Simulator for multiple modbus slaves - tcp

Hello is there any tcp modbus slave simulator that could simulate 3 slaves simultaneously from one pc? Is it possible?
The main concept is that i have to deal with a plc that controls some VFD although i want to imitate those VFD and give the feedback of those 3 back to plc from my pc.

You can start 3 instances of the ModRSsim program but on a single computer it is not possible for more than one program to listen for connections on the same TCP port number.
Therefore, only one of the instances can use the standard Modbus 502 TCP port and the other two must use another port number.

Related

Can an L2 switch send its MAC table data to another device/switch connected in the same network via a port?

My requirement is, there are four ethernet switches connected in a straight daisy chain manner. But no ring/loop is formed. To each switch's PHY ports, there are I/O modules connected. A main CPU is interfaced to the first switch.
My problem is how will the main CPU the location of these ports(I/O modules)? Is there a way to send the MAC table data to another device/switch connected in the same network via a port.
Thanks
Need any other possible ways to implement this.

Can you simulate a modbus slave via serial connection on node-red?

I have managed to use node-red to simulate a slave device using a TCP connection, but now I want to do it via serial connection. I am using a dell gateway running mbpoll to simulate the master connected to a raspberry pi running node-red to simulate the slave via RS485. Is it possible for me to use node-red on the raspberry pi to simulate the slave device, so it responds to requests from the gateway with values like a sensor would?
Based on your previous questions you are using node-red-contrib-modbus; this node does not support Modbus RTU as per the node descriptions:
modbus-server - Node to provide a Modbus TCP server based on node-modbus (jsmodbus) for testing.
modbus-flex-server - Node to provide a flexible Modbus TCP server based on modbus-serial for testing.
There may be another module out there that does support RTU slaves but I am not aware of one. As such I think your options are:
Modify the existing note to add support for RTP.
Use a gateway. There may be software that will do this (its not all that complicated) but I've not found anything freely available. There are a range of hardward gateways (some fairly cheap) that support comms between an RTU master and a TCP slave - e.g. 1 or 2.

modbus rtu over tcp (modbus tcp gateway)

Is it possible to build a modbus-RTU ethernet gateway using a linux box or arduino?
I have plc slaves linked together using modbus RTU, and I want to connect one of them over TCP with my pc as master.
I wonder if I can use a linux box (rasbery pi/raspbian) connected to a router, as a modbus-to-tcp converter by piping the usb port to my local ip on some port, as one plc will be connected in modbus rtu to the linux box`s usb port.
Piping command will be something Like this:
nc -l 5626 > /dev/ttyUSB0 < /dev/ttyUSB0
My goal is to connect a pc (networked with the linux box) to that plc through the linux box using modbus.
Yes you can use a linux box with ethernet port.
Its not a simple 'nc' is it.
First things first, you need to know, Does your PLC's support Modbus TCP or Modbus RTU over TCP.
bcos both the formats are not the same, they are not interchangeable.
once you ascertain this, you need to write a TCP Client to Connect to the Slaves as they run the Servers.
If they don't support Modbus TCP yet, you need to write a TCP servers as well.
on top of that, you have the handshaking delays and half open connections and what not.
If it is a commercial device, you need to look at the setup it will be running as well.
Hope this helps
I'm not entirely sure as to what your requirements are, but you may want to have a look at the following library. It's a Modbus TCP->RTU library I assume you can use.
https://github.com/3cky/mbusd
Best Regards
While it's certainly possible to build a Modbus TCP/RTU gateway, you won't be able to do it with a simple nc command, for two reasons:
The actual Modbus protocol data unit (PDU), merely containing the Modbus function code and data, is embedded in an application data unit (ADU) so the request reaches the correct device free of communication errors. This ADU is different for RTU and TCP. Generically, the ADU looks like this:
------------------------------------------
| Additional address | PDU | Error check |
------------------------------------------
For RTU, the "Additional address" is a single byte identifying the unit/slave on the serial line, and the "Error check" is a 16-bit CRC.
For TCP, the "Additional address" is the 7-byte Modbus application protocol header (MBAP), consisting of transaction identifier, protocol identifier, and a length field (2 bytes each), plus a single byte identifying the unit/slave (usually 255, though for a gateway, this would be the ID of the RTU slave behind it). The "Error check" is empty (zero bytes) as that is already taken care of by TCP.
The communication semantics are different for RTU and TCP.
For RTU, you write a request to the serial line, wait for the reply, and only then write the next request. There must be 3½ characters of silence between frames.
For TCP, you can in principle have multiple connections being served concurrently. If you tried to forward two TCP requests to the serial line simultaneously, chaos would ensue.
Still, you can build a working gateway with a slightly more complicated program than nc:
Accept connections on TCP port 5626 (note that the actually recommended port number for Modbus TCP is 502), convert the received TCP ADUs to RTU ADUs and put them into a queue together with a back channel.
Another part of your program takes one item at a time from that queue, sends the ADU over the serial line and reports the result back through the back channel. Then it goes on the to the next item, and so on.
The results arriving on the back channels are converted to TCP ADUs and sent back on the respective TCP connection.
This would certainly work on a Raspberry Pi, and possibly also on Arduino, depending on how large you want your queue to be.
Sources:
http://www.modbus.org/docs/Modbus_Application_Protocol_V1_1b.pdf
http://www.modbus.org/docs/Modbus_Messaging_Implementation_Guide_V1_0b.pdf

Can Cat 5 cable communicate with microcontroller and CPU?

So I was curious if this is possible at all. Currently i have a program running in a micro controller (digi rabbit) that reads SPI data from a chip. I also have TCP/IP protocol set in this program so it sends the SPI data to the server. Microcontroller is programmed in C. Server is in java. I convert SPI data into string and send it over, the server reads the raw data.
But i wanted to know if there is a way that I can read the data from Ethernet port. So what i want is one end of cat 5 cable on micro controller and the other on Ethernet port of the computer. Just for testing purposes that micro controller port and everything is installed properly, before i turn on the server. I am not that experienced with networking. So if anyone can point to a blog, or any tips that would be great. My question is how would i go about it?
Thank You
What you want to do is called raw Ethernet. Of course this can be done.
On the microcontroller side you need to follow its Ethernet controller datasheet to send out and receive packets. On the PC side this is a bit more complicated and depends on the OS that is running on the PC. On Windows you can use the WinPcap driver to send and receive raw Ethernet packets.
Be aware, that both Ethernet controllers, the one on the PC and the one on the microcontroller, filter all incoming packets that do not contain the receivers MAC address or any multicast/broadcast address. For a simple check the broadcast address (all address bits are 1) will do.
Also note, that the OS on your PC will transmit all kind of packets as soon as the link is established. So you may use a unique protocol identifier in the type field of your raw Ethernet frame. Check Wikipedia's article about Ethernet frames. Btw. don't get confused. You only need to send MAC-adresses, Ethertype and the payload. Everything else, like the CRC, preamble etc., is added by the Ethernet controller automatically.

Programming Arduino's from a centralized location

I have 16 Arduinos that are in very tight spaces and hard to get to when I need to reprogram them with my FTDI cable. I would like to have or create some sort of centralized place where I can connect my FTDI cable, make some sort of selection (switch of some sort), which will then connect the pins my cable is on to the selected arduino.
Does anyone have any thoughts on how this can be accomplished? I've toyed with transistors, but that takes a lot of them and didn't quite work.
Are there any premade solutions that are out there that I have yet to find?
Thanks very much!
Here is a thought! TCP to Serial.
Sound complicated.
Not really.
Note from AVRDUDE's manual the following
For programmers that attach to a serial port using some kind of higher
level protocol (as opposed to bit-bang style programmers), port can be
specified as net:host:port. In this case, instead of trying to open a
local device, a TCP network connection to (TCP) port on host is
established. The remote endpoint is assumed to be a terminal or
console server that connects the network stream to a local serial port
where the actual programmer has been attached to. The port is assumed
to be properly configured, for example using a transparent 8-bit data
connection without parity at 115200 Baud for a STK500.
With this, One could place your Arduino's behind your choice of TCP to Serial Server. Which is available in several forms. Cisco has a gang TS (but that is expensive, unless used). lantronix (and others have single end point devices. But then for Linux, there is "Net2Ser" which can serve up all your ttyS (aka Serial/COM ports).
With the later you could use a raspberry or TP-Link TL-WR703N (
In the latest IDE 1.5.6r2 add one entry for each TCP-to-Serial Port to ./Arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/programmers.txt file. While replacing the IP and Port with corresponding values.
TCP2001.name=TCP 2001
TCP2001.communication=serial
TCP2001.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2001.program.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2001.program.tool=avrdude
TCP2001.program.extra_params=-Pnet:192.168.1.100:2001
TCP2002.name=TCP 2002
TCP2002.communication=serial
TCP2002.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2002.program.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2002.program.tool=avrdude
TCP2002.program.extra_params=-Pnet:192.168.1.100:2002
...
Additionally change "protocol" to "upload.protocol" the following line in ./Arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/platform.txt
tools.avrdude.program.pattern="{cmd.path}" "-C{config.path}" {program.verbose} -p{build.mcu} -c{protocol} {program.extra_params} "-Uflash:w:{build.path}/{build.project_name}.hex:i"
to
tools.avrdude.program.pattern="{cmd.path}" "-C{config.path}" {program.verbose} -p{build.mcu} -c{upload.protocol} {program.extra_params} "-Uflash:w:{build.path}/{build.project_name}.hex:i"
With this you can use "Upload Using Programmer" with the selected programmer to send over TCP, rather then use the Upload.
That all said, it will only work on Linux.
avrdude: ser_open(): network connects are currently notimplemented for Win32 environments

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