EMBS Students
If you are an EMBS student wondering why you just received an email linking to this page, keep the email somewhere safe, you'll need it later. You don't have to do anything for now. Come back here when you are starting the EMBS practicals.
To use the VLAB you need a Virtual Lab keyfile. If you don't have one and think that you should, speak to Ian.
You must download and run the VLAB software to the location where you are running the Xilinx tools. If you have installed them on your computer, run them there. If you are running on the VDS, download and run the tools there.
Download the VLAB script and run it.
On the VDS go to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RTSYork/VLAB/master/vlab.py and save the script somewhere. Then open Command Prompt from the start menu, navigate to where you saved it, and run it:
cd Downloads python vlab.py --user yourusername --key yourkeyfile.vlabkey
yourusername is your IT services username (i.e. abc500).
On Linux:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RTSYork/VLAB/master/vlab.py chmod +x vlab.py ./vlab.py --user yourusername --key yourkeyfile.vlabkey
The script requires Python 3 so install it if you need to. The script should run, request an FPGA board, connect to a free one, reset it ready for use, and eventually show you a connected terminal. Please close the terminal when you are done, see the section below on how to exit.
If you are running the tools on your home machine, you need to set up some SSH configuration so that your computer can see the VLAB servers. Ensure that you have performed the steps in the "Connecting through the SSH Gateway" section.
If you get a message about host keys changing (and you're sure that nobody is actually trying to man-in-the-middle attack your connection), it's likely that we've just updated the VLAB relay server since you last connected. Follow the instructions in the error message to clear the key from your 'known_hosts' file. If you're unsure about anything you can always email us for help.
The permissions on the key are too permissive!
SSH requires that your private key is only visible to you and not to other users on the system. Depending on how you downloaded the key you might find that your permissions are too permissive. On Linux this is easily fixed by entering:
chmod 0600 mykey.vlabkey
On Windows:
- Right click your keyfile and select Properties.
- Go to the Security tab, click Advanced.
- Click Disable Inheritance and "Remove all inherited permissions from this object".
- Click Add and "Select a principal".
- Enter your IT services username (abc500) and click OK
- Click Full Control and OK.
- It should look something like this:
- Click OK, OK, and SSH should now be happy.
Using Vivado with the VLAB
First connect to a VLAB board. Then in Vivado click "Open Hardware Manager" in the Flow Navigator in the left-hand column. Then click "Open Target" | "Open New Target" in the Flow Navigator. In the Open wizard click Next, select Remote Server, Next, and use the following settings:
VLAB Hardware Server Settings
|
Click Next and the tools should connect and see a Zybo Z7:
Click Next and Finish. You can send bitfiles to the FPGA by selecting Program Device from the Flow Navigator.
The process in SDK is similar. In the bottom left should be a Target Connections panel (Window -> Show View -> Other if it is not visible.) Click Add New Target Connection. Set the name to VLAB and the host and port as above, and click OK. To use this new connection you need to set your Run Configuration to use it. In the menus select Run -> Run Configurations and for the configuration you are using change the connection to the VLAB. This will allow you to upload code, bitfiles, and use the debugger all remotely.
Using the VLAB on a Shared Machine
If you're connecting to the VLAB on a shared machine where multiple people might be connecting at once (e.g. from one of the department's compute servers) you will need to specify a custom local port so that your connection doesn't collide with another user's.
You can use the -l or --localport option to vlab.py to specify a port that is different to the default value (12345), then specify this in Vivado instead. A unique local port for web server forwarding will also be need to be set using -w or --webport, even if this is not used.
Almost any port in the range 1024 to 65535 should work if it is free. For example:
|
Exiting the VLAB
Please close your VLAB connection when you are not using it so that other students can use the board (remember that your exclusive lock on a board will expire ten minutes after connecting anyway).
The VLAB terminal window is running screen. To close it, press and release Ctrl-a, then press 'k' and confirm with 'y'.