Licensing and Installation

Tip of the Week: Preventing the Configurator from Running

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:01:46 GMT

When you install products from SDD releases (PADS, EE, BSXE, etc) the default action on Windows platforms is to automatically run the Configurator utility. This utility registers dlls, prompts the user for information to set environment variables, creates Start Menu entries and desktop icons for some applications.

For a variety of reasons, running the Configurator during the install process may not be desirable. You may be installing a software tree to be used for a client/server installation, and have no need to run any of the tools on the machine used as a server. Or perhaps you are an administrator installing software on a system image, and the intent is to have the person receiving the newly imaged system run the Configurator.

Regardless, this is easily done by setting a system environment variable:

SDD_NOCONFIG=1

When this variable is set, the installer extracts all the packages but does not configure the system. This can be done at a later time by opening a command shell, going to the C:\MentorGraphics\win32 directory, and running the configurator.exe command.

Note that you must make sure the SDD_NOCONFIG variable has been removed, otherwise the Configurator will not run, as instructed by the presence of the variable.

Tip of the Week: Using licenses for different hostids on one server

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 12 May 2013 07:01:44 GMT

Two weeks ago, my colleague posted a tip of the week about how to combine licenses from two software vendors into one license file. This week I will look at how to use two licenses from the same vendor - but created for different server IDs.

Background Information:

If you have two sets of licenses for one server, they can only be combined into one license file if the SERVER IDs are the same.
Only one instance of a vendor daemon (the Mentor daemon is "mgcld") can run on one machine.

This means that if you have two sets of licenses for the same daemon, but created for different IDs (for example a MacAddress and a Hardware Key) then:

They cannot be combined into one license file (because the server IDs are different).
You cannot run two servers (because only one "mgcld" can run at any time).

How to use both sets of licenses:

If your license server machine is running Windows, then by following the instructions below, you can use both sets of licenses. Note - this will not work for other operating systems. (The instructions below assume you already know how to set up a license server using lmtools.)

1) Create a folder to contain all the licenses, and save each license as a separate file with a .lic extension. For example:

C:\Licenses\modelsim.lic - this file contains:

SERVER put_server_name_here 001234567890 1717

DAEMON mgcld path_to_mgcld

INCREMENT msimhdlsim mgcld 2013.120 31-dec-2013 ...

C:\Licenses\pads.lic - this file contains:

SERVER put_server_name_here FLEXID=9-87654321 1717

DAEMON mgcld path_to_mgcld

INCREMENT padses_c mgcld 2013.090 30-sep-2013 ...

2) Edit the licenses so that they contain the name of your server, and the location of the vendor daemon. (The SERVER and DAEMON lines will be the same for each license, apart from the server ID which must not be changed.) So in the example above:

C:\Licenses\modelsim.lic - after changes:

SERVER my_pc 001234567890 1717

DAEMON mgcld C:\MentorGraphics\Licensing\mgcld.exe

INCREMENT msimhdlsim mgcld 2013.120 31-dec-2013 ...

C:\Licenses\pads.lic - after changes:

SERVER my_pc FLEXID=9-87654321 1717

DAEMON mgcld C:\MentorGraphics\Licensing\mgcld.exe

INCREMENT padses_c mgcld 2013.090 30-sep-2013 ...

3) In the "Config Services" tab within "lmtools", in the box entitled "Path to the license file" - enter the folder name containing the licenses, instead of the path to a license file. So in the example above:

Path to the license file = C:\Licenses

4) Check "Use Services", and "Save Service" as usual, then start the server in the "Start/Stop/Reread" tab.

Your license server should now show that both sets of licenses are available.

Tip of the Week: Finding Large Files on Windows 7

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 05 May 2013 07:01:44 GMT

Is your disk space getting low? Is Windows warning you about disk space on your C: drive? Large files can be written in places your may not expect and then forgotten. The following is a simple procedure to help you quickly locate the large files that are consuming the disk space you need for other things:

Open Windows Explorer (Windows key+E)
Select the drive you wish to search
In the Search Computer field in the upper right type size:gigantic
As you type, a drop down list may appear giving you other options like Huge, Large, etc...
Press Enter and the search will begin

Once the results are displayed you may sort the results or change the View to list details about the files, including the Folder Path which will help you decide what you can safely delete. And when I say safely, I mean you should be sure you know the file is safe to delete. ;-)

Feel free to share your feedback or your own tips about finding large files in the comments.

Tip of the Week: Reducing licensing delays at startup on Windows

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:02:25 GMT

If you are experiencing slow invocation times with one or more of your Mentor Graphics applications - here are some general tips and techniques, as well as application-specific options (for Expedition PCB and PADS Layout), that are available for use:

Check your licensing environment for any invalid or duplicate license server (port@host) references.

If you find any, remove them.
A quick and easy tool for editing your licensing environment is the Mentor License Utility:

Using the Mentor License Utility to query and edit the licensing environment (video)

Note: Before making any changes to the environment you can back-up your current settings via the 'File>Export Environment' menu-pick. To import previously saved settings navigate to 'File>Import Environment'.

2. Check your licensing environment for any license files containing un-edited lines starting with "SERVER put_server_name_here"

If you find any, AND your machine is NOT intended to be a license server:
- Add a pound/hash character at the beginning of the line and also the line after it (starts with "DAEMON")

3. If you have any non-Mentor Graphics (mgcld daemon) license files or port@host references in your environment

Make sure all your Mentor Graphics (mgcld daemon) licenses and port@host references reside under the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE environment variable
- If not, you can use the Mentor License Utility to move them

3b. If you have any non-Mentor Graphics (mgcld daemon) license files or port@host references set in the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable or registry entry

Set the MGLS_LICENSE_SEARCH environment variable to a value of 1. When set, Mentor Graphics licensing will ignore the LM_LICENSE_FILE values (and other vendor licenses) if it finds that the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE is set.

How to set or edit an environment variable on Windows

4. Use any application-specific license options/dialogs to reduce the number of licenses that get checked during the invocation

Two good example applications are Expedition PCB and PADS Layout, both of which check for many licenses on invocation in order to enable as many options as possible.
- Note: This information only applies to users pointing to a license server for licenses
- The reason it's not necessary to take these measures with a local Mobile Compute (a.k.a. Nodelocked Uncounted) license file, is because the checkouts are much quicker (no network latency), so any additional checks shouldn't add any noticeable delays to the invocation.

Expedition PCB

The default behavior is to check for all the options licenses in order to display the following dialog. In this example only the base licenses for Expedition Pinnacle, Ascent LX, and Ascent.

If it is taking a long time for the above dialog to appear, there are two options available:

A). Set the MGC_DISABLE_PRESPLASH_CHECKS environment variable to 1.

The MGC_DISABLE_PRESPLASH_CHECKS variable changes the number of licenses the Expedition checks for on invocation. Instead of checking for every option license it only looks for a base license (for Pinnacle, Ascent LX, or Ascent).
When the license selection dialog appears, all options are selectable regardless of whether or not a license exists and is available.
- If you select an option that you don't have a license for (or it's not available) you will get a licensing warning after you click OK (and before Expedition comes up)
- This option works well if you just want to select one of the first 4 radio buttons (for Pinnacle, Ascent LX, Ascent, or Xtreme Design Client), and checkout (and in) any option licenses via the 'Setup>Licensed Modules' menu-pick (on-demand licensing).

B). Add one of the following switches to the Expedition PCB Start Menu shortcut target path:

/pinnacle

/ascentlx

/ascent

Right click on the Expedition PCB shortcut, and select "Properties".
Add the switch to the end of the "Target" field (add a space in-between)
Click Apply and OK.

With any of these switches in place, Expedition will bypass the license selection dialog and go directly into the requested mode (for Pinnacle, Ascent LX, or Ascent), provided the licenses are available.
- You can then checkout (and in) any option licenses via the 'Setup>Licensed Modules' menu-pick

PADS Layout

By default PADS Layout checks for all available options as seen in the 'Help>Installed Options...' dialog.

To change the behavior and have PADS Layout look for only those licenses that you have available, you can uncheck the 'Checkout all available options' and then uncheck the 'Not Available' options.
- Note: If you add option licenses to your license server, PADS Layout will not pick these up (it's no longer looking for all available licenses). You would need to set the 'Checkout all available options' again, temporarily, to see what new options have become available.

Tip of the Week: Combining multiple vendors under one license manager.

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 07:02:25 GMT

The server hostids of the licenses to be combined must be identical. For example:
License file 1: SERVER mozart 0050CCA420A3 1717
License file 2: SERVER server 0050CCA420A3 1700
In this example, the MAC address of the machine being used for the server is being used as the hostid and the server hostid of each file is exactly the same: 0050CCA420A3.

You can either group all of the DAEMON lines together at the beginning of the file:

SERVER mozart 0050CCA420A3 1717
DAEMON mgcld C:\MentorGraphics\Licensing\mgcld.exe
DAEMON summit.d C:\Summit\summit.d

Or you can separate licenses according to daemon:

SERVER mozart 0050CCA420A3 1717
DAEMON mgcld C:\MentorGraphics\Licensing\mgcld.exe
INCREMENT padses_c ...

DAEMON summit.d C:\Summit\summit.d

INCREMENT summit.d...

Note: The DAEMON line must appear in the license file before the first INCREMENT line that utilizes that vendor daemon.

Please refer to Configuring a Mentor Graphics License Server on Windows (Video) for a demo of creating the license manager service.

Tip of the Week: Verifying your version of Linux

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 07:02:25 GMT

It is important to know what platform and operating system you have in order to verify that your system configuration is supported. On Linux platforms, this is not immediately obvious. This week’s Tip of the Week will help you get that information.

There are two key pieces of information you need to put this together: The release name and the kernel version.

To get the release name, login to the system you want to verify and cat the release information file:

cat /etc/redhat-release (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)

cat /etc/SuSE-release (Novell SuSE Enterprise Linux)

This will give you the base release information.

To get the kernel version, run the command ‘uname –a’. The kernel version is the third field of the output:

Linux envlsf1 2.6.18-8.el5 #1 SMP Fri Jan 26 14:15:14 EST 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Once you have these key pieces of information, it is easy to determine which specific version of Linux you have using a search on the internet. Below are links to a few useful documents that list the version information for Red Hat and SuSE Linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux#RHEL5

http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=3594951

Tip of the Week: Separating servers and license files in MGLS_LICENSE_FILE

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 07:02:25 GMT

We often see strange problems when the wrong characters are used to separate multiple license servers or license files in either the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE or LM_LICENSE_FILE variable.

The FlexNet standard is as follows:

Multiple independent servers and/or license files - colon ":" on Unix/Linux and semicolon ";" on Windows

For ex: MGLS_LICENSE_FILE=1717@server1;1717@server2;C:\MentorGraphics\License_Files\local_license.dat

This is a Windows example and the semicolons are used because a colon indicates a drive letter. Use colons on Unix/Linux.

A set of redundant servers - commas on both Windows and Linux

For ex: MGLS_LICENSE_FILE=1717@serverA,1717@serverB,1717@serverC:1717@local_server

Notice that the servers in the redundant cluster of serverA/serverB/serverC are separated by commas but the cluster as a whole is separated by a colon from the independent local_server. This would be a Unix/Linux example.

Tip of the Week: Determining which release of PADS a license will support

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 07:04:09 GMT

If you're not sure whether your license file will run the latest release of PADS Flow, or maybe you want to check the minimum license version date requirement for an older release, refer to the information in the following document.

Which PADS Flow release am I entitled to use?

Tip of the Week: ModelSim and Questa SIM 10.2 require FlexNet v11.10

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:04:10 GMT

The 10.2 versions of both ModelSim and Questa SIM require license servers running FlexNet v11.10. Our current licensing release, MSL v2013_1 is built with FlexNet v11.10 and can be downloaded here:

Why upgrade to FlexNet v11.10? Download the latest licensing software.

The v11.10 license daemons can also be found in the ModelSim and Questa SIM application trees.

If you're getting an error running 10.2 that you weren't getting in the previous version, check that your license server is running the latest version of our licensing software.

Tip of the Week: Run a system test to diagnose performance problems.

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 07:04:09 GMT

If you're running into system performance problems, a useful tool on Windows 7 is the Performance Monitor utility (Perfmon). The fastest way to run this utility is by running 'perfmon.exe' from the command prompt or from the 'Start >Run' area.

In Perfmon, you can run a pre-defined 'System Performance' report available under the 'Data Collector Sets > System' area; just right click on 'System Performance' and click 'Start', as shown in Figure 1. The report can take a minute or more to complete, and after that a time stamped report is available over at 'Reports > System > System Performance', as shown in Figure 2. In the report you will find a plethora of CPU/Network/Disk/Memory information, but more importantly a Performance/Resource overview section highlighting any issues that Windows might have detected that could be triggering the performance problems. In Figure 2 the system was running slow due to excessive paging resulting from available memory being too low.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Tip of the Week: Check requested license feature with debug.

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 08:04:09 GMT

We often get asked which license features are required by our applications and that can sometimes be difficult to answer due to a number of factors. However, we have the capability to output a debug log file for licensing that will show you the requested and granted license features for the application you're running. It's fairly simple to generate this debug file:

Set the MGLS_DEBUG_LOG_DIR environment variable to a writeable directory.
Run the application, using functionality that will consume a license.
Exit the application.
Check the specified directory.

The license transaction information is written to the end of the log file:

###############################################################

# License Transactions

###############################################################

Feature Requested: viewdraw, 2012.06

Feature Granted: viewdraw Location: 1717@licserv

Feature Requested: ices, 2012.06

Feature Granted: ices Location: 1717@dustylicserv

Feature Requested: dxdatabook, 2012.06

Feature Granted: dxdatabook Location: 1717@licserv

We also have a utility on Windows that you can use to generate a runtime diagnostic report with this information. You can watch a video that demonstrates its use:

Generating a Run-time Diagnostic Report with the Mentor License Utility (video)

Tip of the Week: Utilities For Testing License Checkout

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 08:04:09 GMT

When starting or troubleshooting a license server, it's handy to have a way to verify a license checkout without having to run an application. We have two utilities to help you do just that.

On Linux we use the mgls_ok utility. Most applications have the mgls_ok utility located within the application tree's bin directory. However, you may need to set the MGLS_HOME variable to the application tree or the mgls package within it. For a standalone licensing tree, set MGLS_HOME to the top level folder (e.g.: mgls_v9-7_2-3-0.ixl). You'll also need to copy the mgc.pkginfo file to the lib directory. You can download that here. Make sure your MGLS_LICENSE_FILE variable is set to your license file or license server (port@host).

Once you have the the MGLS_HOME and MGLS_LICENSE_FILE variables set and the mgc.pkginfo file copied, the command to check out a license feature is simple:

$ $MGLS_HOME/bin/mgls_ok msimhdlsim

Checking availability of "msimhdlsim".

License granted through "msimhdlsim".

On Windows, we use the pcls_ok utility which provides a GUI. With the licensing software installed, you can access the pcls_ok utility from the Start Menu> All Programs> Mentor Graphics Licensing> pcls_ok. You can also navigate to C:\MentorGraphics\Licensing or possibly find pcls_ok in your applications start menu or tree. Here's an example of the pcls_ok interface:

The nice thing about the pcls_ok interface is it shows you the value of MGLS_LICENSE_FILE, which makes it easy to verify and know where you're attempting to get licenses from.

To check out a feature, just pick one from your license file and type or paste it into the Feature: field. Then, click Apply. A successful checkout will look like this:

If the checkout fails, A dialog will appear with an error message.

Tip of the Week: Keeping Your License Server Ahead of Your Apps.

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 08:07:49 GMT

Mentor Graphics applications using floating licenses depend on a license server running a version of FlexNet that is equal to or greater than the version of FlexNet the client application was built with. Also, our vendor daemon (mgcld) requires a FlexNet License Manager daemon (lmgrd) that is equal to or greater than the version of FlexNet our vendor daemon was built on. Failing to follow these requirements in your environment can lead strange behavior and a loss of productivity. Some symptoms may include:

Error "Vendor daemon is too old."
Checkout failures without a specific error message.
Failure of the license server to start.
Failure to write the report log.
Incorrect license counts.

What this boils down to is the importance of keeping your license server one step ahead of your applications. You can check the release notes for the Mentor Graphics applications you're running to determine license server version requirements. Furthermore, when updating your license server, you must ensure that you update both the lmgrd and mgcld.

Download the latest release of Mentor Standard Licensing, including verifying your daemon versions and updating your server:

http://supportnet.mentor.com/reference/technotes/public/technote.cfm?id=MG66951

Updating Your Licensing Manager (Server) on Windows (Video)

Tip of the Week: Determining Port Usage

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 08:07:49 GMT

Setting up license servers, RSCM servers, DMS servers, etc..., they all require you to select an available port. Guessing just leads to frustration but fortunately, determining which ports are available is fairly simple. The netstat command works on both Windows and Linux and will show you which ports are in use and the processes that are using them. For example:

On Windows:

C:\>netstat -anu|more

Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID

TCP 0.0.0.0:111 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2856

TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 856

TCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 4

TCP 0.0.0.0:902 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2968

TCP 0.0.0.0:912 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2968

TCP 0.0.0.0:1158 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 17196

-- More --

More specifically, you can check if a particular port is in use:

C:\>netstat -ano | find /i "1718"

TCP 0.0.0.0:1718 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2528

On Linux:

$ netstat -tulpn | grep 1717

tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:1717 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 21066/lmgrd

Note: You'll need to be root to run netstat effectively.

Once you have this port usage information, you can make decisions about which ports you want your server processes to use.

Feel free to share your tips and ideas on this topic in the comments.

Tip of the Week: Switching between SDD Flows in different targets.

community_admin@mentor.com — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 08:07:49 GMT

In case you didn't install all your SDD Flows into C:\MentorGraphics, you can follow the procedure defined in How to switch between SDD Flow releases when they are installed to different target locations to switch between them.