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Getting OpenOCD

Warning

If you are going to use OpenOCD on Windows, then also follow Installing WinUSB on Windows guide to install WinUSB driver.

Downloading a Prebuilt OpenOCD

The easiest way to obtain OpenOCD is to download Eclipse IDE bundle from the releases page:

  • For Windows download and install Eclipse IDE bundle with toolchains and OpenOCD. OpenOCD itself resides in the default installation directory C:\arc_gnu\bin.
  • For Linux download and extract Eclipse IDE bundle anywhere. OpenOCD resides in bin subdirectory.

Building for Linux

Install prerequisites for Ubuntu 20.04:

$ sudo apt-get install libtool git-core build-essential autoconf \
      automake texinfo libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev pkg-config

Install prerequisites for RHEL/CentOS 7:

$ sudo yum install libtool gcc autoconf automake texinfo libusb1 \
      libusb1-devel git make which

Download OpenOCD sources and checkout the latest release:

$ git clone -b arc-2021.09 https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/openocd
$ cd openocd

Configure OpenOCD (use your own --prefix path):

$ ./bootstrap
$ ./configure --enable-ftdi --disable-werror --disable-doxygen-html --prefix=/tools/openocd

Also, you can pass --enable-verbose and --enable-verbose-jtag-io options for development activities.

Build and install:

$ make
$ make install

Configure your environment (use your own installation path):

$ export PATH=/tools/openocd/bin:$PATH

Finally you need to configure udev rules in such way that OpenOCD would be able to claim your JTAG debug cable. In common case for ARC this is an FTDI-based device. If you already have libftdi package installed on your system, then required rules are already provided to udev. Otherwise create file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-ftdi.rules with the following contents:

# Digilent HS1 and similiar products
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
# Digilent HS2
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6014", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

In case of CentOS/AlmaLinux/Fedora distributions you need to remove GROUP="plugdev" and set 0666 rights for Digilent devices since plugdev group is not presented there:

# Digilent HS1 and similiar products
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010", MODE="0666"
# Digilent HS2
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6014", MODE="0666"

You also can use file contrib/99-openocd.udev supplied with OpenOCD sources, however this file doesn't work with Digilent HS2, though on the other hand it mentions many other FTDI-based devices.

Then either reboot your system or reload udev configuration and reconnect debug cable to the host computer:

$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

Building for Windows

It is possible to use OpenOCD on Windows with FTDI-based debug cables using a ftdi interface and libusb driver (further down called ftdi/libusb). Note, however that this requires replacing the original FTDI proprietary drivers with open source ones. This will render Digilent cable unusable by Digilent tools, like Adept.

Install the same prerequisites like for Linux build (except for libusb-dev) and MinGW cross-compiler:

$ sudo apt-get install libtool git-core build-essential autoconf \
      automake texinfo pkg-config wget gcc-mingw-w64

Download libusb sources sources. Configure and build them with MinGW compiler. It is recommended to build only static libusb, so that OpenOCD will not need this library's .dll file to be copied around:

$ wget https://github.com/libusb/libusb/releases/download/v1.0.26/libusb-1.0.26.tar.bz2
$ tar -xaf libusb-1.0.26.tar.bz2
$ cd libusb-1.0.26
$ ./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --build=x86_64-linux-gnu \
      --prefix=/tools/libusb-mingw --disable-shared --enable-static
$ make
$ make install

Download OpenOCD sources:

$ git clone -b arc-2021.09 https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/openocd
$ cd openocd

Configure OpenOCD. Consult configure --help and generic OpenOCD documentation for details. This command line is recommended for ARC with libusb/ftdi:

$ ./bootstrap
$ PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/tools/libusb-mingw/lib/pkgconfig ./configure \
      --enable-ftdi --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --build=x86_64-linux-gnu \
      --disable-werror --prefix=/tools/openocd-mingw

Note that it is required to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH, otherwise configure script will detect host's libusb installation, instead of the one cross-compiled for Windows.

Build and install:

$ make
$ make install

If your application uses libusb and is being linked dynamically (this is by default), copy /tools/libusb-mingw/bin/libusb-1.0.dll to the OpenOCD bin directory. Copy OpenOCD installation to Window host.

Building for macOS

Warning

Ensure that your PATH does not contain GNU binutils binaries, otherwise linkage will fail.

Follow README.macOS guide and then README to install OpenOCD for macOS. Additionally, you have to install libftdi (for Homebrew) or libftdi1 (for MacPorts) package. Here is a building process for Apple M1 targets:

$ git clone -b arc-2021.09 https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/openocd
$ cd openocd
$ ./bootstrap
$ CCACHE=none ./configure --enable-ftdi --disable-werror --disable-doxygen-html --prefix=/opt/openocd
$ make
$ make install

Running internal testsuite

There is a set of internal test for ARC and OpenOCD. This testsuite aim is to catch some issues with OpenOCD, JTAG or hardware. To run test suite: source tcl/test/arc.cfg then run arc_test_run_all procedure, or run tests individually.