Bidding Starts: 2/17/2025

Bidding Ends: 3/3/2025

Summary:

Description: RISC-V software testing has a major gap: none of the testing is currently done on actual hardware.  Similar problems exist with other RISC-V CI systems; most testing is done on QEMU.   We wish to solve this by enabling RISE and others to set up board farms with RISC-V hardware.  We are looking for contractors to do the enablement work to set up two specific RISC-V boards in LAVA, and document their steps for others to reproduce.   

Milestones to Deliver:

Phase 1: Enable OpenSBI, U-Boot, and Linux booting on the Banana-Pi BPI-F3 board using LAVA 

• RISE will provide a Banana-Pi BPI-F3 board for the developer.

• Contractor/Developer must connect the board to a host x86 system, shared between both Phase 1 and Phase 2 boards, running LAVA.

• The board must be configured to follow the boot flow described below.

• Document the entire process of board enablement such that RISE can reproduce it.

Phase 2: Enable OpenSBI, U-Boot, and Linux booting on the SiFive Premier P550  using LAVA 

• RISE will provide a SiFive Premier P550 board for the developer.

• Contractor/Developer must connect the board to a host x86 system, shared between both Phase 1 and Phase 2 boards, running LAVA.

• The board must be configured to follow the boot flow described below.

• Document the entire process of board enablement such that RISE can reproduce it.

Technical Considerations

• Both RISC-V boards shall be connected to a single small x86 host system (such as a NUC).

• For each board, the x86 host system will have a USB Ethernet dongle and a USB serial port dongle connected.

  • Depending on the board type, the serial connection could be either a USB cable to the board’s USB-UART adapter; or it could be a USB-UART adapter that is connected to the board’s serial pins.

    • For the Banana-Pi BPI-F3 some of us have been successfully using USB to TTL Serial Cable - Debug / Console Cable for Raspberry Pi  

  • For the USB Ethernet dongle, some of us have been successfully using https://plugable.com/products/usb3-e1000/

• The x86 system is connected to a Ethernet controlled power switch 

  • The Ethernet power switch to use is the DLI Pro Switch: https://dlidirect.com/products/new-pro-switch - the wifi interface should not be used.

  • The boards are plugged into different power-switched outlets of the strip.

• The x86 host system should run both a LAVA worker and a LAVA master.

• Required Boot flow

  • U-boot SPL is present on the board flash, and will load OpenSBI and U-boot second stage via Ymodem over the board serial console at 115.2kbps or higher.

  • U-boot second stage loads the kernel (and possibly, DTB) via TFTP over Ethernet

  • The kernel mounts the rootfs via NFS over Ethernet 

• Required Usage model

  • RISE expects to have the ability to supply arbitrary binaries for OpenSBI firmware, U-boot proper, a Linux kernel image, any required devicetree data, a rootfs, and possibly a test script.  These would be provided to LAVA.  

  • RISE expects to receive a serial console log from the device under test that can be interpreted to extract success/failure or to extract performance results.

Additional Success Criteria:

• Contractor shall configure the x86 system as a demo system that RISE can connect to for testing.

  • The demo must enable the user to provide an OpenSBI and U-Boot second stage binary, along with a Linux kernel binary and rootfs image, and boot it on the demo system via LAVA, returning results. 

• Contractor shall provide instructions that can be easily reproduced by RISE.

Proposal Submission:

Interested vendors should submit their proposals including:

1. Technical approach and implementation plan.

2. Relevant experience with Kernel CI systems.

3. Please provide a breakdown of the total cost along with the individual costs and durations for each phase. 

This RFP is part of RISE’s initiative to strengthen the RISC-V Linux software ecosystem and ensure robust continuous integration for kernel development. We look forward to your proposals.

Please reach out to  rfpinfo@riseproject.devif you have any questions.

Please read the RISE RFP instructions PRIOR to bidding.

Some things to note include:

• Contracts will be written using the Standard Linux Foundation Europe Paper with the SOW and payment schedule added as an addendum. 

  • Please review prior to your bid submission to address any concerns.

  • Contract Language is not negotiable as Linux Foundation will be contracting the work and paying the invoices.

• Contracts are milestone based, not hourly.

• Biweekly progress reporting is a requirement of this contract.

Bidding is Closed