AN 939: JTAG Connections Over SSH

ID 683756
Date 7/07/2021
Public

1. JTAG Connections Over SSH

Updated for:
Intel® Quartus® Prime Design Suite 21.2

Intel® Quartus® Prime software provides a JTAG Server that enables JTAG connectivity over TCP/IP with Intel® FPGA devices for client applications such as the Intel® Quartus® Prime Programmer, System Console and Debugging Toolkits, and Signal Tap logic analyzer. Communication between the JTAG Server and client is not encrypted.

To secure JTAG communication with encryption, ensure that JTAG connections use SSH tunneling, also called SSH port forwarding.

Typically, SSH tunnels are established with the ssh command on Linux* operating systems and with the PuTTY utilities on Windows* operating systems.

This publication shows you how you can use SSH tunnels to securely connect JTAG servers and clients on different host machines. Local SSH loops (SSH server and client on the same machine) are not supported for JTAG communication.

After you have established your SSH tunnel, you can use any Intel® Quartus® Prime utility that uses a JTAG connection as you usually would.