NetFPGA SUME FAQ

NetFPGA-SUME Frequently Asked Questions

Part 1 - Operating Systems and Xilinx Tools

Q1: Are there any particular OS and Xilinx packages I should have installed before I get started?

A: Yes. We have adopted Ubuntu 14.04 (x86_64) and Xilinx Vivado 2014.4. Also, see the Getting Started Guide for a list of other packages that should be installed.

Q2: What about Xilinx licenses?

A: In short, you'll need to have a Xilinx Vivado license. The Virtex-7 FPGA device is not one of the supported parts in the freely available Xilinx webpack. For more details see the Licensing page.

Q3: Are there any other things I should do before I begin?

A: A good first step is to familiarize yourself with the board by going through the Reference Manual. When you're ready to begin checkout the Getting Started Guide.

Q4: Can I use NetFPGA-SUME with ISE?

A: While ISE supports Virtex-7 devices, code can not be seamlessly ported between the two. You can not use the NetFPGA-SUME codebase with the ISE toolchain, and much effort is require to convert between the two.

Part 2 - NetFPGA-SUME Codebase

Q1: NetFPGA-SUME Acceptance Test fails, What should I do?

A: The acceptance test can fail due to various reasons (missing packages, wrong setup, board failure :( etc ). So the first step is to make sure that you are working on the same platform with the same tools as suggested in the Getting Started Guide. In that way, we can reproduce the issues, share results and work towards solving them.

So inorder for us to be helpful in solving issues. Could you please provide us with the following items.

1. Could you please download and run this script and please provide us with the resulting log (murugan.log). (Please not that it requires aptitude package.)

2. This command gives me details about your hardware on which the tools are running for me to compare the tests performance.

   user@your-machine: sudo -i

   root@your-machine:~# for i in {1..39}; do dmidecode -t $i >> system.log; done

   It will also be very useful if you can run the following on your command line and provide me
   with the log (system.log). This command requires root privileges.

3. Could you please provide me with the version of Vivado you are running.

   root@your-machine:~# vivado -version

**Note : I have a working machine. All my machine logs can be found here

Q2: Have all previous NetFPGA-10G projects been ported to the NetFPGA-SUME Project?

A: We are currently in the process of porting all projects. The following projects are being ported: acceptance_test, reference_nic, reference_switch, and reference_router.

Part 3 - NetFPGA-SUME Hardware

Q1: Does the NetFPGA-SUME have to be installed into a host's PCIe socket for development?

A: No. The NetFPGA-SUME can be used in either a stand-alone mode or installed into a host PCIe slot. See the Reference Manual for further information regarding usage.

Q2: Does the PCIe mode require a specific PCIe driver?

A: Yes. The specific Linux driver to access the card while in PCIe mode is located at projects/reference_nic/sw/host/driver. Run the Makefile while in that directory make. The Makefile will create a <driver_name>.ko file. The <driver_name>.ko can be installed by running the following command sudo insmod <driver_name>.ko.

Note: The NetFPGA card must be loaded with correct bit stream to operate in PCIe mode.