University of Southern California

USC Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

EE457L: Running QuestaSim on Windows via X-Win 32

Sudheendra Chennupati

Last Update: Feb 2020

Contents

1. Introduction32. Connecting to Server via X-Win 3243. Copying files from viterbi-scf servers to local machine74. QuestaSim setup8

1. Introduction

There are some programs or simple applications which you can run on your own local machine, such as Microsoft Word, Calculator, Snipping Tool, etc. But in order to work on the lab assignments, we need to use some software which are available on the UNIX servers. We use QuestaSim® Advanced Simulator for our EE354L/EE457L labs. QuestaSim® is installed on our USC UNIX servers, so it’s ready to for the students to use it directly without the hassle of installing the tools on the local machine. To use them, you should connect to one of the following servers:

· viterbi-scf1

· viterbi-scf2

To login into one of the servers, we need a USC user name which has been already given to you (take a look into this for more information).

This tutorial will teach you how to:

1st: Connect to USC UNIX servers from your own machine (e.g. your laptop or USC public PCs at libraries) with Windows.

2nd: Setup your UNIX user so you can use QuestaSim® with appropriate license file and libraries.

Notes:

1. USC Information Technology Service (ITS) customer support service provides support to the USC community for connecting to the USC Network and using supported applications.

1. You can use software freely distributed by ITS for different operating systems here.

1. Being familiar with UNIX system and its commands is necessary. If you are not familiar with UNIX, the following link is a good starting point.

1. If you have any license issues when you run X-Win32, you can either try to connect to USC Secure Wireless (how-to link: http://itservices.usc.edu/wireless/) or use USC VPN (how-to link: http://itservices.usc.edu/vpn/).

2. Connecting to Server via X-Win 32

In order to login to our UNIX servers, we need to install X-Win32. You can download X-Win32 from here. Steps to install and setup your server:

· Download X-Win32 from the link above and select the “Download for Students” option as shown below:

· Install the executable downloaded. Keep clicking on “Next” and follow the default installation steps. Click on “Finish” when the installation is done.

· Start X-Win32. To connect to one of our servers, select “Manual” option from the left options pane and choose “ssh” from the pop up that comes as shown below.

· After selecting “ssh”, fill in the details in the New Connection Window and “Save” as seen below.

Note: Fill in your USC user ID (without the “@usc.edu”) and Password in the respective fields. In the “Host” field, you can either fill “viterbi-scf1.usc.edu” or “viterbi-scf2.usc.edu”. Once the configuration is saved, you don’t need to redo the above steps when you launch X-Win32 again.

· Click on “Launch” on the left pane of X-Win32. You might get a pop-up asking if you want to accept the key, click on “Accept”. In case the pop-up doesn’t come up, ignore this step.

· Once you have launched X-Win32, a small xterm window must pop-up as shown below. If you see a window similar to the one below, Congratulations!! you’re on the viterbi-scf server and your X-Win32 is all setup :)

· You can setup multiple connections by following the steps given above. It would be convenient if you create two separate connections for “viterbi-scf1.usc.edu” and “viterbi-scf2.usc.edu”.

3. Copying files from viterbi-scf servers to local machine

To copy files from the Viterbi-scf server to your local drives, you need to use FileZilla. You can download it from here and install it.

To transfer files between your machine and your user, open Filezilla, use viterbi-scf1.usc.edu or viterbi-scf2.usc.edu as host and 22 as Port. The username and password are the same as your X-Win32 connection.

After completing the information, press “Quickconnect”. FileZilla shows Local site which is your own personal machine, and Remote site which is your directory in viterbi-scf server. ReNavigate and choose files from the left window to upload and files from the right window to download. (Double click on the files or Drag and Drop to download/upload)

4. QuestaSim setup

· Go to your home directory and open the .cshrc file by running the following commands on your xterm terminal:

cd ~

gedit .cshrc &

· At the end of your .cshrc file, add the following snippet.

if (! $?LM_LICENSE_FILE) then

setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE "1715@lic-modelsim.usc.edu"

else

setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE "1715@lic-modelsim.usc.edu:$LM_LICENSE_FILE"

endif

if (! $?PATH) then

setenv PATH /usr/local/questa_formal/share/modeltech/bin

else

setenv PATH /usr/local/questa_formal/share/modeltech/bin:$PATH

endif

· Save the .cshrc file after adding the above lines and close the editor.

Source your .cshrc file again and invoke QuestaSim by typing the following two commands on your terminal.

source .cshrc

vsim &

NOTE: You don’t need to repeat these steps again when you open X-Win32 and launch the xterm. Just “vsim &” is enough to launch QuestaSim

· QuestaSim will be invoked as shown below:

· Try opening a Verilog file via the QuestaSim editor and see if the font is fine. Sometimes you might run into a problem as shown in the screenshot below:

To fix this problem, open your QuestaSim config file by running the following command on your terminal “gedit ~/.modelsim &”. Find “PrefDefault = ... textFontV2 {Courier 12}” (the name of the font may differ). Change 12 to -12, so it will look like this: textFontV2 {Courier -12}. Save your file after making these changes. Close QuestaSim and reopen it by running “vsim &”.

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