The NETx Servers provide a standardized OPC UA (Unified Architecture) interface. OPC UA is one of the most important communication protocols for Industry and the IoT.
OPC UA installation
The OPC UA extension is available through the Extension Manager. When the server is stopped, the Extension Manager can be started from the studio menu Extensions / Manager / Start extension manager...
- Open the Extension Manager on the PC where you have the Internet connection.
- Navigate to the "Not installed" tab. Select the "OPC UA". Afterwards, press the "Install" button,
After a successful installation the following confirmation dialog appears.
Finally, close the studio and reopen it again. This is required before the extension can be used.
OPC UA as Server
After having installed the OPC UA extension, some basic settings have to be done. To do so, start the studio and open the menu entry Modules/ OPC UA/ OPC UA server configuration...
First of all, the OPC UA driver has to be enabled (option "Enable OPC UA"). Then, a username / password for connecting to the OPC UA interface can be set. As an alternative, "Anonymous Access" can be enabled. After having changed the required settings, the server must be restarted.
| parameter | unit | description | default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable OPC UA | true/false | Enables/disables the OPC UA server interface. | false |
| Local TPC Port | 1 - 65535 | Port of the local OPC UA TCP transport binding. | 48400 |
| Local HTTP Port | 1 - 65535 | Port of the local OPC UA http transport binding. | 48401 |
| Use BMS authentication backend (BMS Platform only) | true/false | Only available for BMS Platform: If enabled, the BMS user authentication module is also used for OPC UA | true |
| User name | If true, all LaMPS items are marked as persistent and thus item values restored after server startup or after reconnecting the KNXnet/IP router or interface. | ||
| Password | If true, all thresholds will be overridden by the values that are defined within the circuit definition. | ||
| Enable Anonymous Access | true/false | false |
After the server restart, the Server Items of the NETx Server will available through OPC UA. To connect from an OPC UA client, the OPC UA connection URL for the NETx Server has to be entered. These server URLs can be found within the System Log Messages after server startup. Open the system log file and search for the following entries:
Plugin.OPCUA The following Endpoint URLs are available: Plugin.OPCUA opc.tcp://<host name>:48400/UA/NETxBMSPlatform Security: http://opcfoundation.org/UA/SecurityPolicy#None Plugin.OPCUA opc.tcp://<host name>:48400/UA/NETxBMSPlatform Security: http://opcfoundation.org/UA/SecurityPolicy#Basic256Sha256 Plugin.OPCUA opc.tcp://<host name>:48400/UA/NETxBMSPlatform Security: http://opcfoundation.org/UA/SecurityPolicy#Basic256Sha256 Plugin.OPCUA https://<host name>:48401/UA/NETxBMSPlatform/ Security: http://opcfoundation.org/UA/SecurityPolicy#Basic256Sha256 Plugin.OPCUA OPC UA started
Using these URLs, you can connect from any OPC UA client to our NETx Server.
Article applies to the following products:
- NETx BMS Platform
- NETx Multi Protocol Server
- NETx BMS Server 2.0