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.

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:

1. 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"

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.
    

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:

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows key+E)
2. Select the drive you wish to search
3. In the Search Computer field in the upper right type size:gigantic
4. As you type, a drop down list may appear giving you other options like Huge, Large, etc... 
5. 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.

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.

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.

Generally, the 64-bit version of HyperLynx 8.2 offers an important advantage over the 32-bit version: it can utilize much more memory, which may be important for large designs or simulations. However, some features in HyperLynx 8.2 are not available in the 64-bit version.

On Windows, the 32-bit version is automatically installed when you install the 64-bit version. You can start the 32-bit version specifically from the Windows program menu Start > Mentor Graphics SDD > HyperLynx 8.2 32-Bit > HyperLynx Simulation Software. On Linux, you must install the 32-bit version separately. i.e., it is not installed automatically with the 64-bit version.

Features not supported in the 64-bit version of HyperLynx 8.2:
•File > Run eDxD / eExp View (i.e., viewing of Mentor CCE layout or schematic files)
•File > Open, for file type eDxd/eExp Files (*.cce) (i.e., loading of CCE files into BoardSim)
•In BoardSim, Export > HyperLynx 3D EM Topology (i.e., exporting from BoardSim to the HyperLynx 3D EM full-wave solver). See Technote MG567226 for more details.
•In BoardSim, in the generic batch wizard’s Net Selection Spreadsheet, the Import from CES button (i.e., importing CES constraints into BoardSim)
•In BoardSim, Models > Assign Models/Values by Reference Designator > Import from CES (i.e., importing CES model assignments into BoardSim)
•In LineSim, Export > Constraint Template with Update CES with Generated Template enabled (i.e., pushing a constraint template directly from LineSim into CES)
•IBIS-AMI models that are compiled as 32-bit libraries must run in the 32-bit version of HyperLynx.

You may have run into cases where the User Account Control (UAC) prompts multiple times during the execution of a batch (.bat) script. With executables (.exe) and non-batch (.bat) file types you can right-click and select "Run as Administrator", to force the UAC to elevate the execution of the program. However, this approach doesn't work with batch scripts.

See below for a simple VBScript which can serve as a "wrapper" script, to force the UAC to prompt before running the intended batch script. This results in the entire script running with elevated permissions, which means no more additional UAC prompts. Just update the value of the filePath variable on the second line to point to the full path of the script, and save the file with a .vbs extension (VBScript). The script is now ready to run (just double-click it).

Dim filePath

filePath = "F:\installs\myScript.bat"

Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")

objShell.ShellExecute "cmd.exe", "/c " & filePath, "", "runas", 1

Mentor Standard Licensing v2013_2 is now available for download on SupportNet. This release contains a number of important benefits and key changes detailed below.

Reasons to update your license server:

• Update from FlexNet v11.10.0.3 to v11.11.1.1. As applications that build with Mentor Standard Licensing (MSL) v2013_2 ship, they will require license servers running 11.11.1.1 or newer. It's advisable to update your license servers in advance of these product releases. You do not need to update anything if you are using Mobile Compute (uncounted) licenses.
• Support added for AIX v6.1, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Note: This applies to the licensing software only. For support information regarding specific product releases, please refer to the System Requirements on SupportNet. 
• Support added for Consistent Network Device Naming (em0, em1, p1s3, etc...) on Linux
• Stability improvements
• Numerous defect fixes

Key Changes:

• Red Hat EL 4 and SuSe SLES 9 are no longer supported. MSL v2013_2 will not run on these platforms.
• Support for some hardware keys (dongles) has been  discontinued. If you are using a hardware key as your  license server's hostid, you may need to request a replacement key.  Please refer to http://supportnet.mentor.com/news/Discontinued-Legacy-HW-Keys.cfm for more information. As of MSL v2013_2, only the Aladdin USB FLEXid 9- key is supported. This is the teal-colored USB key.

Information about downloading MSL v2013_2 can be found in TechNote MG66951.*

*Requires SupportNet login.

I have always found the Windows %PATH% variable difficult to read.  There are normally multiple lines and the ";" separator is difficult to see.

It turns out I am not alone; yesterday a colleague sent me the following command to report the contents of that variable (or any other) from a DOS window in a simple to read format.

     echo %PATH:;=&echo.%

I predict this command will be appearing on a post-it-note near your screen very soon!

I need to have Oracle v11.2.0.3.0 installed in order to install MSS 11.3. How can I tell what version I currently have installed?

One way of determining the version of Oracle installed is to open the SQL Plus window. The version is displayed at the top of the window. There is no need launch SQL Plus to see the version.

Go to:

Start > Programs > Oracle > Application Development > SQL Plus

The information you get with the default settings for Windows Task Manager only scratch the surface of the information available. In this weeks Tip of the Week, I'll show you how to get more.

You may not be aware, but when you select the Processes tab in Windows Task Manager you get access to an additional option under the View pull down menu called 'Select Columns'. When you select that option, you get a dialog box that allows you to pick and chose from a number of additional items that will appear under a new column in Task Manager.

Ever wish you could tell where the executable was for a program you see running under Image Name? Select the Command Line column. This will allow you to see the full path name to the program. (Click on image to make it larger).

Once selected, the column will remain visible until you de-select it, so it's already set for the next time. Experiment with this and other values until you find a configuration you like.

That's all for now. Tune in next week for another useful tip!

Ken Foster

Mentor Graphics Customer Support

On Windows you have the option to set an environment variable as a User variable or a System variable. A User variable takes precedence when the variable is set both as a User and System variable. Setting a System variable requires admin rights and will be available to anyone who logs into the system. User variables are only available to the user but are generally fine for desktop applications.

However, some applications either run as a service or have a component that runs as a service. In cases where the service requires a license (e.g.: Capital Manager), it is imperative that MGLS_LICENSE_FILE be set as a System variable so the service (running under the System user account) can obtain a license.

If you get errors when starting an application service, ensure that ALL required variables are set as System variables.

Some of the files under the WDIR (for example: user.cns) are not compatible with all versions of SDD (EE/BSXE/PADS/IND) Flow software, and in some cases can actually cause applications to crash. For this reason it is advisable to maintain a different WDIR location for each release. Here is a simple technique for doing so:

• Create a Configurator.ini file. Place this file in a folder of your choice, although C:\MentorGraphics\win32 is a good and simple to find location (same directory as the Configurator.exe).
  • See below format, which will create a C:\WDIR\<release> for each release that you configure to. For example, C:\WDIR\7.9.5EE and C:\WDIR\9.5PADS, for EE7.9.5 and PADS9.5, respectively.
  • All three lines must appear in order for the WDIR to get set correctly. Change the MGLS_LICENSE_FILE to the port@host (or local file path) for your licensing environment.

[defaults]

MGLS_LICENSE_FILE=1717@myServer

WDIR=c:\WDIR\%SDD_VERSION%;%SDD_HOME%\standard

• Create a CFGR_INI environment variable and set it to the full location of the Configurator.ini file.
  • For example: CFGR_INI = C:\MentorGraphics\win32\Configurator.ini
  • How to set or edit an environment variable on Windows

With this setup in place, every time you run the Configurator to switch versions the WDIR will change to the appropriate release-specific folder.

For more details and other WDIR switching techniques, refer to pages 98-104 of the attached Managing Mentor Graphics Systems Software (EE7.9.5) manual.

If you get a message such as:

error while loading shared libraries:

libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

how do you know what Linux package to load?

When installing the Linux operating system, there are many "optional packages" (often known as RPMs) that can be installed.  Requirements change, so a new software installation can require a file that you have not previously installed. 

How can you find out which bundle to install?

The "yum" utility has a "whatprovides" option to answer this question.

yum whatprovides <file>

So in the example above, you should use the command:

# yum whatprovides libXp.so.6

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, rhnplugin

*Note* Red Hat Network repositories are not listed below. You must run this command as root to access RHN repositories.

libXp-1.0.0-15.1.el6.i686 : X.Org X11 libXp runtime library

Repo        : installed

Matched from:

Other       : Provides-match: libXp.so.6

You can then install the libXp-1.0.0-15.1.el6.i686 package.

There is a new url for the ModelSim PE Student Edition:

http://www.mentor.com/company/higher_ed/modelsim-student-edition

Last time I wrote Tip of the Week I told you about how you can get the Windows Task Manager to show you more data. This time, I'm going to show you an even better tool- Process Explorer.

Process Explorer, which is available as a free download from Microsoft TechNet, is a Windows Sysinternals tool that not only shows you what is running on your system, but also lets you see information about which file handles and DLLs a process has open or has loaded. It is useful for tracking down DLL problems, memory leaks, or troubleshooting an application that refuses to start or terminate. If has too many features to cover them all, so today I'm going to show you one of my favorites, and contrast its functionality with that of Task Manager.

One of the limitations of Windows Task Manager is the view of your processes is flat. In other words, you can't tell from the view of what's running if any of the processes you see are parents or children of any other process. That is really good information to have, especially if you need to manually terminate something.

Note the view on the left, which is a typical Windows Task Manager view. The highlighted processes are all related to the DxDesigner and Expedition PCB applications I'm running. The view is completely flat, so I can't see what is related to what. If I wasn't familiar with the product architecture, I couldn't even tell that these were related to each other at all. The view on the right is the same view of the system displayed with Process Explorer. Note how I can now see the hierarchy and know which sub-processes are the children of these applications. (Click on image to enlarge).

Another handy feature is that you can configure your system to replace Task Manager with this tool, so that any time Task Manager is invoked, Process Explorer comes up instead:

This operation is easily reversable by simply toggling the Replace Task Manager feature off.

I've only scratched the surface of this great tool, one that is a staple for us in Customer Support. Give it a try!

Troubleshooting a variety of networking problems typically involves frequent use of the ping command, which can quickly tell you whether or not there is a route between hosts. But what if ping returns with zero packet loss yet you still have problems? Those TCP/IP packets often have to travel through routers or switches and those points can create problems. Fortunately, there's a very handy utility on Windows called pathping that will trace the route between hosts and give you some data on performance or potential bottlenecks. This can be very helpful in diagnosing network problems, especially those related to latency.

Here's an example of using pathping:

C:\Users\guyw>pathping silver

Tracing route to sliver.company.com[134.47.135.106]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

  0  DT2.company.com[134.47.52.46]

  1  lanrx.company.com[134.47.53.254]

  2  lan-te1-3.company.com[134.47.104.165]

  3  rd-rg3.company.com[134.47.105.222]

  4  sliver.company.com[134.47.135.106]

Computing statistics for 100 seconds...

            Source to Here   This Node/Link

Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address

  0                                           DT2.company.com[134.47.52.46]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  1    1ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  lanrx.company.com[134.47.53.254]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  2    9ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  lan-te1-3.company.com[134.47.104.165]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  3   16ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  rd-rg3.company.com[134.47.105.222]

                                0/ 100 =  0%   |

  4    1ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  sliver.company.com[134.47.135.106]

Trace complete.

If you find that Windows is taking far too long to startup, or maybe you're getting some annoying system tray alerts from mysterious programs that you've never installed, a good place to start is by looking at the Windows startup programs. Here are some techniques that I like to use to find and disable those unwanted startup programs:

Note: Some startup programs may run as part of your company's corporate policy. If you're not sure whether to disable a startup program you should check with your local I.T. department.

• Check the Startup folder in your Windows Start Menu:

• Most of the other startup program entries can be found in the Windows Registry; better to use MSConfig
  • Given the risks of editing the Windows registry, it's safer to use the Microsoft MSConfig program to disable these entries. You even access the above mentioned startup entries at the same time
  • To start MSConfig just go to the Start>Run area and type in msconfig

• Another option is a freeware utility from Microsoft called Autoruns
  • Be warned it is not for the novice user (there are MANY options!)
  • For most users the Logon tab is where you will go to find and disable startup entries

I have just discovered a single Windows command which combines the functionality of ping and tracert.

The "pathping" tool tests every node along the way over a period of time, so you get more than a snapshot result.

The command is:

pathping  target_name

More information can be found at:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc958876.aspx

If you get a licensing error from one of your applications, aside from ensuring licenses are available and searching SupportNet for the error message, you can use our Mentor License Utility (MLU) to generate a detailed diagnostic report that may help you or one of our CAEs determine the root cause.

Please take a moment to watch the video demonstration for  Generating a Run-time Diagnostic Report with the Mentor License Utility (video).