README : Kactus2
			   Copyright (c) 2012-2023 Tampere University
              https://research.tuni.fi/system-on-chip/tools

Summary

Kactus2 is a toolset for designing embedded products, especially FPGA-based MP-SoCs. The aim is easier IP reusability and integration for both hardware and software. The tool is based on IEEE 1685-2014 "IP-XACT" standard.

Windows installer and tar-package for Linux are available in SourceForge

Guidelines for issue reporting and contributing are given in CONTRIBUTING.md. Other support is provided by email: [email protected]

What you can do with Kactus2

Package IPs for reuse and exchange

• Import your existing IPs as IP-XACT components
• Create new IP-XACT components and generate their HDL module headers
• Reuse IP-XACT files from any standard compatible vendor
• Reuse the IPs in your designs and connect them with wires and busses

Create HW designs with hierarchy

• Create multilevel hierarchies, where a design has multiple sub-designs
• Configure component instances in designs, including the sub-designs
• Use generator plugins to create HDL with wiring and parameterization

Integrate HW and SW

• Use memory designer to preview memory maps and address spaces in your hierarchy
• Package software to IP-XACT components and map them to hardware
• Generate makefiles that build executables with rules defined in IP-XACT components

What you cannot do with Kactus2

• Behavioral logic: Neither Kactus2 nor IP-XACT handles module implementations
• Synthesis or simulation: These require tools that are specificly created for the purpose

Examples and tutorials

Example IPs are available in GitHub here.

Video tutorials are available in Youtube.

Windows install

An installer (link above) will guide you through the installation on Windows platforms.

If you want to build Kactus2 on Windows, see separate instructions in our project management site: https://kactus2.cs.tut.fi

Linux build, install and run

1. Install Qt6

To build and run Kactus2, Qt6 must be installed on your system. If you already have Qt installed, you can skip to step 2. Otherwise, select installing Qt with either using a package manager (option a) or manually (option b):

a) Install Qt6 packages using a package manager (requires admin privileges). The following packages are required (on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS):

• qt6-base-dev
• qt6-tools-dev
• qt6-tools-dev-tools
• libqt6svg6-dev

Install other dependencies:

• libpython3.8-dev or newer
• swig, version 3.0.12 or newer
• libgl-dev

Example with all dependencies:

sudo apt-get install qt6-base-dev qt6-tools-dev qt6-tools-dev-tools libqt6svg6-dev libpython3.8-dev swig libgl-dev

b) Manually download and install from https://www.qt.io/download/

2. Build the sources

First, get the Kactus2 source files. We recommend using the release tar-package (link above) which has all Windows-specific files removed. Extract the files and navigate to the Kactus2 root directory.

Example:

mkdir ~/kactus2
tar -xvf kactus2-3.11.0.tar.gz -C ~/kactus2
cd ~/kactus2

Build configuration

Open the file configure in the Kactus2 root directory and set the path to Qt6 binaries in the variable QTBIN_PATH.

Example:

QTBIN_PATH="/lib/qt6/bin/"

Please do note the slash at the end of the path.

Open the file .qmake.conf and check that the paths are compatible with your Linux distribution. The defaults should work with Ubuntu 64-bit, Debian and CentOS 7 64-bit, but on some systems you may have to change lib_path from /usr/lib to /usr/lib64. Next, check that the PYTHON_CONFIG variable has been set correctly and matches the installed Python version.

Example for Python version 3.10:

PYTHON_CONFIG=python3.10-config

Now run the following command to apply the configuration:

./configure

Please note, if you run ./configure with the wrong configuration, you will have to delete the generated makefiles before configuring again. The easiest way to do this, is to run command make distclean.

Build and install

Select installation either for all users (option a) or customized target (option b) below:

a) Default installation for all users (requires admin privileges).

Now run following commands:

make
sudo make install

After the installation, skip to section 3.

b) Customized installation target. This option can be used for a local installation for the current user (e.g. in ~/kactus2) as well as shared installation in a specific directory (e.g. /opt/edatools/kactus2).

Open file .qmake.conf and set the installation directory in variable LOCAL_INSTALL_DIR.

Example:

LOCAL_INSTALL_DIR="~/kactus2"

By default, the shared libraries are installed in the same directory, but can be configured by setting the lib_path on line 60.

Now run the following commands:

make
make install

Run sudo make install, if the current user has no write permissions to the target directory (e.g. /opt/edatools/kactus2).

Shared library setup

Finally, make sure the shared libraries can be found by the program loader. If the installation is shared between multiple users, consider listing the libraries in /etc/ld.so.conf.

Example for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: Create the file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/kactus2.conf and add a single line that contains the target installation path (e.g. /opt/edatools/kactus2). Run ldconfig to update the paths in the loader.

3a. Run Kactus2 GUI

There are three ways to run Kactus2 depending on your system and installation setup.

a) A default installation shared between users. Run:

/usr/bin/kactus2

b) A local installation from the installation directory. Run:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./kactus2

If the library paths are set in /etc/ld.so.conf, the binary can be run directly. Example:

/opt/edatools/kactus2

c) In some systems, a link to the executable is created, if Kactus2 was installed for all users. Run:

kactus2

3b. Run Kactus2 on command-line

Kactus2 can be run in the command-line without the GUI. Run:

kactus2 -c

This will start an interactive Python® interpreter for executing series of commands.

Kactus2 supports the following command-line options:

• -c, --no-gui: Run in command-line mode without the GUI.
• -h, --help: Show the application usage help and exit.
• -v, --version: Show the application version and exit.

On command-line the IP-XACT data is readable and modifiable through the provided interafaces. Interface documentation will be added later. Example script files can be found in PythonAPI/ExampleScripts directory. The API module is imported at startup and instantiated as kactus2.

Example usage showing importing a verilog file to IP-XACT component and generating an equivalent VHDL file:

$kactus2 -c
...
Python 3.8.3 (tags/v3.8.3:6f8c832, May 13 2020, 22:20:16) [MSC v.1925 64 bit (AMD64)]
>>> kactus2.importFile('D:/Data/ipxactexamplelib/wb_sum_buffer.v', 'tuni.fi:peripheral.logic:wb_sum_buffer:1.0')
1
>>> kactus2.generate('VHDL', 'tuni.fi:peripheral.logic:wb_sum_buffer:1.0', 'flat_verilog', 'D:/Data/ipxactexamplelib/generated')
Running VHDL Generator 1.3.
Running generation for tuni.fi:peripheral.logic:wb_sum_buffer:1.0 and view 'flat_verilog'.
Target directory: D:/Data/ipxactexamplelib/generated
Parsing the IP-Xact models...
Writing the vhdl file...
Done writing the vhdl file.
VHDL generation complete.
>>> exit()

The Python interface can be used without running Kactus2 by importing the pythonAPI module and instantiating the API:

Python 3.8.3 (tags/v3.8.3:6f8c832, May 13 2020, 22:20:16) [MSC v.1925 64 bit (AMD64)]
>>> import pythonAPI
>>> kactus2 = pythonAPI.PythonAPI()
...

Please note the following when using the module independent of Kactus2:

• The API is dependent on a shared library named KactusAPI. It must be found at import time.
• Kactus2 settings, such as library paths, are not loaded with the module. You must set them manually. An example is shown below:

>>> kactus2.setLibraryPaths(['/home/me/ipxact', '/home/me/ip/uart/'])

Troubleshooting for Python API:

sh: 1: python3-config: not found

Running ./configure gives this error when the Python 3 configuration utilities cannot be found. Set the variable PYTHON_CONFIG in .qmake.conf.

Could not import Kactus2 PythonAPI.
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pythonAPI'

The Python module (pythonAPI, no underscore prefix) for the API could not be found. Make sure the directory PythonAPI is in your PYTHONPATH environment variable. For non-persistent setup you can set PYTHONPATH at Kactus2 startup by running e.g. PYTHONPATH=~/kactus2/PythonAPI kactus2 -c

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_pythonAPI'

File _pythonAPI.so (with underscore) could not be found. Check that PythonAPI project was compiled succesfully and libPythonAPI.so was created in the PythonAPI directory. SWIG requires the library name to match _pythonAPI.so, so create the link manually with ln -s -f PythonAPI/libPythonAPI.so.1.0.0 PythonAPI/_pythonAPI.so

ImportError: libKactus2.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

File libKactus2.so could not be found. Check that Kactus2 project was compiled succesfully and libKactus2.so was created in /usr/lib, /usr/lib64 or your local install directory. Running make install copies the .so file in the target install directory. Also make sure the library can be found run-time. See the end of section 2 for details on library path loading.

Settings and configurations

Kactus2 uses a settings file for storing user-specific tool settings. The file default location is ~/.config/TUT/Kactus2.ini in Linux and C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\TUT\Kactus2.ini in Windows. The location can be checked on the general settings page in Kactus2.

A system wide default settings file is located in /etc/xdg and C:\ProgramData, respectively. This will be used as a base for any new user-specific settings and a fallback mechanism, if the user's file is missing a requested value.

Modifying the settings files manually is not recommended and should be done only by advanced users. Most of the time all required changes can be applied in the Kactus2 GUI.

In addition, Kactus2 uses the file configure.cfgfor updating the users' settings when new setting options are introduced in the tool. Please do not modify this file as it will break the compatibility with earlier versions.

Community Guidelines & Contributions

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Contributors

Antti Kamppi, Joni-Matti Määttä, Lauri Matilainen, Timo D. Hämäläinen, Mikko Teuho, Juho Järvinen, Esko Pekkarinen, Janne Virtanen, Anton Hagqvist

Kactus2 uses Icons8 provided by Icons8 LLC.

Licensing

This software is licensed under the GPL2 General Public License.

Kactus2 is also available for dual licensing. Please contact [email protected] to purchase a commercial license.

Kactus2 is dynamically linked using Qt 6.2.4 open source libraries (LGPL), copyright The Qt Company.

Kactus2 uses the Python language and interpreter for automating design tasks.
Python is a registered trademark of the Python Software Foundation. See also the PSF license.