macOS¶

Supported Releases¶

This chapter provides additional information for installing OMNeT++ on macOS.

The following release is known to work:

• macOS 15 (and likely newer versions)

Installing the Prerequisite Packages¶

Install the command line developer tools for macOS (compiler, debugger, etc.)

$ xcode-select --install

Installing additional packages will enable more functionality in OMNeT++; see the Additional packages section at the end of this chapter.

Using Homebrew¶

The install.sh script relies on Homebrew (https://brew.sh) for installing prerequisite packages on all modern macOS systems (both Intel and Apple-Silicon).

If you don’t have Homebrew installed, follow the instructions on its website. Once Homebrew is ready, ensure its environment is set up correctly in your shell. Typically, this involves adding a line to your shell profile (e.g., .zprofile or .bash_profile):

eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Restart your terminal or source your profile script for the changes to take effect.

Install the core development tools and libraries using Homebrew:

$ brew install bison ccache flex perl python@3 make pkg-config doxygen graphviz

Next, install packages for the graphical environment (Qtenv and IDE). If you do not need GUI support, you can skip this step and later configure OMNeT++ with WITH_QTENV=no and WITH_OSG=no.

$ brew install qt@6

For 3D visualization support in Qtenv, install the OpenSceneGraph package. If you do not need 3D support, you can skip this step and later configure OMNeT++ with WITH_OSG=no.

$ brew install openscenegraph

After installing packages with Homebrew, set up a Python virtual environment for OMNeT++. In the root directory of your OMNeT++ download:

$ python3 -m venv .venv --upgrade-deps --clear --prompt "omnetpp/.venv"
$ source .venv/bin/activate

Then, install the required Python packages into the virtual environment:

$ python3 -m pip install -r python/requirements.txt

Enabling Development Mode in Terminal¶

MacOS has a strict default security policy that prevents the execution of unsigned code. This behavior often interferes with the development process so you must explicitly allow running unsigned code from a Terminal. On the System Preferences / Security and Privacy / Privacy tab, select Development Tools on the left side, unlock the panel with the lock icon on the bottom left and select the Terminal app on the right side to override the default security policy for the Terminal app.

Debugging Unsigned Code¶

Even if you have enabled development mode in the terminal, missing code signatures will still cause problems during debugging, because the debugged process is started by the IDE, not the terminal. To be able to debug, you must disable code signature checking globally by typing:

$ sudo spctl --global-disable

After issuing the above command go to System Preferences / Security and Privacy / General and select Any at the bottom of the dialog. After restarting your terminal application, you will be able to debug your unsigned simulation models.

Additional Steps Required on macOS to Use the Debugger¶

The Command Line Developer Tools package contains the lldb debugger. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of OMNeT++, be sure to delete and recreate all Launch Configurations in the IDE. This is required because older Launch Configurations were using gdb as the debugger, but the new IDE uses lldb-dap as the debugger executable.

On the first debug session the OS may prompt you to allow debugging with the lldb executable.

Downloading and Unpacking OMNeT++¶

Download OMNeT++ from https://omnetpp.org. Make sure you select to download the macOS specific archive matching your machine’s architecture, omnetpp-6.4-macos-aarch64.tgz (for Apple Silicon) or omnetpp-6.4-macos-x86_64.tgz (for Intel-based Macs).

Copy the archive to the directory where you want to install it. This is usually your home directory, /Users/<you>. Open a terminal, and extract the archive using the following command:

$ tar zxvf omnetpp-6.4-macos-aarch64.tgz

A subdirectory called omnetpp-6.4 will be created, containing the simulator files.

Alternatively, you can also unpack the archive using Finder.

Environment Variables¶

In general OMNeT++ requires that certain environment variables are set and the omnetpp-6.4/bin directory is in the PATH. Source the setenv script to set up all these variables.

$ cd omnetpp-6.4
$ source setenv

To set the environment variables permanently, edit .profile, .zprofile or .zshenv in your home directory and add a line something like this:

[ -f "$HOME/omnetpp-6.4/setenv" ] && source "$HOME/omnetpp-6.4/setenv"

Configuring and Building OMNeT++¶

Check configure.user to make sure it contains the settings you need. In most cases you don’t need to change anything in it.

In the top-level OMNeT++ directory, type:

$ ./configure

The configure script detects installed software and configuration of your system. It writes the results into the Makefile.inc file, which will be read by the makefiles during the build process.

When ./configure has finished, you can compile OMNeT++. Type in the terminal:

$ make

Verifying the Installation¶

You can now verify that the sample simulations run correctly. For example, the aloha simulation is started by entering the following commands:

$ cd samples/aloha
$ ./aloha

By default, the samples will run using the Qtenv environment. You should see nice gui windows and dialogs.

Starting the IDE¶

OMNeT++ comes with an Eclipse-based simulation IDE.

Start the IDE by typing:

$ omnetpp

If you would like to be able to launch the IDE via Applications, the Dock or a desktop shortcut, do the following: open the omnetpp-6.4 folder in Finder, go into the ide subfolder, create an alias for the omnetpp program there (right-click, Make Alias), and drag the new alias into the Applications folder, onto the Dock, or onto the desktop.

Alternatively, run one or both of the commands below:

$ make install-menu-item
$ make install-desktop-icon

which will do roughly the same.

Using the IDE¶

When you try to build a project in the IDE, you may get the following warning message:

Toolchain “…” is not supported on this platform or installation. Please go to the Project menu, and activate a different build configuration. (You may need to switch to the C/C++ perspective first, so that the required menu items appear in the Project menu.)

If you encounter this message, choose Project > Properties > C/C++ Build > Tool Chain Editor > Current toolchain > GCC for OMNeT++.

The IDE is documented in detail in the User Guide.

Reconfiguring the Libraries¶

If you need to recompile the OMNeT++ components with different flags (e.g. different optimization), then change the top-level OMNeT++ directory, edit configure.user accordingly, then type:

$ ./configure
$ make clean
$ make

If you want to recompile just a single library, then change to the directory of the library (e.g. cd src/sim) and type:

$ make clean
$ make

By default, libraries are compiled in both debug and release mode. If you want to make release or debug builds only, use:

$ make MODE=release

or

$ make MODE=debug

By default, shared libraries will be created. If you want to build static libraries, set SHARED_LIBS=no in configure.user and re-configure your project.

Additional Packages¶

OpenMPI¶

MacOS does not come with OpenMPI, so you must install it manually. You can install it from the Homebrew repo (http://brew.sh) by typing brew install open-mpi. In this case, you have to manually set the MPI_CFLAGS and MPI_LIBS variables in configure.user and re-run ./configure.

Akaroa¶

Akaroa 2.7.9, which is the latest version at the time of writing, does not support macOS. You may try to port it using the porting guide from the Akaroa distribution.