S7 - Password protection for Simatic Manager

RMA

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Join Date
Sep 2004
Location
North of Hamburg, Germany
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2,052
We had a problem with one of our modules this morning, the High-Voltage Charger wouldn't turn on. After a bit of looking around to see what was wrong I discovered that somebody had forced Off the output that switches the Charger on.

I can only assume that somebody wanted to work on the Module and wanted to be sure that the HV Charger couldn't be switched on.

Quite apart from the fact that the system is still in commissioning and has not yet been handed over to the customer, I don't like the idea of somebody with enough knowledge to force outputs, but probably not enough knowledge to appreciate what might happen if the wrong things are forced, playing with the system when I'm not there.

Is there any way of password protecting Simatic Manager? So far I haven't been able to find anything. If the worst comes to the worst I guess I can password protect the PCs but that approach brings other problems with it.
 
Would that effectively stop somebody else from forcing outputs?

I've always avoided password protecting PLCs in case the password gets forgotten. Is removing a password when it's no longer needed just a case of creating a new password which just consists of the RETURN key? I've been bitten before somewhere in the PC world where after I'd entered some password it was not possible to get back to a password-free state.
 
Just tried it on my 317 - I set the plc password to write protect (you can still read) and then tried to do a force. I was prompted for the password. If you put protection back to the key switch, then after the next h/w config download (which you still need the password for), the password is removed.

Just another thought, once forces are on, you could monitor the state of the CPU leds using a system function call. If forces are on then you could stop the plc from running etc.
 
Nice to know that the Password protection can be completely removed, I reckon I'll implement that straight away.

As far as the forces are concerned, the customer allowed himself to be talked into an all singing, all dancing Interlock system which is way to complicated and is nothing but trouble (it's actualy a very advanced building security - as in break-in - system), so we'll be running with various parts of the interlock forced for the forseeable future. I reckon Password protection of the CPU will suffice for what I need.
 

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