With some work, I got Alteras on-board USB-Blaster working on my Ubuntu 14.04-64 installation with Quartus II 13.1.0 64-bit. I was connecting to a Terasic SocKit board. In this article, I'll describe how I got it working.
To facilitate working with the Altera software, I suggest adding the bin/
folder of the Quartus installation (/opt/altera/13.1/quartus/bin
on my system) to $PATH
. This gives command-line access to the commands jtagd
and jtagconfig
which I use in this post.
Verify USB connection and check Product ID
At first, connect the cable and make sure the USB device is recognized. These are the commands I used and the output I got:
[...]
[16059.962298] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=09fb, idProduct=6010
[16059.962301] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[16059.962303] usb 2-2: Product: CV SoCKit
[16059.962305] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Altera
[16059.962307] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: ARCVSC-123-457
$
$ lsusb|grep Altera
Bus 002 Device 007: ID 09fb:6010 Altera
Take note of the Product ID listed - 6010
in the above example.
Fix USB driver permissions
The Quartus software will use the Linux built-in usb_device
drivers. By default, only root has access to these so we must make sure the user is allowed to access them as well.
jtagd
, part of the Quartus tools, is a deamon that provides the interface between the Altera tool accessing the JTAG chain and the USB driver. If not already running, jtagd
will be startetd automatically when the Quartus software or jtagconfig
is run. You'll usually run these as a user, which means jtagd
will also run as a user. That is why edited permission for the usb_device
is necessary.
Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/51-usbblaster.rules
, make sure it has read permissions for root, and fill it with this content:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",\
ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",\
ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb",\
ATTR{idProduct}=="6010",\
MODE="0666",\
NAME="bus/usb/$env{BUSNUM}/$env{DEVNUM}",\
RUN+="/bin/chmod 0666 %c"
Edit the value for ATTR{idProduct}
to match the Product ID determined before.
If you have more than one Product ID you want this to work for, simply repeat the above lines in the same file and use the other Product IDs for ATTR{idProduct}
.
For the changes to take effect, reboot the machine or run:
Copy devices data for jtagd
Make sure jtagd
has access to the list of devices:
Also make sure this file has read access for the user.
This file allows Altera tools to translate Device IDs (left column of terminal listing below) to device names (right column) for found devices.
Test that it's all working
To test that the connection works, execute jtagconfig
and hope for an output giving the board and the devices:
1) CV SoCKit [2-2]
02D020DD 5CSEBA6(.|ES)/5CSEMA6/..
4BA00477 SOCVHPS
The cable should now be recognized as a valid hardware by the Quartus tools. From Quartus, select Tools, Programmer, Hardware Setup... and then select the board from the drop-down list. Now, the Programmer, JTAG Chain Debugger and System console should all recognize and use the USB-Blaster device.
Trouble-shooting and common error messages
For general problems, start trouble-shooting by making sure jtagd
is not started, then start it as root and then run jtagconfig
. This should eliminate all possible permission problems, and should work also without the udev rights.
$ sudo killall -9 jtagd # ...and verify jtagd is indeed not running.
jtagd: no process found # Good, verified.
$ jtagconfig
1) CV SoCKit [2-1]
02D020DD 5CSEBA6(.|ES)/5CSEMA6/..
4BA00477 SOCVHPS
Other trouble-shooting includes verifying that the usb device is found (dmesg|tail
and ps aux|grep Altera
). Also check that jtagd
runs, and if it runs as user or root:
root 21733 0.0 0.0 25076 1580 ? S 11:05 0:00 /opt/altera/13.1/quartus/linux64/jtagd
# Obviously, jtagd is running, and it's running as root.
If an Altera tool started jtagd
, it will typically be started with some command-line options:
carl 5399 0.0 0.0 25080 1612 ? S 19:37 0:00 /opt/altera/13.1/quartus/linux64/jtagd --user-start --config /home/carl/.jtagd.conf
For some reason, as can be seen above, the Altera tool has provided a specific Device ID file as command-line argument, however, even if this file doesn't exist, at least on my system jtagd
will also check /etc/jtagd/jtagd.pgm_parts
. It can also be noted that the Altera tool has started jtagd
with a --user-start
argument. In this case, jtagd
will terminate two minutes after the last client has disconnected from it. The next Altera tool needing to use it will simply start it again.
Typical permission problems will yield this message from jtagconfig
:
No JTAG hardware available
If you get an error message like Unable to lock chain (Insufficient port permissions)
, this is due to the driver permissions.
It can also be useful to try to start jtagd
with some debug options for verbose output:
JTAG daemon started
Using config file /etc/jtagd/jtagd.conf
Remote JTAG permitted when password set
(Still, at least on my system, jtagd
will also check /etc/jtagd/jtagd.pgm_parts
although it says otherwise in the output above.)
An error message about not being able to bind to port 1309 typically means jtagd
is already running:
JTAG daemon started
Using config file /etc/jtagd/jtagd.conf
Remote JTAG permitted when password set
Cant bind to TCP port 1309 - exiting
If jtagconfig
indicates that the connection is OK, but using the Quartus Programmer fails and is giving this message in the Quartus console:
target device
...then restarting jtagd
will usually work. This goes for any application occupying the target device. If the applicatoin in question is System Console
, then this is usually the Nios console window in Eclipse. Terminate its connection to Nios (icon with red square).
Work-around for driver permission problems
If you don't manage to fix driver permission problems, you can run jtagd
as root instead. This is also an alternative solution to creating the udev rules as described above. However, you should be aware that this is not typically regarded as a 'good' solution due to security issues.
If starting jtagd
manually, start it as root with sudo jtagd
. You must make sure jtagd
is not running in prior to this - if it is, it will continue to run as the user that started it previously.
For a permanent solution, start jtagd
as root at each boot. That can, for example, be done by adding a call to the jtagd
executable in /etc/rc.local
. Add the line and make sure the file has execute permissions (that is for some reason not always the case for a standard Ubuntu installation). Reboot the machine and check that jtagd
is started, and that it runs as root. (A more correct, but more complicated, way to do this is to add init.d
scripts for jtagd
. Then shutdown and restart can also be handled correctly.)
ModelSim Altera Edition
Most other Altera tools I've used has worked without problems (QuartusII, Qsys, SBT/Eclipse, Programmer, System Console and others). However, ModelSim typically won't run without tweaking on Ubuntu 14.
Trying to lauch ModelSim from within Quartus gave the following error message:
is properly installed and the environment variable LM_LICENSE_FILE or
MGLS_LICENSE_FILE points to the correct license file.
However, the problem is not about the licensing in this case. Trying to lauch from the command line gave a more informative error message:
Error while loading shared libraries: libXft.so.2: cannot open shared object
file: No such file or directory.
Remedy: install the 32-bit version of libXft:
When any missing packages are installed, expect a segmentation fault when trying to launch ModelSim:
** Fatal: Read failure in vlm process (0,0)
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
This is due to ModelSim being incompatible with the latest version of the libfreetype
package.
I got this problem working by following the instructions here:
The same instructions can also be found here:
http://mattaw.blogspot.se/2014/05/making-modelsim-altera-starter-edition.html
This solved the problems for me and ModelSim is now runnning fine.
References
Using Altera's USB-Blaster on Debian Linux
Altera Design Software - ArchWiki
USB-Blaster Driver for Linux (Altera)
Re: Remote access to Altera FPGA via jtagd in Linux (comp.arch.fpga)
Quartus for Linux - Altera Wiki (this seems to be at least partly outdated. usbfs should be obsolete.)
Ubuntu Community Help: QuartusII (mostly outdated)
Thanks for the excellent tutorial.
Just some remarks below:
1) My udev file, better suitable for new style of Ubuntu 10.04:
# For Altera USB-Blaster permissions.
#6010: CV SoCKit
#6001: USB-Blaster
ACTION=="add|change", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", \
ATTRS{idVendor}=="09fb",\
ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010|6001",\
TAG+="uaccess"
2) Installer for 14.0 wanted to launch the Qprogrammer at the end, but failed with missing libraries; however, manual starting
....../altera/14.0/qprogrammer/bin/quartus_pgmw
succeeded.
It seems that installer wanted to start a pure binary from linux64 folder, and .../bin gives a script which sets up libs beforehand....
Thanks for contributions on the udev file, I haven't tried it but I'm sure it makes sense.
Also thanks for hints on the 14.0 installer.
Hi,
Having just the tag
> ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010"
required me to run jtagd as root (must kill the process and make sure it is not running with user permissions) for the hardware to be detected.
Could you explain why adding
> ACTION=="add|change",\
> ...
> ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010|6810",\
> ...
avoids the need of root usage?
Thanks for the hint!
Nicolas, IIRC the USB device is a multi-personality device, and will disconnect and reconnect as another product id when sent the right command. Chances are removing the 6810 idProduct will prevent some permission changes, requiring root access.
Thanks Jerome!
I do not understand the udev config syntax but I think it is safe to assume that those extra lines configure the udev to be prepared for when those changes happen. Right?
Nicolas,
yes, the udev rules above result in systemd modifying the permissions on the matching usb devices entries in /dev/ so that processes running as your non-root user can have read-write access to them.
Older Linux distro versions may require different rules, as the uaccess tag is not universal.
Note that the usb device on the sockit board is a multi-personality type device, so its product id may change over the time when jtag is chatting with it. In my case, initial product id was 0x6810 and switched to 0x6010 after the first jtagd exchange, so maybe you need to add two individual udev rules to account for the two personalities.
In the rules file, I had to specify %N instead of %c, then everything worked!
Just for noobs out there like me -> the altera usb blaster can not be used for programming Xilinx FPGAs. Following this tutorial will result in having to undoing it and re-installing the Xilinx or Digilent drivers.
Thanks ...it worked in 2016....
In this (btw. extremely helpful, thanks!) manual, it says
"For the changes to take effect, reboot the machine OR run ..."
In my case I really needed the reboot. Before I kept getting the "Unable to lock chain (Insufficient port permissions)" error, in spite of applying "sudo udevadm control --reload" and starting/stopping jtagd repeatedly.
OK Linus, thanks for your comment and contribution!