Using S7, Ethernet & VMWare?

[Phil Kennedy 0]

Hi, I am trying to setup VMWare on my laptop so that I can easily use S7 / Allen bradley etc without too much installation time accross many machines. Before this is done, first of all I need to get everything up and running. I am having trouble getting Step 7 manager to communicate via Ethernet with the PLC. My Laptops OS is Windows 7, and the OS of the Virtual Machine is Windows Xp. I am using Step 7 V5.4 SP5 to try to do this. Do I need to alter IP address settings in Window 7 or can these stay as Automatic? also do I need to alter any Virtual Machine settings (ie for network bridges etc)? Normally I would alter the IP of my laptop to an address that is close to that of the PLC and I would just be connected. I'm assuming that it will still be this simple, it's just I'm not quite doing it right. Thanks NB - I have managed to communicate with the PLC via USB - MPI adaptor without any issuue.

[Joe E. 259]

For this, I generally set the VM's LAN connection to "Bridged". It will have its own IP address at that point, so you need to be careful not to step on your host machine. You will need to select the VMware LAN adapter from the list under "Set PG/PC Interface" in Simatic Manager. I also have to disable the Symantec Endpoint protection, since corporate IT has locked out the settings and I can't add an exception. YMMV. By the way, I'm running from memory here. The computer that's set up to do this is not terribly convenient at the moment.

[garf 0]

I do the same as Sparky - I use Bridged. On my host (laptop), I set my LAN to a fixed IP address (aaa.bbb.ccc.x) and right-click disable all other network adapters (including wireless). If you see a VMNet0 adapter there, then leave that enabled (its for Bridged mode), but all others (inluding VMNet1 and VMNet8 which correspond to Host-only mode and NAT mode) disable. Inside the WMware session, I also set its LAN network adpater to a fixed IP address (aaa.bbb.ccc.y). Make sure x and y are different. Open command prompts on both the host and VMware client and PING the PLC (aaa.bbb.ccc.z). If that works, then open the Siemens software. In the Siemens V11 TIA portal software (what I use), select Online&Diagnostics\Accessible Devices. In the Type of PG/PC interface pull down, I select PN/IE. In the PG/PC interface pull down, I select VMWare Accelerated __ . Then hit the Refresh button and go get a cup of tea (and crumpets?) because it will take forever for the scan to complete. Eventually, your PLC will show on the list along with the status message "Scanning complete" at the bottom if all is well. If that doesn't work, try rebooting the VMware virtual PC and also reboot the host (laptop) and try again. Sometimes network reconfigs work better after reboots. Edited 1 Nov 2011 by garf

[slcman 9]

I always get good result by using vmware bridged and step 7 ethernet comms. I only get problem 1time with a hudge project who contain many simotion d445, s7-300, s7-400, hmi and pc. I think the managed swith allow only one ip the the port I was connected. I had to use NAT adapter in vmware for get it to work (in this case only 1 ip is assigned). Pay attention to if pc/pg exist in your project. You must the same ip of pc/pg in your gest to be able to bridge in siemens network.