Hardware Initial Setup
From Comp519
In order to do hardware development for the NetFPGA platform, several steps must be taken to prepare your environment on the comp519.cs.rice.edu. You will need to perform these steps in the account of each user that wants to do hardware development.
First, on your local machine, start your X11 server. If you're using a Windows machine, we recommend the XMing program (download both the server and the fonts package). Then, enable X11 tunneling in your SSH client, and log in via SSH to comp519.cs.rice.edu
On the comp519 server, edit the .bashrc file in your home directory. This file is read by the default shell (bash) automatically when you log on, and is a convenient place to save settings that will automatically take effect.
emacs ~/.bashrc &
NetFPGA Environment Variables:
Copy and paste the following lines into your .bashrc file. These lines are required by the various Makefiles in the NetFPGA project. Of specific interest are the first two lines to be added. The first line records the location of the basic NetFPGA project that we provide in /exports/provided/NF2. You will not need to modify this project directly, but will instead customize and override these default files within your own projects directly. The location of the projects directory (somewhere inside your home directly) is recorded in the second line.
# NetFPGA variables
export NF2_ROOT=/exports/provided/NF2
export NF2_DESIGN_DIR=${HOME}/projects/reference_nic
export NF2_WORK_DIR=/tmp/${USER}
export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:${NF2_ROOT}/lib/python
export PERL5LIB=${PERL5LIB}:${NF2_ROOT}/lib/Perl5
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${NF2_ROOT}/lib/java/NetFPGAFrontEnd/bin:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
if [ ! -d ${NF2_WORK_DIR} ]; then
mkdir ${NF2_WORK_DIR}
fi
if [ ! -d ${HOME}/.qt ]; then
mkdir ${HOME}/.qt
fi
if [ -f ${NF2_ROOT}/bin/nf2_profile ]; then
source ${NF2_ROOT}/bin/nf2_profile
fi
Xilinx Environment Variables:
Xilinx-specific environment variables must be set to run the Xilinx tools. These settings are stored in /Xilinx91i/settings.sh Add the following line to your .bashrc file.
# Xilinx variables source /Xilinx91i/settings.sh
Tip: If using Xilinx coregen and it prompts you for the path to the PDF viewer, enter "usr/bin/evince"
ModelSim Environment Variables:
To execute the ModelSim simulator properly using the Rice site license, add the following lines to your .bashrc file.
# ModelSim variables PATH=$PATH:/modeltech/linux_x86_64 export LM_LICENSE_FILE="1717@license.rice.edu"
When you have finished making the changes to the .bashrc file, exit emacs, log out of SSH, and log in again for your settings to be automatically loaded.
Verify your installation by running (for example), Xilinx Core Generator or ISE
coregen & ise &
Xilinx License Files:
The NetFPGA design uses commercial IP libraries from Xilinx for some key functions, including the Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PCI bus controller. These cores require a license file in order to be used. These licenses are stored on a per-user basis in your home directory at ~/.Xilinx/Coregen/CoreLicenses/. To obtain the licenses, unzip the following files while in your home directory:
cd ~ unzip /exports/provided/xilinx_license_pci.zip unzip /exports/provided/xilinx_license_temac.zip
