NIVXI Software

The nivxi software are the drivers for the VME-PCI interface from National instruments. The current version is 1.6.1 and it requires a 2.2.X Linux kernel (Redhat 6.2). The newer 2.4 kernel is not yet supported.

The software is in stalled in /usr/local/nivxi/ , which is the default installation directory. The installation just followed the instruction from the driver cd.

Tools

load_vxi, unload_vxi

The nivxi driver is a loadable kernel module. In the sys directory there are the two scripts load_vxi and unload_vxi which load and unload the driver. They have to be run as root. On most of the systems the driver is loaded at boot time using the /etc/rc.d/rc.local start up script :

     if [ -f /usr/local/nivxi/sys/load_vxi ]; then
           /usr/local/nivxi/sys/load_vxi
     fi
    

The driver itself is called vxi in the sys directory.

lsmod

The /sbin/lsmod command shows which kernel modules are loaded. If the nivxi driver is loaded there should be an entry called vxi.

resman, vxiclean

The bin directory contains the commands resman and vxiclean. resman has to be run in order to initilieze the vme interface. Every time the system gets booted or the vme crate is switched on and off resman has to be run. The vxiclean command is cleaning the vme interface and might help to reset the system if problems occure with the vme interface.

victedit

The command vixtedit allows to talk to a vme interface. It is command line based. For example: vxiin is a high level direct bus access commmand (HLDBAC) that is used to read from a certain vme address. vxiin 0x3,0x1000000,0x4 would read a long word (32bits) from the address 0x1000000 using 32 bit addressing (0x3). This command is useful to find out if a module is addressable.

Configuration

Before a vme module can be used it has to be registered with the vme interface. The command vxitedit in the bin directory is used to setup the module. After starting the command option 7 (VME DEVICE EDITOR) is used to add or modify a module. The configuration needs the address space that the module is using (i.e.: 16,24 or 32 bit addressing, base address and address range). The following table shows the configuration of a GLAST COM module.

Fd #  Field Name            Field Value
----  ----------            -----------
Index = 0
(0)   PseudoLa              330
(1)   DeviceName            GCB1
(2)   Frame                 1
(3)   Slot                  6
(4)   ManId                 0
(5)   ModelCode             0
(6)   DevClass              0
(7)   ModelName             GLAST COM-Bd
(8)   MfrName               slac
(9)   a16membase            0
(10)  a16memsize            0
(11)  a24membase            0
(12)  a24memsize            0
(13)  a32membase            0x80000000
(14)  a32memsize            0x10
(15)  IrqLevel              none.
(16)  IrqHandle             none.
(17)  InSystem              1