EC2 render farm

[visualrender]

Hey all,

I've been trying to set up a couple of nodes on AWS to help with rendering.
I'm using 3ds max 2016, vray 3.4 and backburner.

I'm able to send render tasks from our inhouse machines to ec2 nodes successfully (without vray),
but once i need to render with vray i get -200 unable to obtain license.

The license server is held on a windows server 2012 box (In house), which is also the Backburner manager.
VRL is running on 0.0.0.0:30304. I've disabled windows firewall. And I've been assured by the company that
manages our router that all ports are open by default.

However, when i run any/all web based port checkers they all say [publicIP]:30304 is Closed.
As far as i can figure out that just means there is nothing LISTENING on that port, not that its actually closed.

Been hitting my head against a wall for a week now. Any pointers are super helpful!
Thank you

[benb32]

You'll have to configure the router to forward the ports to the licence server (server 2012 box) or create a VPN tunnel between AWS and your router. Doing the port forwarding is less complicated and quicker but also has reduced security.

[benb32]

https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...+V-Ray+License

From the docks the port you need to forward is 30304.

[visualrender]

Thanks alot for the reply. The people managing our router have assured me port forwarding doesn't need to happen. Although i'm not convinced they're correct. Either way, i'd going to bug them until they do it at least i can cross it off my troublehshoot list. And i'll look into the vpn tunnel today. Is they anything that simply gets overlooked when setting up a EC2 render farm? This is the first time i'm doing this, and i'm pretty sure i might of missed something somewhere.

[visualrender]

If i was to make the machine running vray license server use a static IP (its currently dynamic) would that mean port forwarding wouldn't be necessary?

[benb32]

Port forwarding isn't nessasary if you're using a VPN - all traffic gets tunnelled into your remote network, including the licence requests.

You can use a machine name for your licence server address which would resolve to its IP even if the dynamic IP changes.

Seems you're looking at two different solutions - accessing the licence server via VPN (in which case don't need to configure port forwarding on the router) - accessing the licence server via the external public static IP of the remote router (you will need to setup port forwarding for this, and a static internal IP for your licence server machine).

Find out which method you want to use then setup the VPN / port forwarding for your chosen method.

[visualrender]

Hey Ben,

So I've gone with a VPN approach. I've set one up on aws and can connect to it via windows server (the machine with vrl server on)... Now i'm at a loss...
Is there a site some where you can point me too? Or a maybe a list of steps i can research?

Cheers,

[benb32]

The docs I linked to from my earlier post below should be good for getting you started. There's a part where you can open a Web browser, on the AWS, and type the address (would recommend giving your vray license server a static address, incase the machine name isn't resolved accross the VPN) your machine running the licence server and port number - will show you the license server Web page. This will confirm you have connectivity. If this does not work then you know you may have to add an exception to the firewall on your licence server. Also test whether the licence server works with local clients - if it does it means something is blocking the licence server port on the AWS side.

Do double check that you have the latest dongle drivers, will save you lots of hassle!