The intended user of the simulator (Perhaps we should really call it PLC-Mock)
Is definitely people wanting to learn how to use PLC4X.
Poor documentation and the availability of no tutorials, how-tos or trainings
is one thing many people have complained about.
Using an OPC-UA simulator could potentially help, but it would only cover one
of the communication options.
For me OPC-UA is not a usable reality in the real world yet (Lack of
availability of OPC-UA capable PLCs and the bad performance of the existing
ones).
Usually a PLC has multiple options to communicate (My S7 can do (I think):
S7-STEP7, S7-TIA, Modbus, ProfiNet) ... each protocol has its advantages and
disadvantages.
So with the simulator supporting all the protocols we support as clients, a
user could experiment on all of this.
It will currently be a pretty restricted thing ... so it will probably not be
able to simulate every type of S7 or other hardware,
but we could make sure it supports everything we want to demonstrate in
tutorials (Just like a good Mock ... you don't use that in production ... well
... ok ...
there was this one Bank that actually had Mokito in the compile path, because
one service in production was a Mock ... but usually you don't expect this).
Hope that explains things a bit more.
Chris
Am 17.10.19, 05:45 schrieb "Otto Fowler" <ottobackwa...@gmail.com>:
Who is the intended user of the simulator, or users and what do they want
to accomplish? Maybe if that were spelled out or people could suggest those
cases, some number of cases could be agreed upon, allowing the initial
effort to be done with plans for later expansion to the remaining uses
cases down the road.
In my own case:
In the past I have used PLC simulators that I have written or from open
source projects to stand in for real devices when I could not acquire the
hardware. I am not sure that that use case should be high on PLC4X’s list
since that is a lot to chase.
With PLC4x, I have thought that I would need or like a simulator or “sample
system app->driver->simulator” in order for me, as a developer to debug and
trace through the PLC4X workings, such that I could then understand the
system well enough to either work on it or develop against it. These types
of systems can stand in leu of, or augment extensive developer
documentation.
At the rate that Chris and others are progressing with refactoring and
extending the libraries, it would be helpful to have such a system
maintained as those refactoring went along.
On October 16, 2019 at 21:07:02, Strljic, Matthias Milan (
matthias.strl...@isw.uni-stuttgart.de) wrote:
Hi Chris,
yeah i see the benefits of doing all this simulated PLC endpoints for a
nice testing.
I just meant that it is also possible to just setup an OPC UA Endpoint
Server with Eclipse Milo in Java or a Python package without a real PLC
behind it.
So it is possible to just program and provide a sample Server which could
be started for playing around with a "acting like a real PLC" Endpoint.
There I just wanted to throw it in as a light weight solution to provide a
starter scenario. This ofc then is complete restricted to OPC UA.
+1 if the goal is to implement(generate?) a simulated endpoint with the
same generated serialization components for a two sided testing scenario
for all the supported protocols.
Matthias
Matthias Strljic, M.Sc.
Universität Stuttgart
Institut für Steuerungstechnik der Werkzeugmaschinen und
Fertigungseinrichtungen (ISW)
Seidenstraße 36
70174 Stuttgart
GERMANY
Tel: +49 711 685-84530
Fax: +49 711 685-74530
E-Mail: matthias.strl...@isw.uni-stuttgart.de
Web: http://www.isw.uni-stuttgart.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Christofer Dutz <christofer.d...@c-ware.de>
Gesendet: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 10:09 PM
An: dev@plc4x.apache.org
Betreff: Re: [PLC-Simulator] Thoughts on the "Context" for our simulator
Hi Matthias,
Well my colleagues used such a simulated OPC-UA PLC.
And the thing is we don't really need a real PLC with RT Cycles and such
... we want something a PLC4X learning person can use instead of a PLC.
The thing is with these you would only be able to do one little part of
PLC4X learning.
With the Simulated PLC (Or Mock PLC) I think we'll be able to provide
dedicated simulation modules and real training for different types of PLCs
and protocol.
Also it's a great test for the old and new drivers. At least I found one
big (potential) problem in the old S7 driver and quite a bit of fine-tuning
of the new ones.
The end result should be something simple to start as "java -jar
plc-simulator.jar" and off you go ...
now just connect to localhost using whatever protocol you like and start
playing and comparing.
With all the others you would probably have to sort of also provide some
sort of program but they would always just use one or max two protocols.
Chris
Am 16.10.19, 17:38 schrieb "Strljic, Matthias Milan" <
matthias.strl...@isw.uni-stuttgart.de>:
Hi Chris,
sry for joining so late.
What speeks against a OPC UA Server as PLC-Mok. It is not a big deal to
implement it with Milo and provides a function complete OPC UA Server
implementation.
I Know it is not a real PLC and has no RT Cycles which restricts the
possible communication.
But I do not know if such a technical deep simulation is the right thing
for the IT-guys and for the OT guys there is in my opinion no gain without
pain 😃
For that I would agree with @Lukas Ott and rather cooperate with some
existing solutions and add there a nice setup/starter guide which can also
be used by the IT beginners?
Gereetings
Matthias Strljic, M.Sc.
Universität Stuttgart
Institut für Steuerungstechnik der Werkzeugmaschinen und
Fertigungseinrichtungen (ISW)
Seidenstraße 36
70174 Stuttgart
GERMANY
Tel: +49 711 685-84530
Fax: +49 711 685-74530
E-Mail: matthias.strl...@isw.uni-stuttgart.de
Web: http://www.isw.uni-stuttgart.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Christofer Dutz <christofer.d...@c-ware.de>
Gesendet: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 9:38 AM
An: dev@plc4x.apache.org
Betreff: Re: [PLC-Simulator] Thoughts on the "Context" for our simulator
Hi Lukas,
my colleagues here at codecentric recently did some searching for simulated
PLCs.
They were writing a blog post about the PLC4X Logstash integration and
needed something to produce test-data.
To make it short: They were very unhappy with what they found. In the end I
think they used some opc-ua simulator.
For some you needed to actually write projects for the PLC with for example
TIA as they simulate being a real PLC ;-) Most of them simulate being PLCs
but lack the communication options (Most of them only support Modbus and
OPC-UA) If I look at the open-plc thingy you reference ... that is good to
learn to program PLCs. The editor looks as if you could learn this (from a
IT developer's point of view) little strange way of writing programs for
PLCs.
From the documentation it only supports Modbus.
We want to build something to help learn writing PLC4X software, not to
write software running on PLCs ...
especially to learn writing software for the different protocols PLC4X
supports.
Perhaps "PLC simulator" is sort of a bad name as we wouldn't even try
simulate being a real PLC.
It's more intended to be a mock PLC for training purposes.
So I was hoping to have multiple protocol servers running on multiple fixed
simulations and writing how-tos and perhaps even videos and Trainings on
how to use PLC4X based on these very fixed scenarios but using varying
protocols.
I think this is what I currently hear most as being the missing piece of
getting started with PLC4X.
And I found out that it's a mega-awesome testcase for our generated drivers
:-) Being able to use the old hand written drivers to communicate with the
generated servers already helped with getting the generated s7 driver into
shape
Chris
Am 16.10.19, 08:16 schrieb "Lukas Ott" <ott.lukas...@gmail.com>:
Hi all,
That would fit to https://www.openplcproject.com/ as the Runtime is using
MODBUS....
Maybe ask https://github.com/thiagoralves if we just could with his
https://www.openplcproject.com/plcopen-editor ?
The major question is it easier to collaborate and leverage the project? or
check the relevant licences and work together?
Lukas
Am Mi., 16. Okt. 2019 um 07:46 Uhr schrieb Christofer Dutz <
christofer.d...@c-ware.de>:
> Hi Cesar,
>
> No they wouldn't. They would be exposed to the server implementation and
> the ui.
>
> The thing is that the above structure s7 could probably automatically
> translate into s7 addresses. However for Modbus an explicit mapping is
> required (sort of mirroring reality with real plcs).
>
> I was thinking that perhaps the server/protocol would provide the means
to
> map the context into their address space (extra editor) and that the ui
for
> displaying the current context values, could have a column per installed
> server, with plc4x addresses for addressing these resources.
>
> Just me brainstorming....
>
> Chris
>
> Holen Sie sich Outlook für Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Cesar Garcia <cesar.gar...@ceos.com.ve>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 4:44:30 AM
> To: Apache PLC4X <dev@plc4x.apache.org>
> Subject: Re: [PLC-Simulator] Thoughts on the "Context" for our simulator
>
> Hi Christofer,
>
> How would these data structures be exposed to the user? An API? Or a
> service?
>
> A simple way to see it would be to have the PLC data structures (DB, PEW,
> M, etc.) as instances of ByteBuf from the Netty library.
>
> Best regards,
>
> El mar., 15 oct. 2019 a las 8:55, Christofer Dutz (<
> christofer.d...@c-ware.de>) escribió:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > While implementing the S7Server part I noticed that my HelloPlc4x
config
> > is always set to get the values of the inputs and the outputs and not
the
> > internal memory of the S7
> >
> > So this got me thinking … just having a Map<String, Object> as context
> > might not be enough to really play around.
> >
> > For a S7 I would assume a context should be:
> >
> > * Map<String, Object> (Sorted map with an explicit order such as a
> > TreeMap)
> > * List<Input<Boolean>> (Digital Inputs)
> > * List<Input<Long>> (Analog Inputs)
> > * List<Output<Boolean>> (Digital Outputs)
> > * List<Output<Long>> (Analog Outputs)
> >
> > Should this be enough for a somewhat realistic simulation?
> >
> > I know for Modbus there is not automatic mapping of any form of context
&
> > IO to the Modbus Coils (Boolean) and Registers (Short)
> > But for the rest I do think that a PLC has the concept of an input and
> > output and these in flavors: Analog and Digital.
> >
> > I know that my PLC knowledge is somewhat theoretical. You guys at least
> > some of you work with them every day. So I would appreciate your input.
> >
> > Chris
> >
>
>
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