A low pressure discharge plasma, with magnetic multipolar confinement, is produced in a cylindrical ultrahigh vacuum device. The device has been specially designed to allow both moving Langmuir probe measurements and laser induced fluorescence diagnostic for the plasma ions. It is well suited to explore the sheaths region in a bounded plasma and to study wave and turbulence in a laboratory plasma. The main characteristics of the experimental setup and of the produced plasma are described. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.