DeviceMaster

From LNLEpicsWiki

The DeviceMaster RTS 16-port Rackmount makes possible serial port communications with multiple number of instruments by its 16 RS232 serial output ports. The device has an own configurable IP address, can be installed anywhere along a LAN network and communicated with via TCP/IP protocol. If You install the driver software on any linux PC on the same network, DeviceMaster works as you had 16 additional RS232 serial ports on your PC. The installed serial ports are named as /dev/ttySI0, /dev/ttySI1, ..., /dev/ttySI15 in your linux system and you can use them just as easy as you could the COM1 named /dev/ttyS0.

In the following we present the installation instructions for DeviceMaster. First download and uncompress the driver:

 $ cd /opt
 $ mkdir serialPortsDriver
 $ cd serialPortsDriver
 $ wget ftp://ftp.comtrol.com/dev_mstr/rts/drivers/linux/devicemaster-linux-4.14.tar.gz
 $ tar -zxvf devicemaster-linux-4.14.tar.gz

Make the driver following the instructions in file /opt/serialPortsDriver/nslink/README:

 $ cd /opt/serialPortsDriver/nslink
 $ make clean
 $ make 
 $ su
 # make install

Apply your desired configuration settings in file /etc/nslink.conf, and finally (re)start the server:

 # vi /etc/nslink.conf
 # /etc/init.d/nslink start

Now you may check whether you see the mounted serial ports in your /dev directory:

 # ls /dev/S*

Beyond the default serial ports /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1, ..., /dev/ttyS3 you should see the configured number (up to 16) of serial ports named as /dev/ttySI0, /dev/ttySI1, ..., /dev/ttySI15. Lastly you need to change the read and write privileges of the /dev/ttySI* ports to use the serial ports as a user:

 # chmod a+rw /dev/SI*

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Note: After an automatic update process on my CentOS system, the DeviceMaster driver could not be started. I had to redo the steps from "Make the driver following the instructions in file /opt/serialPortsDriver/nslink/README:", and know it works again. 2009-04-03