master-thesis/netpfga-doc-and-log

What to do to be able to get the NetFPGA running

• State as of 2019-05-10.
• With Ubuntu 19.04
• Vivado 2018.3
• SDNET 2018.2

There are a variety of hard coded scripts flying around in the Internet, so try to stick to the proposed paths below.

Various things are likely to fail on your path, so take a good bag of good nerves.

Get Vivado, SDNET

• Go xilinx.com
• Create an account
• Browse/dig through the website until you find a HUGE sdnet download
• Browse/dig through the website until you find a REALLY HUGE vivado download

WARNING: do this is a first step. You are downloading more than 20 GB of installation files and the connection seems to be throttled to around 1 MiB/s - so it will take around 3h to just get the install files.

Hardware notes

• The card DOES need external PCI-E power
• If you did not connect the power, it will not start
• The card has a switch (!) to power it on
• If you don't power it on... you get the picture.
• The card will NOT show up in lspci when it comes to you freshly

Hardware notes 2

If you happen to have the card powered up ("the fan is spinning"), then connect it via tha microusb cable to a host. Two serial devices will appear, both running at 115200 8N1. Connect to the second one, then press the PROG button on the card. You should see some debug.

Don't continue until you do see the debug messages above.

Install SDNnet

• Unpack the file, run xsetup, put stuff below /opt/Xilinx

Install Vivado

• Install libtinfo5 manually (if you don't, the vivado install hangs forever)
• Unpack the file, run xsetup, put stuff below /opt/Xilinx

Install NetPFGA support

mkdir -p ~/projects
cd ~/projects
git clone git@github.com:NetFPGA/P4-NetFPGA-live.git

Do NOT trust manuals to checkout a specific version, especially not v1.2.0, it is broken with vivado 2018.3. Also, DO NOT trust this manual, it might already be outdated at the time reading.