Hi,
We have ARM DS-5 CE installed in a shared location in a multi-user Linux environment.This is so students can run DS-5 for some basic assembly homework assignments via X-Forwarding rather than having to install on their systems.We're running into an issue where when two or more users simultaneously run an instance of the debugger, the actions of one user affect the actions of another.For example, if User A presses F5 to step an instruction, User B and User C also see their debuggers step an instruction.The issue persists even when running individual installations of DS-5 CE from each user's home directories.
Thank you.
I took a look at this issue this morning. The Foundation Model debug connection is setup so that it looks to see if the local machine already has such a model already running. If it does then the debug connection will connect the the already running model. In your use case, the first user to create a debug connection will cause the model to be automatically launched. The second user will then create a connection to that same model. This explains why they seem to interfere with each other - because they are both debugging the same model!
To change this, so that each debug connection launches its own Foundation Model instance, requires the modification of the debugger's configuration database files. The change is simple - but I'm afraid the DS-5 CE license does not allow modification of these files (in the same way that you cant create new debug configurations). To allow such changes to be made requires use of a non CE DS-5 license.
Arm does have educational editions of its products available for educational use. Perhaps you would like to discuss this off line so that we can work to make DS-5 available to your students. If you wish to do this, send an email to feedback-ds5@arm.com and it will get to me.
Kind regards, Tony.
edited
Would it be possible to get a floating license for DS-5 CE?
The DS-5 CE comes with a single seat pre-baked in license. We did this to simplify user installation and setup. I'm afraid we don't have floating licenses available for CE.
Even if we did have such a thing it would not help. It is the product EULA (agreed to at installation) which is rather specific at not allowing modification of the software (including configuration files).
Regards Tony
Yes. As you can see by inspecting the project_types.xml file, the Foundation model is launched using a python script within the configuration database Scripts directory. So from a technical standpoint it is possible to modify that behavior by changing the script.
DS-5 CE is targeted at enabling the Arm community (including students) to get exposure to the Arm Architecture. It allows users to experiment with executing and debugging Armv7 and Armv8 code on one of our Fast Model instances. We give this to the community at zero cost and so its feature set is limited (but still extensive!). One of these limitations is that you cant create debug configurations for anything _not_ contained within the configuration database we ship with the product. In other words you cant modify the configuration database. Our full products allow users to create their own configuration entries to cope with targets we have not seen before. Since your use case is not one directly supported by CE, you are experiencing the restriction imposed by CE, which is not there in our Pro and Ultimate Editions (including the educational forms of these products).
Hope this explains everything.