Install MATLAB Production Server Product

Note

Prior to installing any MathWorks^® products, review instructions in Install Products on Client Machines.
MATLAB^® Production Server™ requires a network license manager. For details, see Install License Manager on License Server.
If your organization already has a network license manager installed, add the MATLAB Production Server license file to it.

Video Walkthrough on Windows

For a walkthrough of the installation and setup on Windows^®, watch the video.

Video walkthrough of MATLAB Production Server installation on Windows

This video takes you through the process of installing MATLAB Production Server on premises and start a server instance. This example uses the Windows command line for server creation, configuration, and startup. Before you begin, make sure you have all the following, a MathWorks account, a license of MATLAB Production Server, administrative rights for installing MATLAB Production Server on your system, the fixed MAC address of your licensed server, and an active internet connection.

First, activate your license by signing into the MathWorks License Center with your MathWorks account. Find the license for MATLAB production server and click on it. Go to the Install And Activate tab. Then click Activate to retrieve license file. Enter the fixed MAC address of the licensed server into the host ID field, and give us an activation name you can easily identify.

On the next screen, download the license file. You'll need this later. Also note that if you want to perform an offline installation, you'll need this file installation key. Now that your license is activated, you'll need to download the MathWorks Installer. You can navigate there by going to Manage Products where you can quickly direct yourself to the MathWorks Downloads page.

Choose your product version. Select your operating system. Save the installer and launch it from the setup.exe. Here, you'll install the Network License Manager, which manages software licenses for MathWorks products. Instead of signing in, click Advanced Options. I Want To Install Network License Manager.

After accepting the terms of the license agreement, you'll need to provide the path to the license file you downloaded earlier, find the license file, proceed to the next page where you'll specify the installation folder for the Network License Manager, and leave the option selected to install the License Manager as a Windows service.

Make sure everything looks good, and click Begin Install. After the License Manager is installed, you must start it up using the License Management utility contained in lmtools.exe. You can find it in the ETC folder of your License Manager installation. Go to the Start/Stop/Reread tab and simply click Start Server.

Go to the Server Status tab and perform a status enquiry to verify that the License Manager was successful in reading the MATLAB Production Server license file. This will be indicated by text that enumerates the total number of licensed workers. Now that the license manager has started, return to the MathWorks Installer and install MATLAB Production Server.

After signing in and accepting the license agreement, you'll see a list of licenses associated with your account. Select the one for MATLAB Production Server, then select the folder where you want to install it. You'll be prompted to select a license file, which is not the same as the license file downloaded from the License Center.

Instead, navigate to the ETC folder of your License Manager installation and choose the license.dat file. It contains information for linking to the licensed server, including the host and port name. On the next screen, make sure MATLAB Production Server is selected, and after confirming the details, click Begin install.

After the installation is complete, you'll see the final steps to set up your environment to use MATLAB Production Server, the most important of which is installing MATLAB Runtime on your system. Optionally, you can add the script folder mentioned here to your system path environment variable, which gives the administrative convenience of being able to run Matlab production server commands from any folder.

Let's talk a bit about MATLAB runtime, which is a standalone set of shared libraries that can be downloaded by anyone, even if they don't have any MathWorks related licenses. It enables the execution of compiled MATLAB applications and components, even on computers that do not have Matlab installed.

As mentioned here, MATLAB Production Server will work with the last six versions of MATLAB Runtime. You might need to install multiple releases of MATLAB Runtime depending on which releases of MATLAB were used to compile the applications you plan to deploy. Download and install the relevant versions of MATLAB runtime from the MathWorks website.

This example downloads the one from release 2020 A on Windows. The installation process is very straightforward. Find the setup.exe, accept the license agreement, choose the installation folder and install. Repeat this process for any other versions you require.

After the MATLAB Runtime installation is complete, you'll need to configure all the server instances that you create with MATLAB Production Server to use the versions of MATLAB Runtime you install. Simply open a command prompt with admin privileges and navigate to the Script folder of your MATLAB Production Server installation.

The MPS Setup command will search your system for all installed MATLAB Runtime versions. Follow the prompts to set the default version of MATLAB Runtime to be used by all server instances. Now we can create an instance of Matlab Production Server that can run packaged applications use the MPS New command with a server name of your choosing.

To start that server instance, use MPS Start with the -C option in the server name. Use MPS Status with a -C option in the server name, and look for the text indicating that a license has been checked out to verify that your server is running.

Using commands with a Windows command prompt enables you to automate these administrative processes, but do note that you can use a browser based dashboard interface to create, configure, and manage your server instances. You can learn more about the browser interface and find answers to other questions in the online documentation from Matlab Production Server.

Video Player is loading.

Current Time 0:00

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

Stream Type LIVE

Remaining Time 0:00

Install

Note

MATLAB Production Server is not supported on macOS (Apple silicon).

Installing the MATLAB Production Server product requires a valid software license, which you can obtain by purchasing the product or requesting a trial. For more information, visit the MathWorks Store.

To start the installation, run the MathWorks installer and select the MATLAB Production Server product for installation. To download the installer, visit MathWorks Downloads. For instructions, see Download and Install MATLAB. For installation instructions without an internet connection, see Install Products on Offline Computer.

The installation process creates a default installation folder based on your operating system and the release version. For instance, the default installation folder for R2025a is as follows:

Operating System	Default Installation Folder
Windows	`C:\Program Files\MATLAB\MATLAB Production Server\R2025a`
Linux^®	`/usr/local/MATLAB/MATLAB_Production_Server/R2025a`
macOS (Intel^® processor)	`/Applications/MATLAB/MATLAB_Production_Server/R2025a`

Once the installation is complete, you can set up and configure the server from the $MPS_INSTALL\script folder. For details, see Set Up MATLAB Production Server Using the Command Line.

To configure licenses for use on cloud platforms, see Configure MATLAB Production Server License for Use on the Cloud.

Uninstall

To uninstall the MATLAB Production Server product, follow the usual instructions for uninstalling MathWorks products. For more information, see Uninstall MATLAB.