reading FPGA's block RAM from pc - fpga

I am using Xilinx ISE 14.7 synthesizer. I am able to initialize my BRAM with a .coe file and access it. Also I can update it with new .mem file using data2mem tool and update my bit file. Here I have configured it as ROM.
My problem is, I don't know how to store the BRAM contents to a file. I am using Single port block memory from the core generator. I am configuring it as RAM. I want to write data to it and access it later. I didn't find any relevant post stating this. May be its only me who didnt find a way to save the contents to a file. For example, in Altera in-system memory content editor, there is an option to export the data to a file. Is there any such way in Xilinx or some way to do it with data2mem tool?
I can send the memory content to PC using serial port but that's not my concern right now. I am really looking for some way to store the content to a file (probably a .mem file) and use it in MATLAB. Can anyone explain it to me or point a document or some link. I have studied the relevant documentation but it didn't strike my mind. Any kind of suggestion would be highly appreciated. Also, tell me if I am thinking in a wrong way.

Let me clarify, you want to initialize the BRAM with some data, then make some processing on it, then auto-magically download it to the PC and make further analysis? If I am right, you need also to clarify, if you need production solution or debug solution, for production you need to design a data-dump module and connect it to specific communication module, but for debug purposes you can do it using jtag (be aware, dumping bram content at runtime using jtag will corrupt your data! make sure that circuit is stopped and nothing is updating bram during dumping), if you have Zynq device you can try with:
https://forums.xilinx.com/t5/7-Series-FPGAs/read-bram-from-jtag-or-uart-or-zynq-PS/td-p/738600
otherwise try with readback feature of 7series fpga's
https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/application_notes/xapp1230-configuration-readback-capture.pdf

Related

Update .mif file using In System memory content editor is showing no instances

I am using DE1 and VHDL. I want to update my mif file constantly and display it on VGA. I used one of the tutorials online to use In System memory content editor. But, once I complete the process, I see no instance is being created in spite of assigning instance id while creating a new megafunction. I looked online if any had come across such a problem, but theirs was quite different. They wanted to use smart compilation and things like this. What could be possibly wrong?
Now, my second question is, if I am able to edit via In System memory editor, is there a way I can write code to self update, so that once the value changes, it gets reflected on screen.
Thanks a lot in advance!

How do I access a specific register of my Intel chipset?

I want to read the "TSTR"-register (Thermal Sensor Thermometer Read Register) of my Intel Chipset.
I have found that the __readmsr function is what I need.
I have also setup a kernel driver since the function is only available in kernel mode.
But I have no clue how to access the register...
In the datasheet of the chipset it is stated on page 857 that the offset adress of the register is TBARB+03h.
How can I use this adress? Are there tutorials out there that could help me?
Thanks!
As far as I have figured out, trying to do the exact same thing, __readmsr is indeed the right command for accessing registers:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y55zyfdx%28v=VS.100%29.aspx
however I am working on an i5, and Intel's documentation
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/piketon/core-i7-800-i5-700-desktop-datasheet-vol-2.html
suggests that things like MC_RANK_VIRTUAL_TEMP entries are registers, so it ought to work, so you are on the right track probably.. the particular register is on page 272. So technically this is indeed the answer, __readmsr(1568) in my case.
However I am struggling to convince visual studio 2010 to build this in kernel mode, which it seems reluctant to do, I keep getting the Priviledged Instruction error.. When I get this out of the way and the whole program working I'll write a tutorial on the general process, but until then I only dare give a theoretical answer. If your compiler tends to listen to what you say, just add the /kernel compiler option, since you are only reading and not editing the registers it should be safe.
Edit:
There is also this article, the answer more or less suggests what I'm trying to do, though not much more than I have so far, but take a look anyway:
How to access CPU's heat sensors?
"This instruction must be executed at privilege level 0 or in real-address mode; otherwise, a general protection exception #GP(0) will be generated."
http://faydoc.tripod.com/cpu/rdmsr.htm

Creating Windows Print Driver

I'm looking to create a print driver that will monitor jobs sent to a particular printer and add in a small amount of text to each page. I have downloaded the WDK and have the bitmap example working, but the monitor examples are complicated. The WDK documentation seems to be lacking any explanation of the samples. I also don't see any Visual Studio templates for Windows Drivers (not sure if they are supposed to be installed as part of the WDK or not).
I think what I'm struggling the most with is seeing the overall approach. Since this is printing to a printer (not file), I'm assuming I still need to use the printer's driver somehow. So does that make what I'm trying to do a "Filter Driver"? As you can tell, this is not something I've done before, so any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ryan
What exactly do you need to add in? You can use the Mini Driver in the WinDDK and just hijack one of the commands.
If you need to add in something more you'll probably want a port monitor like Redmon (or we are about to release one) that can take your job and route it to some application that modifies the data and then routes to the final printer.
If you just need to insert some items at the very start (inject some PCL or something) then you can use the Windows separator page and insert the data at the start of the stream.
If you give some more detail about what exactly you need to modify or insert I can probably help a little more.

How to read some data from a Windows application memory?

I have an application, which displays me some data. I need to attach to this app's process, find the data I need in memory (one single number, actually), and save it somewhere. This application doesn't seem to use standard windows controls, so things aren't going to be as simple as reading controls data using AutoIt or something similar.
Currently I'm a self-learner database guy and have quite shallow knowledge about windows apps debugging. Not even sure if I asked my question correctly enough.
So, can you give me some starter guidelines about, say, what should I read first, and general directions I should work on?
Thanks.
To read memory of other application you need to open the process with respect of OpenProcess with at least PROCESS_VM_READ access rights and then use ReadProcessMemory to read any memory address from the process. If you are an administrator or have debug privilege you will be able to open any process with maximal access rights, you need only to enable SeDebugPrivilege before (see for example http://support.microsoft.com/kb/131065).
If you don't know a much about the memory of the destination process you can just enumerate the memory blocks with respect of VirtualQueryEx (see How does one use VirtualAllocEx do make room for a code cave? as an example where I examine the program code. The program data you can examine in the same way).
The most practical problem which I see is that you ask your question in too general way. If you explain more what kind of the data you are looking for I could probably suggest you a better way. For example if you could see the data somewhere you could examine the corresponding windows and controls with respect of Spy++ (a part of Visual Studio Tools). The most important are the class of windows (or controls) and the messages which will be send at the moment when the most interesting window are displayed. You can also use Process Monitor to trace all file and registry access at the time when the windows with the interesting information will be displayed. At least at the beginning you should examine the memory of the process with ReadProcessMemory at the moment when the data which you are looking for are displayed on the window.
If you will have no success in your investigations I'd recommend you to insert in your question more information.
My primary advice is: try to find any other method of integration than this. Even if you succeed, you'll be hostage to any kinds of changes in the target process, and possibly in the Windows O/S. What you are describing is behaviour most virus scanners should flag and hinder: if not now, then in the future.
That said, you can take a look at DLL injection. However, it sounds as if you're going to have to debug the heck out of the target process at the disassembly level: otherwise, how are you going to know what memory address to read?
I used to know the windows debugging API but it's long lost memory. How about using ollydbg:
http://www.ollydbg.de/
And controlling that with both ollydbg script and autoit?
Sounds interesting... but very difficult. Since you say this is a 'one-off', what about something like this instead?
Take a screenshot of this application.
Run the screenshot through an OCR program
If you are able to read the text you are looking for in a predictable way, you're halfway there!
So now if you can read a OCR'd screenshot of your application, it is a simple matter of writing a program that does the following:
Scripts the steps to get the data on the screen
Creates a screenshot of the data in question
Runs it through an OCR program like Microsoft Office Document Imaging
Extracts the relevant text and does 'whatever' with it.
I have done something like this before with pretty good results, but I would say it is a fragile solution. If the application changes, it stops working. If the OCR can't read the text, it stops working. If the OCR reads the wrong text, it might do worse things than stop working...
As the other posters have said, reaching into memory and pulling out data is a pretty advanced topic... kudos to you if you can figure out a way to do that!
I know this may not be a popular answer, due to the nature of what this software is used for, but programs like CheatEngine and ArtMoney allow you to search through all the memory reserved by a process for a given value, then refine the results till you find the address of the value you're looking for.
I learned this initially while trying to learn how to better protect my games after coming across a trainer for one of them, but have found the technique occasionally useful when debugging.
Here is an example of the technique described above in use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv04gYx2jMw&t=265

How do I hook the TCP stack in Windows to sniff and modify packets?

I'd like to write a packet sniffer and editor for Windows. I want to able to see the contents of all packets entering and leaving my system and possibly modify them. Any language is fine but I'd like it to run fast enough that it won't burden the system.
I've read a little about WinPcap but the documentation claims that you can't use WinPcap to create a firewall because it can't drop packets. What tools will help me write this software?
Been there, done that :-) Back in 2000 my first Windows program ever was a filter hook driver.
What I did was implementing the filter hook driver and writing a userspace application that prepared a filter table on what to allow and what to disallow. When you get around your initial set of blue screens (see below for my debug tip in kernel mode) the filter mode driver is quite easy to use ... it gives each packet to a function you wrote and depending on the return code drops it or lets it pass.
Unfortunatley packets at that level are QUITE raw, fragments are not reassembled and it looks more like the "network card" end of things (but no ethernet headers anymore). So you'll have quite a bad time decoding the packets to filter with that solution.
There also is the firewall hook driver, as discussed in this codeproject article.
If you are on Vista or Server 2008 you'd better have a look at WFP (Windows Filtering Platform) instead, that seems to be the mandated API of the day for writing firewalls.
I don't know about it other than google turing it up some minutes ago when I googled for the filter hook driver.
Update: Forgot the debug tip:
Sysinternals DbgView shows kernel-mode DbgPrint output, and more important - it can also read them from the dump file your last blue screen produced. So sprinkle your code with dbgprint and if it bluescreens just load the dump into dbgview to see what happened before it died ... VERY useful. Using this I managed without having a kernel debugger.
I'm pretty sure you'd need to write a filter driver. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_driver I don't know much more than that :). It would definitely be a C/C++ Win32 app and you'd likely being doing some kernel side work. Start by downloading the DDK and finding some of the sample filter drivers.
If you just want to monitor what goes in and out of IIS, consider an ISAPI filter. Still C/C++ in Win32, but relatively easier than writing a device driver.
C# code to do this is here
I actually did this, several years ago. I'm hazy on the details at this point, but I had to develop a filter/pass-thru/intermediate driver using the Windows DDK. I got a lot of good information from pcausa. Here's a url which points to their product that does this: http://www.pcausa.com/pcasim/Default.htm
If you're doing this for practical reasons, and not just for fun, then you should take a look at Microsoft Network Monitor. The home page talks about the version 3.3 beta, but you can download version 3.2 from the Downloads page. There is also an SDK for NM, and the ability to write parsers for your own network protocols.
There's a question you need to ask which you don't know you need to ask; do you want to know which applications sockets belong to? or are you happy to be restricted to the IP:port quad for a connection?
If you want to know applications, you need to write a TDI filter driver, but that makes handling the receive almost impossible, since you can't block on the receive path.
If you're happy with IP:port, go in at the NDIS level, and I believe you can block on receive to your hearts content.
A word of warning; if you have no prior kernel experience, writing either of these drivers (although TDI is significantly harder) will take about two years, full time.
this:
TdiFw is a simple TDI-Based Open Source Personal Firewall for Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003
http://tdifw.sourceforge.net/
may help you

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