Remote Access to Cadence at GWU for ECE 126 / 128 / 213 / 214 / 216 / 218 For Mac OS X 02/2010 – William Gibb, modified 01/2012 Thomas Farmer To access cadence tools remotely (from home or on campus), two tools are required: SSH client software and VNC client software. Mac OS X already has these built in, you do not need to download any additional software. BEFORE YOU BEGIN: You must have a valid SEAS account, if you do not, do not continue with this tutorial. The dedicated remote-access server at GWU is: shell.seas.gwu.edu MAC Instructions: 1) Open up the Terminal application. It can be found under the Applications -> Utilities folder. You may want to drag the Terminal to your Dock, so you can quickly launch it.2) Obtain your VNC Port # by doing the following: - At the command prompt you opened in step one, type in the following: ssh [email protected] -Type in your seas username and password -Once you are logged in type: ~vlsi/course_all/vnc_scripts/update_profile_vnc -After pressing enter, you will see: Your VNC Port number is: XXXXX -Write down this VNC port number, this is your own personal # for the semester. -Once you have the number written down, type: exit 3) Reconnect to the GWU server using your VNC Port # by doing the following: - At the command prompt you opened in step one, type in the following: ssh –c arcfour,blowfish-cbc –L XXXXX:localhost:XXXXX -C [email protected] -Take care to replace XXXXX with your VNC Port # generated in step 2 What does this mean? (You can skip this if you aren’t interested) o -c arcfour,blowfish-cbc specifies 2 ciphers that work well with compression o –C enables compression o –L XXXXX:localhost:XXXXX creates a secure tunnel between the workstation your connecting to and your localhost. It binds port XXXXX on the remote machine to your local machine on port XXXXX, via an SSH tunnel. This port number is your VNCPORT#.  Your VNCPORT # is unique. Do not use another students VNCPORT #, as it will not work for you.  This SSH tunnel is a secure link between your workstation and shell.seas.gwu.edu. Without this secure link, any traffic you send over VNC could be eavesdropped, be it passwords or important design information! It is important that you set up this tunnel! 4) Set your VNC PASSWORD by doing the following - At the command prompt you opened in step one, type in the following: vncpasswd WRITE THIS # down! Replace this with your SEAS username Replace this with your SEAS usernameYou will be prompted to create a password, you can use your same SEAS password to make it easier on your memory. 5) Next type the following command: cp ~vlsi/course_all/vnc_scripts/xstartup ~/.vnc 6) Now that your environment is setup, you will only ever need to type the following command to start the VNC server on the sun workstation, type: start_vnc 7) If no error messages appear (inspect the window carefully), type the following command: prevent_timeout That is like a screen saver printing a list of who‟s logged into the GWU server every 20 minutes or so. This will prevent your connection to GWU from timing out. 8) You can now minimize the SSH client (terminal), we will now start the next part of the process. 9) Mac OSX has VNC software installed by default, but it isn‟t readily accessible. It is called Screen Sharing and can be found in System -> Library -> Core Services -> Screen Sharing You may want to drag that application to your Dock, so you can quickly launch it if needed. Double click this application to start it. By default, there are no windows that come up, but the menu bar at the top of your screen will show that you are running “Screen Sharing”10) One it starts, go to the menu Connection -> New… and in the host field, type in localhost:XXXX - Press Connect - Type in the password you created in step 4. 11) If all goes well, you will now be logged into the GWU remote access server. - When you are done working, close open applications on the sun workstation - Close the prevent_timeout script by hitting ctrl-c - Shut down the vnc server using the command stop_vnc. 12) Now you can open a terminal window as you normally do at GWU, and open any tools you would as if you were working at GWU. Make certain that you EXIT cadence once you are done. Do NOT leave Cadence running in VNC and then come to GWU and expect it to run. 13) To take a screen shot from VNC, you cannot just press PRINT SCREEN as you normally would. If you are using Screen Sharing, you are limited to using Mac OSX‟s built in screen capture utilities. The following are a list of Mac OS X screen capture keystrokes. These will work to capture data from Screen Sharing, it will not use the Sun workstations native screen capture abilities. Mac OS X Default Screenshot Capture Shortcuts Command + Shift + 3 Capture entire screen and save as a file (on desktop, .png) Command + Control + Shift + 3 Capture entire screen and save copy to clipboard Command + Shift + 4 Capture dragged area and save as a file (on desktop, .png) Command + Control + Shift +4 Capture dragged area and save copy to the clipboard Command + Shift + 4 then Space Bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menubar and save as a file (on desktop, .png) Command + Control + Shift + 4 then Space Bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menubar and copy to the clipboard - Use the Command + Shift +4 / Command + Control + Shift + 4 combinations to easily grab areas of the screen you want. - Use the other combinations as you see fit. - There are several free open-source software packages available which you can use to edit screenshots in OS X, such as GNU Gimp or Softonic Paintbrush. Replace XXXXX with your VNC Port # from step 2 localhost:XXXXX14) WORDS OF CAUTION - If you run Cadence under VNC, make sure to exit cadence when you are done. If you come to GWU lab and attempt to start Cadence on the workstation, while it is still running on your home VNC connection, you will run into a great deal of problems and will most likely lose your data. - You will notice that the Sun workstation will be in the same state you left it each time you connect using VNC. It is tempting to leave Cadence and designs opens once you notice this. The problem is 1) you will come to GW eventually and want to use cadence and find you cannot and 2) the system admins reboot the