Start and Stop Network License Manager

The network license manager manages the licenses available for checkout so that end users in your organization can use MathWorks^® products. The procedure to start and stop the license manager depends on your operating system.

Prerequisites

You installed the network license manager. See Install License Manager on License Server.
The username associated with the network license manager is defined locally on the computer, not on a network. The license manager starts correctly only if the startup process finds the username on the local computer, before network users are available.

Windows

To start and stop the network license manager on Windows^®, use one of the following options.

Start and Stop Interactively Using `lmtools.exe`

The lmtools.exe license management utility is included in your network license manager installation.

In File Explorer, navigate to the <lmroot>\etc\win64 folder, where <lmroot> is the location where you installed the network license manager. For example, this sample path uses the default installation location for the current release:
```
C:Program Files\MATLAB\R2025a\etc\win64
```
Double-click lmtools.exe to open the network license manager.
On the Start/Stop/Reread tab, click Start Server.

To stop the network license manager, click Stop Server on this tab.

Start and Stop Using Windows Service

If you configured the network license manager as a service during installation, then you can start the manager using the Windows Services control panel.

On the Windows Start menu, search for Services and select the Services app.
In the Services window, select the network license manager service. By default, this service is named MATLAB License Server.
Double-click the service name, and then click Start in the Properties dialog box.

To stop the network license manager, click Stop in this dialog box.

When you restart the computer, the service starts the network license manager automatically, so you need to start the service manually only if you have not restarted since installation.

Start and Stop as Application from Command Prompt

From the Windows command prompt, you can start the network license manager by using the lmgrd.exe license manager binary file. This file is included with your network license manager installation.

To prevent unwanted access to the network license manager, do not expose this binary file to the internet or an untrusted network.

From the Windows command prompt, navigate to <lmroot>\etc\<arch> folder, where <lmroot> is the location where you installed the network license manager and <arch> is the platform-specific architecture, such as win64. For example:
```
cd "C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2025a\etc\win64"
```
Start the network license manager.
```
lmgrd.exe -c <licenseFile> -l <logFile>
```
- <licenseFile> is the path to the license file, such as license.lic or license.dat.
- <logFile> is the path to the log file for the network license manager, such as lmlog.txt.

To stop the network license manager, enter this command:

lmutil.exe lmdown -c <licenseFile>

Linux or macOS

On Linux^® and macOS systems, you can start the network license manager only from the command line, using either the lmstart script or the license manager binaries.

Start and Stop Using `lmstart` and `lmdown` Scripts

The lmstart and lmdown scripts are available in your installation only if you installed the network license manager using the MathWorks installer available from the Downloads page.

From the command prompt for your operating system, navigate to the <lmroot>\etc folder, where <lmroot> is the location where you installed the network license manager.
Operating System Example
Linux cd ~/MATLAB/R2025a/etc
macOS (Intel^® processor or Apple silicon) cd /Applications/MATLAB_R2025a.app/etc
Start the network license manager. The lmstart script stops any currently running daemons and starts new ones.
```
./lmstart
```

Operating System	Example
Linux	`cd ~/MATLAB/R2025a/etc`
macOS (Intel^® processor or Apple silicon)	`cd /Applications/MATLAB_R2025a.app/etc`

To stop the network license manager, enter this command:

./lmdown

Start and Stop Using License Manager Binaries

The license manager binaries are available for download from the License Manager Download page. After downloading and unzipping the binary files, you can use the lmgrd binary to start the network license manager.

To prevent unwanted access to the network license manager, do not expose this binary file to the Internet or an untrusted network.

If possible, log in as a user other than root. The network license manager (lmgrd) does not require root permissions, and logging in as root might present a security risk.
If you must start the license manager as the root user, then use the su command to start lmgrd as a nonprivileged user, specified by <username>.
```
su <username> -c "lmgrd -c <licenseFile> -l <logFile>"
```
- <licenseFile> is the path to the license file, such as license.lic or license.dat.
- <logFile> is the path to the log file for the network license manager, such as lmlog.txt.

Navigate to the <lmroot>/etc/<arch> folder, where <lmroot> is the location where you installed the network license manager.

Operating System	Example
Linux	`cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2025a/etc/glnxa64`
macOS (Intel processor)	`cd /Applications/R2025a/etc/maci64`
macOS (Apple silicon)	`cd /Applications/R2025a/etc/maca64`

Start the network license manager.
```
./lmgrd -c <licenseFile> -l <logFile>
```

To stop the network license manager, enter this command:

./lmutil lmdown -c <licenseFile>

Configure Network License Manager to Start Automatically (Linux Systems Only)

On Linux systems, to configure the network license manager to start automatically during the startup process, use the standard method for starting services automatically on your Linux distribution.

Start the network license manager service with the -u <username> option, where <username> represents a valid username other than the root user.

The network license manager must start at the end of the system startup sequence. For the license manager to start correctly, the network must already be running. Use whatever mechanism your version of Linux provides to configure the startup sequence.