This dialog is used to select a gateway server for the communication with a PLC. Furtheron there can be set up new channels for a gateway server which is installed on the local PC so that these channels can be used by other computers which are part of the network.
The current settings can be called up at any time using the button Update. A dialog will appear if the communications parameters have already been configured according to the example in Principle of a gateway system.
The Heading Channels lists two categories of connections:
-
On the one hand all of the connections are shown which are installed on the currently connected gateway server called 'localhost'. Here the address or the name of this gateway is located on the upper position behind the minus sign, which in our example is running on the local computer. The appropriate address 'localhost' corresponds in the normal case to the IP address 127.0.0.1 of the local computer (PC_local). Below, indented to the right, are three addresses of runtime computers which the gateway channels are set-up to (PC_PLC1 to 3). They could have been configured both from the local PC or from the other PCs (PC_x) which are or were connected to the gateway server.
-
The second category of the channels describes includes all connections to the gateway which can be set up from your local PC, over this configuration dialog for example. They create the "branch" which leads from the minus sign directly below to PC_PLC1 and PC_PLC4. These channel addresses do not necessarily have to be known yet at the gateway. For PC_PLC4 in the example described above, the configuration parameters are stored locally in the project, but they will first be known to the gateway the next time log-in to the runtime system occurs. This has already occurred for PC_PLC1 since the associated gateway address has appeared as an additional "sub-branch" to the "channel tree".
In the central part of the dialog one finds the designation, in each case, of the left selected channel and the associated parameter under Name, Value and Comment.