NI-VISA client on 64 Bit Linux written in C

[muellerp]

Hi All,

I would like to generate an NI-VISA client for Matlab running on a 64 Bit Linux compute server. (The NI-VISA installer does not run on such systems.)

So no devices are locally connected to the server, no hardware support is needed locally. The client connects only to resources of type VISA (e.g. other visa servers), TCPIP:...:INSTR (VISA-resources directly connected to the Ethernet) and TCPIP:...:socket (raw TCPIP  resources directly connected to the Ethernet). As I also know the correct VISA addresses I do not really need the VISA GUI running.

The C client is compiled with the -m32 option (32 bit) and linked against the libvisa.so. The gcc (4.1.2 or 3.4.5) compiles without errors. But I do have problems to open a VISA session.

The C command

status = viOpenDefaultRM(&defaultRM);

retunrs a session handle but it also returns  the status:

VI_WARN_CONFIG_NLOADED

which means:

3FFF0077="The specified configuration either does not exist or could not be loaded. VISA-specified defaults will be used."

I can not establish a session with a VISA resource. That means viopen does not return a valid instrument handle.

My configruation:

from .bashrc
# NI-VISA
export VXIPNPPATH=/usr/local/vxipnp
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/vxipnp/linux/bin

Position of the  vxipnp folder at /usr/local/vxipnp . (copied from a 32 bit system)

Is there a way to configure VISA manually to workaround the warning VI_WARN_CONFIG_NLOADED and make the stuff proper working?

Best regrards peter

[JoBa]

Hello Peter,

unfortunately, 64 Bit Linux is currently not supported by National Instruments. I do not have a test system available to reproduce this problem.

My only advice is to set up the complete configuration on a 32 Bit system and then copy as many files as possible over to the 64 Bit system.

I'm really sorry that I can't help you with this problem.

Best Regards,
Johannes

NI Germany            623002


Message Edited by JoBa on 01-17-2008 05:01 PM

[muellerp]

Hi Johannes,

thank you for your response.

When does National Instruments intend to release 64Bit NI-VISA and GPIB driver software?


Because I do not want to wait that long.

We do also have some own stuff consisting of an ANSI C client, a server with acces to GPIB devices
using the opensource GPIB drivers.

It does not have such a nice gui (NI-MAX), requires some maintenance at the moment but it is running
on Solaris, Linux 2.4 and 2.6 (deb and rpm  32 and 64 Bit systems) and win32.

At the moment I would prefer a standard solution based on the NI-VISA stuff. But if National Instruments decides not to continue
the development on NI-VISA we can also think about putting our stuff under GPL. Then NI-VISA will loose some marked share.

Best regards peter

[Gavin F]

Hi Peter,

NI-VISA is commited to providing quality Linux support, and we are actively looking into improving future support.  We appreciate your feedback and will keep it in mind when determining how to improve NI-VISA Linux support.

Your use case or application information is helpful to gather for future decision making. 
What Linux distribution(s) do you use or plan to use?
Are you looking for 64-bit user mode support, or are 64-bit kernel mode drivers to use with 32-bit user mode applications sufficient?

Thank you.

[muellerp]

Hi Gavin,

thank you for your response.

What Linux distribution(s) do you use or plan to use?
RHEL-4, 64Bit

Are you looking for 64-bit user mode support, or are 64-bit kernel mode drivers to use with 32-bit user mode applications sufficient?
We want to use it with Matlab 2006B, 64 bit built, in 64-bit user mode.

But as written before, 01-15-2008, we need initially only a VISA client to interconnect to a VISA server at a 32 bit system or to interconnect to a TCPIP .. :INSTR resource at the network. So no hardware support for GPIB cards is needed initially.

Best regards and thank you in advance peter