License issue while using gurobi in Ubuntu on Windows WSL

Answered

Victor Hugo Nascimento

• October 01, 2020 17:34
• Edited

I'm using Gurobi 9.0.2 in a Ubuntu 18.04 WSL2 environment on Windows 10 Pro. My problem is that every time I reboot my PC and run Gurobi on Ubuntu again the license stops being recognized, throwing an "HostID mismatch" exception.

Since I'm a student, I'm able to generate another academic license, but is there any other solution than generating another license every time I reboot my system?

4

• Official comment

  

  Matthias Miltenberger

  Gurobi Staff

  • November 16, 2022 14:36
  • Edited

  With the new Gurobi 10.0, you can also use WLS licenses in WSL2 without any issues.

  Cheers,
  Matthias
• 

  Gwyneth Butera

  Gurobi Staff

  • October 01, 2020 18:23

  Hi Victor - 

  Two suggestions:

  1. 1. Can you try using WSL1? Please see our Knowledge Base article:  What system changes can invalidate a license file?
  2. 2. Does you university have a site license that you can access from your PC?

  Gwyneth

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• 

  Jakub Med

  • March 09, 2022 13:43

  

  

  Hi Gwyneth,

  I see this is not a frequent problem, so there is not intention to do something with it, but right now I am facing the same problem. I have gurobi installed on the WSL2; no, I cannot use WSL1 for other reasons; and I do not think that my university have a site license.

  I think I will just install gurobi on Windows and download python there, but that is not a pretty solution.

  Jakub Med

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• 

  Linden Wells

  • April 09, 2022 10:22

  

  

  Jakub Med I followed the steps outlined in https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5352#issuecomment-1076336583
  It's working for me so far.

  It works by fixing the MAC address at startup. Make sure you fix the MAC address to the one used by gurobi; in my case, I generated a fresh academic licence, ran grbgetkey with that key and copied the mac address into the script you can find at the link.

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• 

  Mattia

  • April 25, 2022 08:52

  

  

  I have the same problem and I tried what Linden suggests. I manage to set the MAC address on eth0 (renamed from bond0) and have internet connectivity from eth1 (renamed from eth0), but grbprobe now is picking up the HostID from eth1, so this still doesn't solve it for me.

  Which network adapter is supposedly used for gurobi's licences? (eth0, the one with internet connectivity, ...)

  0
• 

  Linden Wells

  • June 11, 2022 02:14

  

  

  Hi Mattia, apologies for the late reply. You might've figured it out, found an alternative solution or given up by now.

  If grbprobe is now picking up the HostID from eth1, then so be it; can you request another licence that's tied to the mac address that you force-fixed on eth1? I think that's what I did. I have 10 academic licences from me badgering about, changing computers etc.

  Open source gurobi when? That'd fix it.

  This issue is icky hey...

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• 

  Matthias Miltenberger

  Gurobi Staff

  • July 05, 2022 15:47
  • Edited

  Hey everyone!

  Please excuse us for not following up here.

  Manually assigning a fixed MAC address to your network adapter inside WSL is actually a viable solution. Please see this Help Center article for details: How do I set up Gurobi in WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)?

  Best regards,
  Matthias

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• 

  Emmanuel Balogun

  • February 23, 2023 17:15

  

  

  Just wanted to follow up on this. Will Gurobi ever fix this internally or has it already been fixed? I am having the same issue as above.

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• 

  Gwyneth Butera

  Gurobi Staff

  • February 23, 2023 17:51

  This is a known challenge and is a result of how WSL handles network addresses. The following article describes two solutions: How do I set up Gurobi in WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)?
  
  If you choose to use "Option 1" in the article, instructions to request a free Academic Gurobi WLS license can be found on our Academic License Program website. 

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