User`s guide

Programming via LAN 5
Agilent VISA User’s Guide 121
Addressing LAN-Connected Devices
VISA can communicate with LAN-connected devices in one of two
ways:
• TCPIP interface type
• Remote interface type (available only with Agilent IO Libraries
Suite)
Using the TCPIP Interface Type for LAN Access
VISA provides the TCPIP interface type to communicate with
LAN-connected devices. These can be devices connected directly to the
LAN, or they can be connected to the LAN through a LAN gateway
such as the Agilent E5810 LAN/GPIB gateway or through Remote IO
Server software running on a remote computer with instruments
connected to it.
The format of a TCPIP VISA resource string is:
TCPIP[<board>]::<hostname>[::<LAN device
name>][::INSTR]
where:
• <board> = board number (default is 0)
• <hostname> = the hostname or IP address of the LAN device or
server
• <LAN device name> = the remote device name (case sensitive
with default name of inst0)
Using Connection Expert, you can configure a LAN interface to use
either the VXI-11 protocol or the SICL-LAN protocol. The protocol(s)
you will use depends upon the devices you are using and the protocol(s)
that they support.
The VXI-11 protocol constrains the LAN device name to be of the form
inst0, inst1, … for VXI-11.3 devices and gpib0,n, gpib1,n, … for
VXI-11.2 (GPIB Emulation) devices.
The SICL-LAN protocol allows any valid SICL name for the LAN
device name. A valid SICL name must be a unique string of
alphanumeric characters, starting with a letter.