The instructions below refer to mental ray for Maya 2013 and mental ray standalone 3.10.1. For information on previous versions, refer to the documentation for that version of Maya or mental ray.
Why can’t I install the rayserver service or edit the services file?
Ensure you have administrator (or root) privileges on the machine.
I have everything correctly set up, but I still can't network render.
Here are various possibilities to check.
One possibility is that the network port number you are using is already being used by another service. Ensure that there is no other entry in the services file that is using port 31010 (mental ray standalone) or port 7413 (mental ray for Maya Satellite). If that port number is already taken, you need to pick a new available port number and use that same number for all master and slave machines that are to work together.
You may need to change the port number.
To do so on Linux and Windows, edit the port services file located at:
In the services file, ensure that the following line exists:
where 7413 or 31010 is the port number. Make sure the port number is the same on the master machine and all slave machines.
Restarting the service (Windows)
To restart the server on Windows, go to mental ray bin directory and type the following:
raysat2013server.exe /stop raysat2013server.exe /start
rayserver.exe /stop rayserver.exe /start
xinetd needs to be installed on the Linux platform to allow for network rendering with mental ray Standalone and mental ray Satellite.
As super user, execute the command: yum install xinetd, and then reboot before installing mental ray Standalone or mental ray Satellite.
To check your xinetd configuration on Linux
ls /etc/xinetd.d
There should be a file named mi-ray (mental ray standalone) or mi-raysat (mental ray for Maya Satellite).
# description: mental ray for maya network rendering service mi-ray
{ flags = REUSE socket_type = stream user = nobody wait = no server = /usr/local/mi35/bin/rayd log_on_failure += USERID }
mental ray for Maya Satellite:
# description: mental ray for maya network rendering service mi-raysat
{ flags = REUSE socket_type = stream user = nobody wait = no server = /usr/local/mi35/bin/raysatd log_on_failure += USERID }
/etc/init.d/xinetd restart
ps -e | grep -v grep | grep xinetd
You should see a line similar to this:
980 ? 00:00:02 xinetd
The first number is the process id of xinetd.
If the system is RedHat 7.2, xinetd re-reads its configuration on receipt of the USR2 signal. For RedHat 7.3 it re-reads its configuration on receipt of the HUP signal. So for a RedHat 7.3 system where xinetd's process id is 980 you would execute:
kill -HUP 980
xinetd should have found the new service and you should be able to send it render requests from another node on the network.
How do I run multiple versions of mental ray on one machine?
If you want to run different versions of mental ray standalone in one machine, make sure that each version has its own mi-ray* entry in the services file.
For example, if you have mental ray 3.3 and mental ray 3.4 in one machine, and you can change the mi-ray entry for mental ray 3.3 (or 3.4).
Create your own mi-ray variable for mental ray 3.3 in the services file.
The services file might look like this
mi-ray 7003/tcp # used for mental ray 3.4 mi-raysat 7103/tcp # used for mental ray satellite 3.4 mi-ray_33 7155/tcp # used for mental ray 3.3
The server also needs to be updated.
To rename the server file (Windows)
To rename the server file (Linux)
{ flags = REUSE socket_type = stream user = nobody wait = no server = /usr/local/mi33/bin/ray_33d log_on_failure += USERID }
Due to a number of changes between mental ray satellite for previous versions of Maya and the current mental ray satellite, there are incompatibilities with using a master (with the current release of Maya) with slaves using a previous version of Maya.