Use RTL Compiler on an f1 instance - Best Practices| Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

This topic describes how to use Register Transfer Level (RTL) Compiler on an f1 instance.

Prerequisites

An Alibaba Cloud account is created. To create an Alibaba Cloud account, go to the Create Your Alibaba Cloud Account page.
An f1 instance is created and is able to access the Internet.

Note Only FPGA as a Service (FaaS) F1 basic images from Alibaba Cloud Marketplace can be used to create f1 instances. For more information, see Create an f1 instance.
The rule for allowing traffic on SSH port 22 is configured for the security groups where the f1 instance resides.
The ID of the f1 instance is obtained from the Instances page in the ECS console.
An OSS bucket for FaaS is created.
The OSS bucket and the f1 instance must belong to the same account and reside in the same region. For more information, see Create buckets.
To encrypt files, first activate Key Management Service (KMS).
For more information, see Activate KMS.
You must complete the following operations before you can manage FPGA-accelerated instances as a RAM user:
- Create a RAM user and grant permissions to the RAM user. For more information, see Create a RAM user and Grant permissions to a RAM user.
  The permissions you must grant to the RAM user include AliyunECSReadOnlyAccess, AliyunOSSFullAccess, and AliyunRAMFullAccess.
- Go to the Cloud Resource Access Authorization page to authorize FaaS to access your resources.
- Obtain the AccessKey ID and AccessKey secret of the RAM user.

Background information

Before you perform the operations, take note of the following items:

All operations described in this topic must be performed by a single account within the same region.
We strongly recommend that you manage FPGA-accelerated instances as a RAM user. To avoid accidental operations, you must authorize the RAM user to perform only required actions. You must create a role for the RAM user and grant temporary permissions to the role to access the specified OSS bucket. Then, you can download the original Design Checkpoint (DCP) project from the OSS bucket and manage the FPGA image. If you want to encrypt the IP address, you must authorize the RAM user to use KMS. If you want the RAM user to check permissions of Alibaba Cloud accounts, you must authorize the RAM user to view the resources of Alibaba Cloud accounts.

Procedure

Connect to an f1 instance.
For more information, see Connect to a Linux instance by using a username and password.
Run the following command to configure the basic environment:
```
source /opt/dcp1_1/script/f1_env_set.sh
```

Run the following commands in sequence to compile the project:

cd /opt/dcp1_1/hw/samples/dma_afu

afu_synth_setup --source hw/rtl/filelist.txt build_synth

cd build_synth/

run.sh

Note The compilation process may take some time.

Create an image.

Run the following commands in sequence to configure the PATH environment variable and grant execute permissions to the faascmd file:
```
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/dcp1_1/script/
```
```
chmod +x /opt/dcp1_1/script/faascmd
```

Run the following commands in sequence to initialize the faascmd configuration:

# Replace hereIsYourSecretId with your AccessKey ID. Replace hereIsYourSecretKey with your AccessKey secret.
faascmd config --id=hereIsYourSecretId --key=hereIsYourSecretKey

# Replace hereIsYourBucket with the OSS bucket name in the China (Hangzhou) region.
faascmd auth --bucket=hereIsYourBucket

Run the following command in the /opt/dcp1_1/hw/samples/dma_afu directory to upload the GBS file:
```
faascmd upload_object --object=dma_afu.gbs --file=dma_afu.gbs
```

Run the following command to create an image:

# Replace hereIsYourImageName with your image name.
faascmd create_image --object=dma_afu.gbs --fpgatype=intel --name=hereIsYourImageName --tags=hereIsYourImageTag --encrypted=false --shell=V1.1

Download the image.

Run the following command to check whether the image is created:
```
faascmd list_images
```
If "State":"success" is displayed in the command output, the image is created. Record the value of FpgaImageUUID in the command output for subsequent use.
Run the following command to obtain the ID of your FPGA instance:
```
# Replace hereIsYourInstanceId with the ID of your f1 instance.
faascmd list_instances --instanceId=hereIsYourInstanceId
```
The following figure shows the command output. Record the value of FpgaUUID.

Run the following command to download the FPGA image to the f1 instance:

# Replace hereIsYourInstanceID with the instance ID that you recorded. Replace hereIsFpgaUUID with the value of FpgaUUID that you recorded. Replace hereIsImageUUID with the value of FpgaImageUUID that you recorded.
faascmd download_image --instanceId=hereIsYourInstanceID --fpgauuid=hereIsFpgaUUID --fpgatype=intel --imageuuid=hereIsImageUUID --imagetype=afu --shell=V1.1

Run the following command to check whether the image is downloaded:
```
# Replace hereIsYourInstanceID with the instance ID that you recorded. Replace hereIsFpgaUUID with the value of FpgaUUID that you recorded.
faascmd fpga_status --instanceId=hereIsYourInstanceID --fpgauuid=hereIsFpgaUUID
```
If "TaskStatus":"operating" is displayed in the command output, and the value of FpgaImageUUID is the same as the value of FpgaImageUUID, the image is downloaded.

Optional:If HugePages is disabled, run the following command to enable HugePages:
```
sudo bash -c "echo 20 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages"
```

Run the following commands in sequence to perform a test:

cd /opt/dcp1_1/hw/samples/dma_afu/sw

make

sudo LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/dcp1_1/hw/samples/dma_afu/sw:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./fpga_dma_test 0

If the following command output is displayed, the test is complete. test_complete