6. Network Administration for NPAP

6. Network Administration for NPAP

Managing a network infrastructure commonly involves setting IPv4 addresses, managing TCP sessions, and inspecting hardware statistics. In a standard Linux environment, these tasks are typically performed using command-line tools that interact with the software-based network stack and NIC hardware. With NPAP, similar configurations are possible in two distinct ways.

You can parameterize NPAP using a wide range of compile-time parameters in HDL. 

Or, you can use run-time parameterization via NPAP’s Python-based software which comprises the NPAP HAL python package and the command-line tool (npap-admin). This software interfaces with the NPAP ERD through a wide range of options such as UART, I2C or PCIe, making it easy to adopt NPAP to your use case (see Section 3.4. NPAP Control-Flow View and Hardware Abstraction Layer). 

NPAP HAL utilizes the NPAP ERD’s AXI4-lite register interface to provide a wide range of runtime parameterizations. These include network administration tasks such as setting the IPv4 or MAC address and configuring TCP/UDP sessions, as well as testing and diagnostic functions such as setting up throughput tests with the data generator checker or the Netperf IP core or managing the kernel’s diagnostic blocks.

In an NPAP ERD (and most likely within your design as well) the local IPv4 and MAC address is configured on a per NPAP instance and applies to all TCP and UDP sessions within that same NPAP instance. 

To demonstrate the simplicity of using NPAP HAL and the Python script npap-admin the following example shows how to configure the IPv4 and MAC address of an NPAP subsystem. 

First you write a YAML configuration file as follows: