Launching Vitis and Vivado within the Remote Server
Tool version
The NYU EDA servers run version 2026.1 of Vitis and Vivado. Some of the course material was developed against the slightly earlier 2025.1, and we will keep the labs and demos working on both.
Loading the tools
The tools are not on your path when you log in. Load them with a single command:
module load /home/shared/modules/xilinx
Then launch either tool by name:
vitis # Vitis IDE
vivado # Vivado IDE
That is the whole procedure. The module load also sets the license server, so nothing
else needs configuring.
Run
module loadonce per login session — it affects only the terminal you type it in. If you open a second terminal, run it again there.
Checking that it worked
vitis -version
vivado -version
Both should report 2026.1. If instead you get Command not found, you have not run
the module load in that terminal.
Loading the tools automatically
If you would rather not type the command at every login, add it to the end of your
~/.tcshrc (the default shell on these servers is tcsh):
module load /home/shared/modules/xilinx
New logins will then have the tools available immediately. This is safe unless you are also taking a course that needs a different Xilinx version, in which case it is better to load it per session.
The GUIs need a graphical connection
vitis and vivado with no arguments open full graphical applications. Over a plain
SSH connection they have nowhere to draw and will fail or hang. Connect with
Fast-X first, or use the command-line tools instead — see
Launching Vitis and Vivado for what each tool does and for the
batch-mode commands such as vitis-run --mode hls and xsim.