One server - two watchers

[ceejayemm]

I have been running MinimServer for a while within a Docker environment and have a full license which is activated. I have been using MinimWatch on a Windows 10 PC which has resulted in the following License information:

Linux (Docker) 2022-05-01 08:36:57 UTC

Today I have acquired a new Linux based laptop and have installed (only) MinimWatch on this laptop expecting it to use the same license to access the existing MinimServer installation. This doesn't seem to have happened and I have now used up another license slot with the following details:

Oracle Linux Server 7.8 2022-05-19 20:27:34 UTC

Why ? To be clear I only have ONE MinimServer installation.

Surely it is the server installation which is licensed not the MinimWatch installations ? I have now used up my 3 license slots due to an old Linux Docker installation (2022-01-26) which I can't remove due to having redeployed, rather than restarted, the original the Linux Docker server installation. I do wish there was an easy way to remove these spurious licenses when this happens, but you have told me in the past this isn't possible.

Do I need the 'new' Oracle Linux Server 7.8 license and can it, and the Linux Docker 2022-01-26 version, be removed ?

Chris

[simoncn]

You are correct that there is no license activation for a MinimWatch installation.

A MinimServer (not MinimWatch) installation running on Oracle Linux Server 7.8 was activated with a full license at 20:27:34 GMT today.

In addition, there is an activated full license for a MinimServer installation running on Linux (Docker) that was activated on 1st May on what appears to be the same machine.

As far as I can tell, the new installation of MinimServer on Oracle Linux Server 7.8 is not running in a Docker container.

There is also an activated full license for a MinimServer installation running on Linux (Docker) that was activated on 26th January, again on what appears to be the same machine. I have removed this activation manually as you are no longer using it.

[ceejayemm]

Simon

I installed MinimWatch on my new Linux laptop last night expecting it to be able to connect to my (one and only) Docker based MinimServer installation. I was able to do this but the Log screen was telling that it was unable to connect to the web radio streams I run from that server as I only had a 'Starter' license (not true as you have seen). In order to stream the web radio stations I had to re-apply my existing license which resulted in the Oracle Linux Server 7.8 license slot being used (why this name as the laptop is running MX Linux ?) from 20:27:34 GMT yesterday. The only reason I installed another license was to resolve the Web Radio streaming issues (which have now gone) with this new MinimWatch installation.

Has this this installation of MininWatch somehow installed a full version of MinimServer on my laptop ? I can't find anything which tells me this is the case. MinimWatch on the laptop, to all intents and purposes, is showing me information from the Docker based server. Media players (WMP for example and VLC) only see one installation of MinimServer (the Docker based version).

I am currently at a loss to understand what is happening here.

Chris

[simoncn]

I have checked the license server logs. This instance of MinimServer running on Oracle Linux Server 7.8 was first activated on 8th May at 08:54:00 GMT. At that time it was activated as a starter license and was apparently not running in a Docker container (or could not be identified by MinimServer as running in a Docker container). Does this correlate with some change you made on or about 8th May to your Linux system running MinimServer?

Also, please clarify the setup of your Linux system running MinimServer in a Docker container (both the host system and the OS image you are using in your Docker container). Are you using the official minimworld/minimserver 2.1 Docker image from dockerhub.com or did you create the Docker image in some other way?

[ceejayemm]

Simon

The last time I can remember needing to do anything with the Licence setup was with the Docker installation which, as I mentioned before, I redeployed by accident. That would have been around the 1st of May. I had forgotten to set the restart option to 'Start Unless Stopped' and I should simply have made the change and restarted the container but I redeployed it by mistake. Due to this I needed to add (to slot 2) the Full License I have in order to use this newly deployed container.

I have only ever used the official minimworld/minimserver 2.1 Docker image to create my containers. All my servers run Debian 10 or 11 and I don't have any Oracle servers that I am aware of unless another Docker container makes use of it. As noted earlier my new laptop is based on MX Linux which I believe is also Debian based. I have also checked all my Docker installations and as far as I can tell I only have one MinimServer container.

I am afraid I can't recall what I might have been doing on May 8th but after the accidental redeployment above I haven't had any need to make any changes to my Docker MinimServer installation which has been working OK as far as I am aware.

It was only after I installed MinimWatch on my new laptop last night that I discovered the Oracle based Starter license in Slot 3 as MinimWatch was telling me it wasn't licensed to run the web radio streams I use. I did apply my full license to Slot 3 last night in order to get MinimWatch working, thus changing its status from Starter to Full. As I mentioned earlier, once I got MinimWatch fully working, apparently using the license in Slot 3, it appears to show me the Properties details of the original Docker installation (in Slot 2) eg library paths etc which then caused me to raise this support ticket however I don't use many non-default properties to run my MinimServer.

If there are any log files I can provide which might help solve this problem please let me know. Likewise if there is any debugging work to be done I can try this too.

Chris

[simoncn]

Thanks very much for this. Please run the following commands from the MX Linux host system and also from the Docker container for MinimServer:

cat /proc/version
cat /etc/issue
cat /etc/os-release

I am hoping this will show where "Oracle Linux Server 7.8" is coming from.

[ceejayemm]

Simon

Thanks for reopening this ticket. I have attached a text file containing the results of the commands as requested. I have also included some additional information from Portainer regarding the layers in your image which also offers a clue - see below.

Working through these commands has jogged my memory and I can now begin to join the dots towards what might have happened here. The key I think is May 8th.

I have long been using OpenMediaVault (OMV) as the source of my music library and OVM provides a plugin to Docker and Portainer which I prefer t the Docker command line. On May 8th I upgraded OMV from v5.x (Debian 10) to v6.x (Debian 11.x) which also required upgrading the Docker (to v20.10.16) and Portainer (v2.11 to v2.13) plugins. The upgrade went without a hitch with no errors/problems being experienced. All my Portainer hosted containers appeared to work as expected - although I have to admit I didn't specifically check whether the MinimStreamer options were working at this time. I didn't see anything to suggest that the containers had been redeployed but, again with hindsight, they must have been at least restarted if not actually redeployed.

Looking at the information in the attached document it does appear that the name 'Oracle Linux Server 7.8' actually comes from the layers in your image. When this was originally deployed (under OMV v5.x) it seems that the Portainer container identified this as 'Linux (Docker)' to your License server. However after the OMV upgrade the new container was identified as 'Oracle Linux Server 7.8' to your License Server. Thus triggering the need for a new license slot?

I hope this gives some clues as to what is happening in my case.

Regards.

Chris

[simoncn]

Thanks for this. It seems that the reason for creating a new license activation was the change to the new Portainer container which is based on Oracle Linux Server 7.8.

Also, for some reason not yet understood, MinimServer was not able to identify this as a Docker container. I will send you a PM with some commands that I would like you to run in this container.

[simoncn]

This problem was caused by MinimServer not identifying the Portainer container correctly as a Docker container. It is fixed now in MinimServer update 216.