xbmgmt Utility

Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393)

Document ID
UG1393
Release Date
2021-03-22
Version
2020.2 English
Tip: The next generation of the xbmgmt command-line tool is in preview mode for the 2020.2 release of XRT. This version will replace the current xbmgmt in a future release of XRT. Refer to https://xilinx.github.io/XRT/2020.2/html/xbmgmt2.html for information about the new utility.

Xilinx® Board Management (xbmgmt) utility is a standalone command line tool that is included with the Xilinx Runtime (XRT) installation package. The xbmgmt command supports both Alveo Data Center accelerator cards, and embedded processor-based platforms.

Accelerator cards are partitioned into a user function and a management function to provide different levels of card access. The user function allows end users to load and run their applications, while the management function is for system administrators to manage the card. The xbutil utility interacts with the user function. The xbmgmt utility, which requires root privilege, is for interacting with the management function. The reason for splitting the function access between the two utilities is to provide some security for the management features of the tool.

Important: The xbmgmt utility only works with Alveo cards that have Xilinx provided shells/platforms. XRT does not work on custom Vivado® designs.

This utility is used for card installation and administration, and requires sudo privileges when running it. The xbmgmt supported tasks include flashing the card firmware, and scanning the current device configuration.

The xbmgmt command line format is:

xbmgmt <command> [options]

The supported sub-commands are given below.

config
Parse or update daemon/device configuration
flash
Update SC firmware or shell on the device
help
Print out help message for a sub-command
partition
Show and download partition onto the device
scan
List all detected mgmt PCIe® functions
version
Print out XRT build version
Tip: You can use the help command to list the available xbmgmt commands and options, and access help for individual commands by using the following:
xbmgmt help <command>
For detailed help of each sub-command, use the following:
xbmgmt help <subcommand>

Set up the xbmgmt command using the following scripts:

  • For csh shell:
    $ source /opt/xilinx/xrt/setup.csh
  • For bash shell:
    $ source /opt/xilinx/xrt/setup.sh