1761-NET-ENI Help

I need some help assigning an IP address to a 1761-NET-ENI.

We received the ENI with an IP address of 200.200.200.1 per their documentation.

I plugged my PC into the ENI(via crossover cable) and ran BootP. BootP never detected the device. I attempted to add New and entered the Ethernet address along with the IP and subnet. When I selected the added item the "Enable BootP" & "Force IP Renew" buttons remained grayed out.

I downloaded the ENI Configuration Utility (Series B) and connected my PC to the ENI via 1761-CBL-PM02 cable. It would attempt to communicate but kept popping up the same error message ("Check Cable or Port Settings"). Under "Utility Setup" Tab I selected COM3 and 9600. Under "ENI IP ADDR" Tab I selected Baud Rate = Auto.

I'm typing these message from Home so some of the descriptions/info may be a little vague.

Does anyone have any info that might help me?

Thanks!

You did have it powered up, right ?

I have always connected to the Net-ENI with the setup utility using COM1 and 38.4 Kb/s data rate. Do you really have a COM3 ? Be sure that RSLinx doesn't have posession of your serial port; the Net-ENI utility uses it's own communication driver and not RSLinx.

The user manual I have (1761-UM006B) says that the default Ethernet port configuration is all zeroes, with BOOTP enabled, so your BOOTP Server should have worked. Hmm.

At the risk of sounding like a shill- call A-B technical support. This is a pretty simple device to configure and they should be able to help.

The seventh circle of BOOTP

This is a semi-related war story having to do with the BOOTP Server utility that A-B includes with RSLinx and illustrates that PC fundamentals are often the problem when it comes to using Ethernet down here among the sparkies.

I ended up in a quandary recently in which I couldn't get an A-B SLC-5/05 to configure correctly on Ethernet. I found out two important things about the PC that I was using that prevented my tried-and-true BOOTP server from working correctly.

There's a special reason I couldn't use the serial port to configure the SLC; it's missing. The RS-232 port on SLC's is physically attached to the communication daughterboard, and on the pre-production beta units they used a flimsy surface-mount connector without sufficient bracing and half the damn things fell off. The SLC-5/05 was introduced with a redesigned daughterboard with a *very* stout serial port connector ! Anyhow, that's how this one came to be on my testbed at my apartment; it's a gelding.

There is a usual fire drill that users run through who use their PC's both in an office and shop evironment; the DHCP Server Catch-22. If I boot up while unplugged from the office network, I don't get an IP address automatically assigned to my PC, so I can't communicate directly to PLC's through a crossover cable or a minihub. If I boot up at my desk and then unplug and walk out onto the shop floor.... the computer releases it's lease on the IP address and waits for another DHCP assignment. The only way to get around that (at least the way our HP4150B and NIC cards are set up) is to reconfigure my LAN settings for a hard IP address, which thank goodness doesn't require a reboot in Windows 2000 like it did in NT.

If I connect a SLC to my office network, the office DHCP server will give it an IP address... but because of the abovementioned shortcoming of the processor, there are very few ways for me to find out what it is !

After I set up a fixed IP address for my PC, my BOOTP server was still not getting any requests from the SLC. I defaulted the program, and the link LED was OK (and flashing periodically to indicate it was sending BOOTP requests), but none were showing up in the BOOTP server.

I found the problem through much trial and error; it was the SecureRemote Virtual Private Networking client that we use when we're dialed in on the road. It's a terrific service that lets us use WorldCom dial-in accounts (formerly Compuserve) with local phone numbers to access our corporate network securely, instead of dialing long distance and suffering through 21kbaud modem rates. I didn't think of this at first, because I was connected to the internal corporate network and wasn't using VPN at the time.

It's not something I could find in the documentation, but the VPN encryption client "binds" itself to all of the network adapters on our PC's. As far as I could tell, it was encrypting the incoming BOOTP requests, but because it's set up to only decrypt higher application-level TCP/IP packets, they weren't being seen in their unmodified form by the BOOTP server.

I found a disabling utility from our VPN vendor that allowed BOOTP to work normally after that. Woo hoo !

As I understand it the BootP Server bases everything off the MAC address. So you would have needed to enter that as part of the BootP new relation item. With that you should be able to re-enable BootP on the ENI and use BootP to set the IP address you want. With any luck the MAC address will be on a sticker somewhere on the ENI.

Keith

follow up

After doing some reading, I beleive that I was running RSLinx while attempt to connect to the ENI. RSLinx appears to make Com1 busy. I'm going to shutdown RSLinx and try to connect to the ENI again.

This should fix the ENI configuration utility comm problem, but I'm still confused on why I couldn't get BootP to work. I did enter the MAC address in the New Relations list but I was unable to enable bootp. In fact, the "Enable BootP" button was grayed out (yes, I had the new relation highlighted) but I could rightclick on the new relation and select enable bootp. We received the ENI from a vendor that assigned an IP address and must have disabled bootP, but I should be able to enable bootP with the MAC address.


I guess I'll find out tommorrow.

Thanks for all the Help.