Infrastructure Guidelines System-on-Chip Design

This page contains some practical guidelines to help you connecting to the Linux server, transferring and printing files, etc.

Please do not rush into logging in and trying to run the CAD tools as fast as possible. First read the documents VHDL for Synthesis and Simulation (the roster on Blackboard mentions the sections to study) and Concise Manual for the Modelsim/Questasim Simulator.
The exercises will be carried out on a Linux server called xoc2.ewi.utwente.nl. The lab PC or your laptop will act as a terminal to connect to the server. This means that using some local communication program, your local mouse clicks and keystrokes will need to be forwarded to the server and that graphics from the server will need to be shown on your local display.
Note: server xoc2.ewi.utwente.nl is not accessible from outside the University of Twente domain. If you are located off campus, you should first set up a VPN, following the instructions as given by LISA.
Communication can be established in many ways. The description below assumes that you are running Microsoft Windows. If you are running Linux, redirecting Linux graphical output to your screen is automatic if you use secure shell with the redirection option ssh -Y or ssh -X. For MacOS, you need to first install XQuartz (https://www.xquartz.org); then, you can connect with secure shell in the same way as in Linux. Please search the internet yourself for details.
So, assuming that the local PC or laptop is running Microsoft Windows, the recommended way is to use Mobaxterm. If you are using your own computer, download and install this program first.
Your login name for the server is your student account (an s followed by your student number). Only students registered to the course can login (if you are a late registrant, you will need to request access explicitly). Your password is your generic password for University of Twente authentication. Be aware that the Linux server does not echo anything while you are typing your password.
Launch Mobaxterm and then subsequently click on the session and ssh (secure shell) buttons. Supply xoc2.ewi.utwente.nl as the server name and your login name as the username. Supply your password when asked for it.
If everything went well, you should now have a shell on machine xoc2. You will launch various applications needed by the exercises using the command line in this shell. If you are not sufficiently at ease with Linux/Unix commands, study the the on-line Unix Tutorial. You need to have a file in your Linux home directory called .bashrc with the following contents (check the contents with cat .bashrc):
. ~socadmin/defaults/soc.bashrc
If you don't have it, the easiest way to achieve this is to type on the command line:
echo ". ~socadmin/defaults/soc.bashrc" > .bashrc
You also need to have a file .bash_profile in your home directory with content:
. ~/.bashrc
If you don't have it, the easiest way to achieve this is to type on the command line:
echo ". ~/.bashrc" > .bash_profile
After you have created the files .bashrc and .bash_profile with the correct content, log out (type exit) and reconnect.
The following screenshot for a Mobaxterm connection displays a correct configuration ready to launch the tools.

The blue-and-red command prompt on a white background is a sign that soc.bashrc has been correctly sourced. In the prompt, you should see your own login name instead socadmin. The two cat commands confirm that .bash_profile and .bashrc have the corect contents.
The file ~socadmin/defaults/soc.bashrc takes care of everything you need for the projects. It runs the necessary tool start-up scripts and sets environment variables. You should not attempt to run start-up scripts or set environment variables by yourself!
For printing, you should use the University of Twente generic facilities. To copy PostScript or PDF files that have been generated on the Linux server (actually, just any file), you can use Mobaxterm as well. You can set up a separate SFTP (secure FTP) session or make use of the SFTP tab connected to your ssh session.
On the Linux server, you can convert PostScript into PDF by means of the command ps2pdf. You can convert a VHDL text file into a nicely prettyprinted PDF document by means of vhd2pdf. You can use evince to view PDF documents.

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Last update on: Sat Feb 29 00:23:37 CET 2020by Sabih Gerez.