Installing ns-2 for multiple users

There are a few tips that might save you considerable time and irritation if you follow them.

1. Firstly, never install ns-2 in the home folder, make a folder at "/" for installing applications, for instance "/Apps" in this case.
   
2. Installing for multiple users is no big deal, just install it like you would for a single user, if you are looking for Ubuntu install instructions you can refer to my earlier post http://zaidmunir.blogspot.com/2010/06/installing-ns2-on-ubuntu-910.html you just need to prefix the commands mentioned in the link with a sudo :)
   

• After installing it just make a minor change, instead of making changes to the ~./bashrc file make the same changes to /etc/bash.bashrc if you are using Ubuntu or /etc/bashrc for other flavours of Linux.
• Now go the user which is most probably a "desktop user" you can switch environments without having to log off using the command "su username -" and enter password when prompted for it. Now you would be in the username's environment. now if you run ns-2 it would run but when you run the validation checks, it would fail. This is because the folder that you created at root does not have write privileges by default. You can change this issuing the command "sudo chmod -Rf +w /Apps/ns-allinone-2.34" or you can use "sudo chmod -Rf 777 /Apps/ns-allinone-2.34" this would cause the specified folder and its subfolder to have wrx permissions for all users.
• Now you can run the validation tests and in a while you should get an all tests passed message. Whola, you are ready to go. By following this method all the users can run ns-2 without any issue. :)