Can this design be validated on Alveo u50 card ?

[lizajoseph]

Hi,

I came across your design as I am looking for a Ethernet design with UDP listener to be implemented on FPGA. I have a Alveo u50 card installed in my machine. I was able to generate the bitstream of your design. How can I validate this design on the Alveo u50 card? I can see that there is a simulation testbench environment available using cocotb. But I want to validate the design on my target platform. Is there any test environment that is available to test on hardware?

Liza

[alexforencich]

Just load it via JTAG. For the U50, you'll need the special U50-specific JTAG adapter, I think the part number is HW-DMB-1-G.

[lizajoseph]

Yes, I have a programming cable that is attached to the u50 card. I can program the FPGA card using this programming cable. But could you let me know how I can test the FPGA logic directly on u50 card.

[lizajoseph]

I would like to test and validate the FPGA logic on the u50 card

[alexforencich]

Right, once it's on the card, the example design will echo back UDP packets sent to it via the QSFP28 port. The readme has a couple of basic tests, you can use netcat, hping, arping, the udp_test.py script, etc.

[lizajoseph]

I have programmed the bitfile on the Alveo u50 card via the u50 programming cable. Then I tried to set the IP address for my u50 card using this command arp -s , however even though the card with new IP is detected when I ping there is no response. Then I tried to test the u50 card using the udp_test.py but 0 packets are received. Is there any step that I am missing here? Should I add a 10G NIC card and connect it to the Alveo u50 card?

[alexforencich]

https://github.com/alexforencich/verilog-ethernet/blob/master/example/Alveo/fpga_25g/README.md

https://github.com/alexforencich/verilog-ethernet/blob/master/example/Alveo/fpga_25g/rtl/fpga_core.v#L224

[lizajoseph]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for sharing the Readme and the IP address details that is configured on the FPGA card.
After programming the bitfile to the u50 card. I tried the netcat command with a text "hello" and then it is stuck, Similarly I see the same behavior with the hping command. How should I proceed further to debug this issue of not receiving the packets echoed back from the FPGA? Sharing the commands lines below for your reference.

(base) liza.joseph@fepc20:~/verilog-ethernet$ netcat -u 192.168.1.128 1234
hello

(base) liza.joseph@fepc20:~/verilog-ethernet$ sudo hping3 192.168.1.128 -2 -p 1234 -d 10
[sudo] password for liza.joseph:
HPING 192.168.1.128 (eno1 192.168.1.128): udp mode set, 28 headers + 10 data bytes

I also observe that the 10G NIC card which is connected to the u50 card is not getting detected after programming the fpga.bit, whereas when I program 10G ethernet example design bitfile the 10G NIC card is getting detected. Could you help me with the debug for this issue?

[alexforencich]

if the link partner NIC is not detecting a link, then it sounds like something is wrong with the FPGA config that's being loaded on the U50. Which design specifically did you build, and specifically what are you using as a link partner? (For example, the 25G version "fpga" will not link-up at 10G, you'll need to build the design in the "fpga_10g" folder as that configures the transceivers for 10G). But you also say that the 10G ethernet example design results in a link up - what is this design? Is this a Xilinx example design?

[lizajoseph]

Yes, you are right. I had built the fpga_AU50 which you pointed out that it is 25G version. Now I have built the fpga_AU50_10g folder design and programmed the bitfile on the u50 FPGA card and now the UDP packets are getting echoed back from the FPGA. Thanks for all your help.

Note:
The 10G Ethernet IP example design I used to test the 10G NIC card link status is from below link
https://docs.xilinx.com/r/en-US/Vitis-Tutorials-Hardware-Acceleration/Using-GT-Kernels-and-Ethernet-IPs-on-Alveo