multiple connections feature for NetToPLCsim-0-7-2 x86 (ProSim constraint)
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thomas_v2
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Dear Thomas,
This topic follows this previous discussion ealier this year.
After several successful uses of this new/old build above, we would now need another feature, that you added since then in the current version of NetToPLCsim:
*** Allow multiple connections**
We found a litteral explanation in the 0.7.2 documentation, confirming that it was not featured at that time (see attachment).
Do you believe that this would be possible to allow multiple connections to the "nettoplcsim-0-7-2_x86" version?
Or rather reimplement ProSim into the current one?
Thanks a lot in advance for your consideration.
Last edit: Hub Performance 2023-10-20
If adding this, then to the old version. For the S7ProSim version Nettoplcsim needed to implement the S7 protocol completely, to pass the request to the S7ProSim Interface.
The current S7online versions in general doesn't know anything of the protocol, it extracts the S7 part from the Iso-On-TCP layer and passes the data into S7online (with some extras).
The manual only says that you can start multiple instances of Plcsim, but Nettoplcsim connects to the first started. The problem is, the instances only have a number, which CPU is behind it depends on the order you've started them.
If I change the connect method in the old S7ProSim version from Connect to ConnectEx with the extra instance number, where should the number come from? You'd need to configure an assignment, like server listening to ip x connects to instance n, and server listening to ip y connects to instance m. So it needs further work to add this configuration option, load config files where it's stored or add this in the GUI.
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for your quick feedback.
Shall we take it for a final "no", or do you think you will still do it somehow but it will take time?
Do you require any further input from us to support you?
Last edit: Hub Performance 2023-10-20
I think I can add this feature to the old version. I'd add to the GUI an entry field where you can enter the Plcsim instance number to connect to, and an entry for the IP address where the server should start on.
Then you can add multiple IP addresses to your network interface, and connect instance 1 to one ip, and so on. You have to start Nettoplcsim for each Plcsim instance.
I won't do any further refinement on the old version. I'd would be better to use especially the network part from the new versions as it's much more stable. But that would be much more work, for an old system.
Thank you again for your feedback Thomas.
This plan looks fine!
Looking forward to testing it ;)
Last edit: Hub Performance 2023-10-23
Wasn't as easy as I thought, as I wasn't able to recreate my old build setup, and needed to move also the C part to VS 2019.
And I had some problems with the Interop.S7PROSIMLib.dll, maybe they have slightly changed this on newer Plcsim servicepacks. I've added the file from the latest release for you, I hope it's working.
I uploaded the project into https://sourceforge.net/projects/nettoplcsim/files/nettoplcsim/nettoplcsim-0-7-2/
as NetToPLCSim-0-7-2-multi-x86.zip
Maybe you have to install the redistributable package from Microsoft in the X86 version, if there are problems loading the noDaveServer.dll
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170#visual-studio-2015-2017-2019-and-2022
Thanks a lot Thomas
We will give a try to it asap
We managed to test it with 4 parallel PLCsim connections.
Thanks a lot again for your help and reactivity!