LEAP provides leap-fpga-ctrl, a tool for matching applications to the FPGAs available on a host computer. leap-fpga-ctrl maintains a database of the available FPGAs and allocates them upon request. The standard LEAP run script invokes leap-fpga-ctrl, requesting the necessary FPGA type. leap-fpga-ctrl searches its database for a free FPGA matching the requested type. FPGAs are locked for the duration of a program’s run.

To install LEAP Base Platform Tools:

1. Check out the leap-platforms repository
2. cd /src/platforms
3. ./configure —prefix=/usr
4. cd tools
5. make
6. make install (as root)

In addition to installing leap-fpga-ctrl in /usr/bin, this will install a sample FPGA database in /usr/etc/leap and sample FPGA management scripts in /usr/share/leap.

Once the base tools are installed, users must configure the local FPGA database:

1. Copy /usr/etc/leap/config-sample to /usr/etc/leap/config and edit as necessary. leap-fpga-ctrl can manage multiple boards in a single machine.
2. Create a control script in /usr/share/leap/scripts that will be invoked by leap-fpga-ctrl to manage an FPGA. Control scripts are invoked during FPGA programming and may control PCIe hot plug, load device drivers, change access permissions, etc. Sample control scripts are installed.