How to connect to a PLC from Studio 5000 on a VMware

[NewEric 0]

Hi and thanks for youre time 

I am a newbie trying to connect to a 1769-L30ERMS using an Ethernet cable. I am using Studio 5000 and RSLinx Classic lite for programming and communication. However Studio 5000 and RSLinx Classic lite are installed on av virtual machine using VMware. 

So my problem is two fold.

1. Connect the VM so that it reads from the real computers ethernet port
2. Find and communicate with the PLC from the VM

There are guides on how these problems are addressed seperatly. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdArYVceO1I and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERLTvcBBK_w however I have not been able to get them to work together.

So I was wondering if you, the sages of PLC programming might have some tips or trix that I could test or perhaps even a guide for how to do?

Mvh

Eric

[pturmel 135]

I do this all the time, just not with VMware (I use KVM in Linux).  Two typical approaches:

• Use the typical NAT networking with the Allen-Bradley Ethernet driver, where you specify the target IP addresses in a table.
• Use bridged networking (often this needs a 2nd virtual network adapter in VMware) to share the host's network port.  Then the VM should appear to be on same physical network as the host, using DHCP or manual addressing or whatever.  The Ethernet/IP driver should work in this mode.

[NewEric 0]

Hi and thanks for you're help

It turned out that my problem were not software but hardware, the Ethernet port that I was using was broken. Redoing the cable management took a while but it is now solved.  

Thanks for you're time and insight.

[Joe E. 251]

So, I had a really long post underway, but it looks like you got it figured out.

A few general tips:
I generally use a NAT adapter for most things with VMs. I have a USB network adapter that I keep manually configured to connect to our automation devices. This frees up the built in network adapter for the office LAN.
When I have to set up a device using BOOTP, I connect the USB NIC to the VM and use BOOTP inside the VM. I only use AB's BOOTP as a last resort. I've found IPAssign from Phoenix Contact to be better in general but it won't work with a few things.
I've used NMap to do a ping scan when I know the subnet but not the actual IP address.
I've used WireShark to find the IP address when I don't know the subnet. This works when the device is connecting to something else.