Vivado 2016.4 is obsessed with NIC naming

Symptoms

There are two Vivado versions on my Ubuntu 16.04(.6) machine: 2016.4 and 2018.1. I use node locked license, .lic file. License works fine with 2018.1. However when I check Vivado License Manager 2016.4, I see that Host IDs Match under Manage License → View License Status isn’t Yes. This field is Yes in Vivado License Manager 2018.1. Therefore, the .lic file should be working.

Diagnosis

Versions of license manager used in 2016.4 and 2018.1 are different. Node locked license is locked on MAC address of the ethernet card. Modern Linux distributions like Ubuntu 16.04 enumerate ethernet cards similar to enpXsY whereas old systems use ethX format. License manager of 2016.4 can only detect old formatted cards and in this case it can’t read MAC address. As illustrated below, MAC address is read full of 0s.

Vivado License Manager 2016.4

Solution

One possible solution is enforcing Ubuntu to name the ethernet card in ethX format. I created a udev rule. Create the following rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules. You should replace 02:01:02:03:04:05 with your MAC address (hint: use ifconfig to find).

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="02:01:02:03:04:05", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", NAME="eth0"

After restart, check the name of the card with ifconfig command. Name should be eth0 and you should have licensed Vivado 2016.4.

Ref

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