How to make VISA alias without MAX

[j_osh_o]

I am developing a test automation application on an ancient Ultra 5 SPARC workstation with Solaris 2.6.  I am using LabVIEW 7.0.  I would like to use VISA aliases, but there is no MAX for my workstation.  Is there a text file somewhere I can modify to create my VISA aliases?  I am tired of writing GPIB0::14::INSTR, and it makes my code difficult to read. 

[smercurio_fc]

VISA aliases should be stored in the visaconf.ini file. This document talks about where they are located on a Windows platform. Not sure where that file is on a Solaris machine.

[j_osh_o]

Thanks, I found it at /opt/vxipnp/sun/NIvisa.

There is a section like this:

[ALIASES]
NumAliases=0

#Alias0 = "'MyDMM','GPIB0::2::INSTR'"
#An alias entry must have the form "'<alias name>','<resource name>'"
#An alias name can contain only alphanumeric characters, "-", and "_".

I assume that for every alias I add, I need to increment NumAliases by 1.  Does this sound correct?

[smercurio_fc · Accepted solution]

Yes. You also need to make sure you update the NumAliases key. There should also be a section used by some of the aliases, if needed. For example, for serial resources there will be a section that defines the serial port settings. An example can be found in this document: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/B089F9352D262EE686256F1100001EE0

Does NI-VISA under Solaris install the NI-VISA configuration utility? I thought that had a tool to export the VISA configuration file (similar to the export tool for the MAX configuration file).

[j_osh_o]

Inside the /opt/vxipnp/sun/NIvisa folder I can see the NIvisaic, visaconf, and viclean utilities, but when I try to run them I get a "segmentation fault" error.  This may be because I am using the system remotely through XDMCP which sometimes doesn't work for very old windowed systems.  I will try later locally on the host.

[j_osh_o]

Locally on the workstation I was able to get visaconf to work, and I was able to set my aliases using this tool.  Thanks!