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flylikechris

Open-Source Ethernet/IP communication stack

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Hi guys, I've found the following website: http://www.rockwellautomation.com/rockwellautomation_de/news/news-detail.page?reqid=1356918 It shows a download link for some reference material regarding Ethernet/IP communication drivers. I've been lucky with Mitsubishi and Siemens supporting TCP/IP, but for some reason this is just now starting to be supported by Rockwell, and many of the budget controllers do not yet support TCP/IP (at least without an interface module, and even then they are only compatible with certain processors). I would love to write my own Ethernet/IP driver for communicating with Rockwell controllers and I/O blocks. This looks like the perfect starting point as Rockwell claims to support it. I've got an email out to the representative listed in the article, and have talked to rockwell engineers over the phone, but do not yet have any leads. I thought I would post here in case anyone has used this, and could provide some information on where to get the reference material. I imagine there are many tinkerers on here who get excited by these things . I did notice this repository that looks close: https://github.com/EIPStackGroup/OpENer The library is called "OpENer", and the original expired download link in the rockwell press release is "Opener.Sourceforge", so maybe there is a correlation. Maybe this github library is the latest iteration of the project files released in 2009. (The github library looks very reliable, and professionally supported). Any leads on here would be greatly appreciated. If I can prove this concept to work, I will likely go further with odva certification. But for now this will be fun to reverse engineer and prove. Also, if I get any leads on this I will make sure to post back.

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I have used the OpENer stack in the past and it works well. It is designed to be a class 1 target/slave/adapter implementation (for implicit communications), but of course has to support explicit messaging as a server as well. It probably would not be that hard to add client and/or originator functionality if you are a programmer. Another free tool without source is http://www.molex.com/molex/common/staticLoader.jsp?fileName=/mx_upload/superfamily/iccc/EtherNet_IPTool.html You will certainly need the various volumes of the ODVA standards, Volumes 1 and 2 for sure if you want to do Ethernet and extend the code base. These are not free - you need to be an ODVA member to get them. I know this code has been through the EtherNet/IP plugfest event held by the ODVA for cross-vendor interop testing. You can point a Rockwell Control or Compact Logix at this stack and have it work. It will not, out of the box, support talking to IO, drives, or whatever. It also works with the Schneider Electric EIP modules that are part of the various PLC platforms. Compiles fine on various Linux platforms, including ARM implementations. Says it supports Windows, but I never ran it on that platform.

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