XRT Setup for Embedded Flow

To use XRT on embedded designs, xrt and zocl two components need to be installed in the root file system. Xrt package contains user space libraries and zocl is a driver space module, which requires a device tree node.

Install XRT from Package Feed

Xilinx hosts pre-compiled packages on https://petalinux.xilinx.com. If the embedded system enabled dnf package manager, user can use dnf tool to install any packages in package feed.

For example, PetaLinux 2020.x package feeds are hosted at http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020. User needs to download the package feed specific to the board architecutre and save them to /etc/yum.repos.d directory.

Here’s an example to install XRT 2020.1 PU1 for ZCU104.

# Execute the following scripts on target embedded system
# Install dnf repository description
cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic/rpm/repos/zynqmp-generic_ev.repo
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/repos/zynqmp-generic_ev-update.repo
# Clean dnf local cache
dnf clean all
# Install XRT and zocl
dnf install xrt
dnf install zocl

If an updated XRT is installed on target embedded platform, the host development sysroot should also be updated to the same version of XRT.

Here’s an example to install XRT 2020.1 PU1 and its development packages to sysroot

# Excute the following scripts on development machine
# Download XRT RPM
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/aarch64/xrt-202010.2.7.0-r0.0.aarch64.rpm
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/aarch64/xrt-dev-202010.2.7.0-r0.0.aarch64.rpm
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/aarch64/xrt-dbg-202010.2.7.0-r0.0.aarch64.rpm
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/aarch64/xrt-lic-202010.2.7.0-r0.0.aarch64.rpm
wget http://petalinux.xilinx.com/sswreleases/rel-v2020/generic-updates/rpm/aarch64/xrt-src-202010.2.7.0-r0.0.aarch64.rpm
# Download sysroot overlay scripts
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Xilinx/XRT/master/src/runtime_src/tools/scripts/sysroots_overlay.sh
# Generate RPM list file
ls *.rpm > rpm.txt
# Overlay RPM to sysroot
./sysroots_overlay.sh -s <platform_sysroot>/aarch64-xilinx-linux/ -r ./rpm.txt

sysroot_overlay.sh

A sysroot_overlay.sh script is provided in XRT to extract RPM and update sysroot. This script will extract rpm libraries and include a file update in sysroot. Besides XRT, this script supports all RPMs for various software packages.

sysroot_overlay.sh is provided in XRT source code repository. If XRT repo has been cloned to local, please use it directly at src/runtime_src/tools/scripts/sysroots_overlay.sh; If not, user can download this script without cloning the whole XRT repository.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Xilinx/XRT/master/src/runtime_src/tools/scripts/sysroots_overlay.sh

sysroot_overlay.sh arguments description:

  • -s / –sysroot is the sysroot to be overlaid.

  • -r / –rpms-file is the rpms file that contains the RPM file paths to be overlaid.

This command depends on the following tools in the system. If the tools are not available, please install them.

  • rpm2cpio

  • cpio

Build XRT from Yocto Recipes

XRT provide Yocto recipes to build libraries and driver for embedded platforms. This section explains how to build Linux image by PetaLinux Tool. It is NOT targeting to be a PetaLinux document or user guide. Please read PetaLinux document before you read the rest of this page.

NOTE The purpose of this page is only for easy to get started. If you are interested in details about creating software images for embedded platform. Please read the Software Platform section of Xilinx® Document UG1393.

Prerequisite

Before start to build Linux image, make sure your have:

  1. PetaLinux tool installed and setup;

  2. Vivado exported expandable XSA for your platform;

The PetaLinux tool can be downloaded from Xilinx Download Center.

Create PetaLinux Project with XRT

# Replace <name> in below commands
$ petalinux-create -t project -n <name> --template zynqMP

# Get XSA file, which is exported by Vivado
# A menu will show up for configuration, use below config to avoid password for login.
#       menu -> "Yocto Setting" -> "Enable Debug Tweaks"
$ petalinux-config -p <name> --get-hw-description=<XSA>

#Now we can configure Linux kernel and rootfs.

#Configure Linux kernel (default kernel config is good for zocl driver)
$ petalinux-config -c kernel

# Configure rootfs, enable below components:

#   menu -> "user packages" -> xrt
#   menu -> "user packages" -> xrt-dev
#   menu -> "user packages" -> zocl
#   menu -> "user packages" -> opencl-headers-dev
#   menu -> "user packages" -> opencl-clhpp-dev
$ petalinux-config -c rootfs

# Enable "xrt" and "xrt-dev" options will install XRT libraries and header files to /opt/xilinx/xrt directory in rootfs. Enable "zocl" option will install zocl.ko in rootfs. The zocl.ko driver is a XRT driver module only for MPSoC platform.


# Build package
$ petalinux-build

You can find all output files from images/linux directory in your PetaLinux project. These files can be used when creating an embedded platform.

  • image.ub

  • bl31.elf

  • fsbl.elf

  • pmufw.elf

  • u-boot.elf

Use an Asynchronous Version of XRT for PetaLinux Project

The PetaLinux built-in XRT version is verified by Xilinx. If in any case user would like to use a different version of XRT in PetaLinux project, here’s the procedure.

Please note the intermediate versions of XRT are not tested by Xilinx.

  1. Create the following files in project-spec/meta-user directory.

    • recipes-xrt/xrt/xrt_git.bbappend

    • recipes-xrt/zocl/zocl_git.bbappend

  2. Add the following contents to the above two files.

BRANCH = "master"
SRCREV = "<commit ID>"

The BRANCH parameter should match XRT branch name and SRCREV should match the commit ID of XRT git history in XRT github repo.

  1. Build PetaLinux with petalinux-build command.

Build XRT C/C++ applications through PetaLinux tool flow

$ petalinux-create -t apps [--template TYPE] --name <user-applicationname> --enable
#The new application sources can be found in the <plnx-proj-root>/project-spec/meta-user/recipes-apps/myapp directory.

# Change to the newly created application directory.
$ cd <plnx-proj-root>/project-spec/meta-user/recipes-apps/myapp

# myapp.c/myapp.cpp file can be edited or replaced with the real source code for your application.

$ petalinux-build
# This will rebuild the system image including the selected user application myapp.