Questa does not run on Redhat 8.7 in a virtual machine

[eeleigh]

I'm a long time Quartus user and design partner. I have always been on Windows until now I have a requirement to run in a Virtualbox Redhat 8.7 Guest. Quartus, Programmer and the IDE all seem to run fine, but Questa FE will not start either stand alone or within Quartus 24.1 STD. I have searched the internet finding all sorts of possible solutions, but nothing works. There is nothing useful in the support portal. One entry on reddit suggested as only a possibility that there may be a problem running Questa in a virtual machine.

I have attached the screen shot when trying to run with ./vsim as suggested by some posts. The error screen, a terminal showing how it was invoked and one showing the environment with the LM_LICENSE_FILE set correctly.

If anyone has any information or suggestions, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks Much! Leigh

[ShengN_Intel]

Hi,

For virtual machine, are you using fixed license? Please try to use float license instead

Thanks,

Regards,

Sheng

[eeleigh]

Thanks much, I'll try it in the morning.

[eeleigh]

Can't figure out how to change fixed license to floating in Self Service Licensing Center.

[sstrell]

Is it a new license file?  Not expired?  And pointing to the correct MAC address for the VM?

[eeleigh]

Hi and thanks for the reply. Not a new license and still in support. Have checked the MAC multiple times. Note, Quartus is running with the license just fine. Problem is only with Questa.

[sstrell]

If it's not a new license file, you may need to regenerate it to add the Questa support.  Are you using Quartus Lite or Standard/Pro?

[eeleigh]

License is already setup for Questa FE, Quartus 24.1 Standard. Same license works fine for Questa FE in Windows. Note Sheng suggests trying Floating License instead of fixed.

[sstrell]

I don't think that really matters personally.

Very odd that Quartus works in Windows and Linux but Questa only in Windows.

When did you generate this file?  I'd still try regenerating it from the SSLC.

[eeleigh]

I did just regenerate, trying now. 

[eeleigh]

Hi All,

I was finally able to resolve this. Fixed license is fine, but the primary MAC has to be the virtual machine, it cannot be a companion ID, even though the licnse say use the companion IDs. It is ok for Quartus and Programmer, but not Questa. I still dont have it coming up from within Quartus, but I've seen a fix for that in the forums.

Thanks,

Leigh

[sstrell]

Yeah, I always make sure the VM MAC address matches the license.  It's not always the same as the real hardware MAC address.

[eeleigh]

And it seems to have to be the primary, not one of the companions in the license.

[eeleigh]

I am mostly there and the last issue is minor... I still can't invoke Questa from Quartus and it seems to be a missing file. I tried reinstalling everything, but still not working. Here is the error from the Nativelink log.

Info: Using NativeLink to launch synthesis Tool
Synthesis tool <None> is not supported by NativeLink
Error: NativeLink flow failed to complete synthesis

================The following information is provided to Debug NativeLink Script=================
Nativelink TCL script failed with errorCode: POSIX ENOENT {no such file or directory}
Nativelink TCL script failed with errorInfo: couldn't open "/home/eeleigh/altera/24.1std/quartus/linux64/tclIndex": no such file or directory
while executing
"open [file join $dir tclIndex]"
PATH Environment Variable is set to : /home/eeleigh/altera/24.1std/quartus/adm:/home/eeleigh/altera/24.1std/quartus/linux64:/home/eeleigh/.local/bin:/home/eeleigh/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

[ShengN_Intel]

Hi,

Great that you had resolved the issue. For further problem, you have to specify the eda tool settings before running nativelink check below link:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/programmable/703090/21-1/specify-eda-tool-settings.html

Thanks,

Regards,

Sheng

[eeleigh]

Thanks much! that did it. At this point everything works...