XRT and WSL2

[danchitnis]

Hello, I am trying to install the Alveo U250 software package for development only (I don't have the card) on WSL2 in Win11 Insider preview. Do I need to install the XRT module for development only? In that case, when I install xrt using sudo apt install xrt..., the installer goes into an infinite loop:

xocl.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
 - Original module
   - No original module exists within this kernel
 - Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/5.4.0-74-generic/updates/dkms/

xclmgmt.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
 - Original module
   - No original module exists within this kernel
 - Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/5.4.0-74-generic/updates/dkms/

depmod...

DKMS: install completed.

I believe xocl and xclmgmt are Xilinx's kernel drivers for PCIe.

[sonals]

WSL2 is not a supported platform so this will require your help to resolve.

Can you dig through to see what is the causing the infinite loop -- the log files left behind by the installer may be helpful here.

[danchitnis]

WSL2 doesn't have systemd (yet). So when xrt is trying to install a service and start it, it fails and goes to an infinite loop. This will cause a problem when installing inside containers since in the majority of scenarios there is no root access for systemd. The service startup doesn't seem essential for development purposes, since my Vitis seem to function correctly.

Where can I find the logs for the xrt installer?

[keryell]

Are you compiling from the sources? This comes probably from https://github.com/Xilinx/XRT/blob/master/build/debian/xrt-xocl-dkms.postinst You can instrument this file, rerun it after you stopped the failing install. I find replacing #! /bin/sh by #! /bin/sh -vx useful to debug shell scripts. PR welcome. :-) I am curious about whether GitHub Action allows to try this with Windows + WSL2...

[danchitnis]

@keryell I used this link in the Alveo U250 page. It may differ with the source because the messages seem to be different.

The crucial question is whether the development (i.e. SW and HW emulation) works without installing the xrt package? WSL doesn't have systemctl, so these services will not run anyway.

I am curious about whether GitHub Action allows to try this with Windows + WSL2...

Yes, it should be possible. Currently, WSL is very similar to a rootless container, so a docker container in Github action can replicate the results of installing on WSL. I will try to create a minimal repository to demonstrate the xrt problem.

[keryell]

All this is unsupported platform, so you will not be able to install the official XRT package. You can always deconstruct the .deb, edit the control files and reassemble it so it skip or at least does not fail on the systemctl part. Otherwise another way to get XRT working might be to compile it to the platform but skipping the device-driver install because anyway it cannot work yet on WSL2.

[danchitnis]

correct, I think the script can check if systemctl returns without error and then exits the postinst process. I will create a pull requires on this later.

I have created a repository to test the xrt installations. It doesn't have the infinite loop which I encountered in my WSL install. Eventually, I will expand it to a full installation (excluding Vitis due to size) which can be freshly built and pulled directly from a container repository.

[keryell]

Thank you for working on this! @lforg37: I guess you had a similar issue when trying to make a Docker image with Vitis + XRT? I guess it was not failing that hard?