Xilinx ICS 2020 tutorial

Monday 29 June 2020 10:00 - 18:00 (Central European Time)

Connecting to AWS

This guide will show you how to connect to a Xilinx provided AWS EC2 F1 instance, and starting and stopping the instance.

Steps

Each registered participant to the tutorial has been allocated a pre-configured EC2 F1 instance. You should already have received an email with the following details:

• Account ID,
• IAM username,
• Link to access a pre-configured EC2 F1 instance

Login into the AWS and starting an F1 instance

• Follow the link provided by your instructor, or go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2 to open a login page.

• Select IAM user if necessary

  If you see the "Root user sign in" prompt, asking for your e-mail and password, select Sign in to a different account

  You should see a login page similar to shown here:

  

• For the Account ID or Alias enter xilinx-aws-f1-developer-labs

  Use the username assigned to you by e-mail and enter the password provided by the instructors. Only use this username to log in to the AWS console. Later you will use centos as the username to login to the AWS instance.

Check the AWS region

• In the top right corner, using the drop-down button, make sure N. Virginia (US East) is selected.

  

  If you select the wrong region you may not see your instance

Launch the instance

• Click on the EC2 link on the dashboard, or if not visible, click on the Services drop-down button and then click on EC2

  

• Click on the Instances link on the left panel

  

  You may see several instances

• Enter your username in the filter field just below the Launch Instance button and hit enter

  

• Making sure that your instance is selected, click on the Actions > Instance State > Start

  

• Wait for a few seconds, and click on the refresh button() to see the updated status. Repeat this until you see the instance is running. It usually takes about 20-30 seconds for an instance to start.

  

9. Copy or note the IPv4 Public IP address. If you hover the mouse near the end of the IP address, you can click a button to copy

Connect to instance

At this point you have several options to connect to your AWS instance. E.g. NICE DCV, RDP, for remote desktop, PuTTY and similar for command line interface.

We recommend you first try to use Nice DCV to connect to your instance. This seems to work well on all operating systems.

Connecting to AWS instance using NICE DCV

NICE DCV as recommended by Amazon will be used to remote desktop to the instance.

• Download and install the appropriate NICE DCV client if necessary from here: https://download.nice-dcv.com

The NICE DCV session has already been started on the instance provided. .

Start NICE DCV

• Open the NICE DCV application, enter (or paste) the IPv4 Public IP from the Amazon console and click Open

  

• When prompted, enter centos as the username and same password provided by your instructor

  

Lab setup

• Open a terminal and execute the following commands to clone the aws-fpga repository and setup the Xilinx tools. aws-fpga includes the AWS F1 tools, HDK and documentation:

  git clone https://github.com/aws/aws-fpga $AWS_FPGA_REPO_DIR -b v1.4.14
  #Include AWS platforms by default
  echo "export PLATFORM_REPO_PATHS=$AWS_FPGA_REPO_DIR/Vitis/aws_platform/xilinx_aws-vu9p-f1_shell-v04261818_201920_2/" >> ~/.bashrc
  #Source XRT everytime a new terminal is open
  echo "source /opt/xilinx/xrt/setup.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
  #Reload .bashrc in the current terminal
  source ~/.bashrc
  #Source AWS configuration files
  source $AWS_FPGA_REPO_DIR/vitis_setup.sh
  source $AWS_FPGA_REPO_DIR/vitis_runtime_setup.sh

Video Guide

You can also follow these short video guides to get connected:

Start AWS instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--o7PTRlePA&t=6s

Connect using NICE DCV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6dG8hjKR0

Start the labs

Once you have done this, open the tutorial instructions:

​ ~/compute_acceleration/ICS2020.html

Start from the first lab: Introduction to Vitis Part 1.

Appendix

Nice DCV alternatives

You can use RDP (Windows), Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac, Vinagre, Remmina (Linux), but the instructors will be limited on how much support they can give for these alternatives.

For Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac you must use this specific version: v8.0.43 as this has color depth settings.

Where your client has the option, you need top set the color depth to 24-bit.

Connect using RDP

You can communicate with the instance using command line through PuTTY or Git Bash, and using GUI through remote desktop (RDP) connection.

1. Start a remote desktop session

2. Enter the IPv4 address

3. Click on the Show Options

4. Select the Display tab and select True Color (24 bit) and click Connect

5. A certificate warning will be displayed. Click Yes to open the RDP session

6. Enter centos as the username and enter the provided password and click OK

Connect to AWS with RDP video guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJaAiKtK-U