I found this wiki page on configuring NS3 with Eclipse and decided to give it a try. I had trouble compiling, and Eclipse kept giving the following error:

    Cannot run program "waf": Unknown reason)

After spending a little time with the configuration, the following additional tweaking seems to be working (in Ubuntu 10.04, Eclipse version 3.5.2 Galileo with ns-allinone-3.8):

  1. Create a new External tool configuration. The location should be the location to waf (${workspace_loc:/ns3/waf} in my case) and working directory should be the directory where waf is present (${workspace_loc:/ns3/} in my case). In arguments textbox, provide the following: --run "${string_prompt}". Now when you try to build the project (right click on the project -> Build Project), it should work.

  2. To run NS3 programs using waf, you need to create a new Run configuration. Make the new configuration to be a C/C++ application. Select the project you want this run configuration to be associated with, and give the complete path to waf as the C/C++ program. Click on the arguments tab, and provide the same argument as above. Now when you try to run a program, a dialog box should pop-up asking for the input arguments to waf and your program should run.