer.
• Define the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable, by modifying your .cshrc, .profile, or .bashrc file using any text editor. You must define the UNIX environment variable for LM_LICENSE_FILE to point to the server and port of the machine running the license manager.
  • For C shell: “setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE 1700@idl.spa.umn.edu”
  • For Korn or Bash shell: “export LM_LICENSE_FILE=1700@idl.spa.umn.edu”
• Log out and log back in to execute the .cshrc, .profile, or .bashrc file, or execute the file from the home directory using one of the following commands.
  • For C shell: source “.cshrc”
  • For Korn shell: “. .profile”
  • For Bash shell: “. .bashrc”

The IDL license server is only directly accessible within Tate Lab.

The IDL web site has a tech tip describing how you can connect from offsite, by using an ssh tunnel:

http://www.ittvis.com/services/techtip.asp?ttid=3466

(note, we have not tested this; if you try it and find that it works, or not, you should let us know…).

We run the FlexLM vendor daemon on the same port as their example (31700).