Potential Licensing Malfunction
Beginning January 1st, 2007

Issued: December 19, 2006
Last Updated: January 9, 2007

CA Technical Support has recently identified a critical software deficiency in earlier versions of CA's ALP Licensing for distributed platforms. Beginning January 1st, 2007 (January 3rd for OpenVMS and Tandem NSK), customers running CA product solutions with licensing versions earlier than 1.61.0 may notice inadvertent ALP License messages being written to Licensing and product log files. This Licensing malfunction may cause some CA solutions to become inoperable if not addressed.

The ALP Licensing messages produced are designed to be warning and informational notifications. They are not intended to, but could interrupt the functionality of the underlying CA solution. The frequency and text contained in these messages will vary in accordance with product usage, platform, keys and the actual ALP Licensing version. Customers who experience this problem may see some of the following messages written to their lic98.log file:

CALI_F_200 - License Failure. Terminating... Please run the appropriate license program to properly license your product.  
CALI_E_802 - License expired. Please contact your account representative to renew your license. 
CALI_E_802 - Can't open license file. Please run the appropriate license program to properly license your product.
7309 - Can't open license file. Please run the appropriate license program to properly license your product.
7302 - Component not licensed. Please contact your account representative to obtain a new license.
7317 - License Failure. Please contact your account representative to obtain a new license.
7305 - License will expire. Please contact your account representative to renew your license.
%CALIC-W-MSG, - Computer Associates Licensing -XXXX- Component not licensed

If this deficiency is left unattended, it is conceivable that performance could be impacted and, over time, log files could begin to consume unexpected amounts of disk space. Furthermore, some mature CA solutions may fail to operate (hard-fail) if this problem is not addressed. CA Customers using the following products could experience a 'hard-failure' depending on their ALP Licensing application version:

CA Technical Support strongly recommends that affected customers promptly address this problem by downloading and installing the latest available release of CA's ALP Licensing.

Affected Platforms

All Windows, Linux, UNIX, OpenVMS (VAX, Alpha), and Mac OSX platforms could potentially experience this Licensing malfunction. CA solutions running on HP Non-Stop and Tandem NSK are particularly prone to this problem and should upgrade their ALP Licensing software. This deficiency does not exist in CA's LMP Licensing on the mainframe.

How to tell if you are affected

Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac

1. Locate your CA ALP Licensing root directory CA_LIC.



2. If there is no executable lic98version file present in your CA_LIC directory, you are potentially affected and are advised to upgrade to the latest version of CA ALP Licensing.



3. If there is an executable lic98version file in your CA_LIC directory, you will need to run this file to determine if you are affected:

       ..\CA_LIC\lic98version
   	Writing information to lic98version.log...
   
   	lic98version.exe     1.61.2.0
   	-----------------------------

If the version number reported by lic98version is lower than 1.61.0, you should update your CA ALP Licensing environment to avoid being impacted by this Licensing malfunction.

OpenVMS VAX and Alpha

The version of the licensing sharable image should be retrieved as follows:

OpenVMS VAX and Alpha

$ ANALYZE/IMAGE/INTER SYS$LIBRARY:CALIC$SHR.EXE

Press Return until the section titled "Image Identification Information" is displayed. Examine the field labeled "Image File Identification:". If this field has a value that includes the string "V2.0" or is of the form "162-yyyymmdd-xx", then no further action is necessary.

HP Non-Stop and Tandem NSK

CA Technical Support recommends all customers running HP Non-Stop and Tandem NSK upgrade their ALP Licensing to the latest available version.

Susceptible CA Solution Areas

Certain CA solution areas are more susceptible to this Licensing malfunction than others. CA solution areas most likely to be impacted by this problem are:

• CA solutions running on HP Non-Stop and Tandem NSK are particularly prone to this problem and should upgrade their ALP Licensing.
• Unicenter OpenVMS (VAX Alpha)
• All CA solutions that have a 4-digit licensing component code beginning with "1". A complete list of product component codes is available by clicking here.
• Any CA solution that embeds the Ingres RDBMS.
• Unicenter TNG
• Unicenter Network and Systems Management (NSM) and Agent Technology
• Unicenter Software Deliver Option (SDO)
• Unicenter Workload Manager and Agents

As usual, customers are advised to carefully review any CA solution specific notifications and to visit SupportConnect product home pages for more detailed information.

How to address the problem

This problem is corrected in ALP Licensing versions 1.61.0 and later. Affected customers are advised to promptly download and install a corrective ALP Licensing version on any impacted machines.

CA ALP Licensing Download Page

To ensure successful deployment, CA Technical Support recommends that all CA Software running on the affected machine be shutdown prior to applying the new ALP Licensing update. Failure to do so may inhibit the installation of the Licensing update and possibly render it deficient.