PFBucket Quick Start · Documentation

Setting up the PFBucketd server is straightforward, as described in the steps below. Once you have installed the PFBucketd server daemon on a machine and activated your entitlements, those entitlements can be used by any operator workstation that is able to connect to your server over your network.

Please note: Customers upgrading from older software who are using PFBucket for the first time should make sure to release all entitlements from PFManager first. Check here for further details.

Installation and Setup

1. Create an entitlement bucket

In order to user your entitlements, they must be placed in an entitlement bucket. Commercial customers can visit the PFAccount Admin Hub to create entitlement buckets, and place individual entitlements in the bucket.

To create a new entitlement bucket, visit the 'Product Entitlement Manager' page and click the 'Create New Bucket' button. Once a bucket is created, you can place an entitlement into it by changing the 'Token Type' to Dynamic, and selecting your bucket from the drop-down menu.

For Education account holders, your buckets have already been created for you so this step is not necessary.

Please Note: Do NOT generate static entitlement tokens if you wish to use PFBucket. These will not work with the PFBucketd server.

2. Install PFBucketd and PFBucket

Install the PFBucketd daemon on your server, and the PFBucket desktop app on a desktop computer with a local network connection to your server.

Note: on macOS Catalina, you may need to restart your server to ensure the PFBucketd daemon is running, or follow the instructions here to start it manually.

3. Start PFBucket and log in

In the Login/Logout tab select the account type and enter the PFAccount ID, the name of the entitlement bucket you want to activate or manage, the bucket's access code, and the name or local IP address of the server running PFBucketd.

Bucket names and access codes are set up when the bucket is created in the PFAccount Admin Hub.

Note that if you have installed PFBucketd on the same machine where you are running the PFBucket desktop app, you can use the local IP address 127.0.0.1 for your PFBucketd server when logging in.

PFBucket's login form

4. Activate the bucket on the server

In order for PFBucketd to make the bucket's entitlements available to network attached workstations, the bucket needs to be activated. In the Entitlements tab, click Activate All to activate the bucket on the given server.

The Entitlements tab before the bucket has been activated

Once the bucket has been activated, the bucket's entitlements will be listed below. Network attached workstations can use these entitlements to run The Pixel Farm's applications. Installers for these applications can be obtained directly from PFBucket's Downloads tab or from the PFAccount Hub.

The Entitlements tab showing the active bucket

You can now close the PFBucket desktop appon your computer. The PFBucketd server will remain running and distribute entitlements to network attached workstations as required. You only need to log in using the PFBucket desktop app again if you wish to check for new notifications, or use any of the tools such as tech support and entitlement management.

Note that if the Activate All button is greyed out, this means there are no entitlements available in the bucket to activate. Please visit the PFAccount Admin Hub, click the Administer Product Entitlements button and follow the instructions to place an entitlement in your bucket using drag-and-drop.

Connecting workstations to PFBucketd

Once your PFBucketd server is installed and your entitlement bucket is activated, you can run PFTrack or PFClean on workstations on the same local network as the PFBucketd server.

To install the PFTrack or PFClean applications, please download the appropriate installer from Downloads tab in the PFBucket app, or visit the PFAccount Admin Hub.

When launched, the application will attempt to contact PFBucketd on your local network and obtain an entitlement to run. If a connection to PFBucketd cannot be made automatically, you can specify which machine to connect to by editing the license.txt file at

/Applications/The Pixel Farm/license.txt

on your workstation and specifying the IP address of your PFBucketd server as follows:

SERVER 192.168.XX.XX:8070

Please replace "192.168.XX.XX" with the local IP address for your PFBucketd server machine. 8070 is the default port over which the application will attempt to communicate with PFBucketd. Please see here for further network configuration options.

Please note: this text should only by added to the license.txt file in your workstations, NOT to the license.txt file on your PFBucketd server.

Viewing PFBucketd server status

When your PFBucketd server is up and running, you can view an information webpage to quickly see which entitlements are available, and whether they are currently in use or not. To do this, open a web browser of your choice and go to the local IP address of your PFBucketd server using port 8071. For example, if your PFBucketd server is installed on a machine with the IP address 192.168.80.44, then entering

192.168.80.44:8071

in your web browser will display the PFBucketd information page.

Please note: this functionality is only available in the current BETA version of PFBucketd, available to customers with an active maintenance subscription.