IP Address

Introduction

There are three ways to define the IP address of softMC:

• Fixed IP address
• DHCP - the recommended method
• Manual IP address - assigned by ControlStudio.

Cable Connections

Two connections are needed:

Serial:

• Connect MC's COM1 serial port to your PC's serial port using a serial cable.

Ethernet

• Connect MC on Ethernet port 1 (LAN) to the network where your PC is connected to (or directly with cross-cable to the PC)

Serial Communication Parameters

Open any serial console program. Putty, for example, can be downloaded from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html.
Configure the serial port with the following parameters and click 'open':

Connecting to Motion Controller

Once the communication parameters are set and the serial cable is connected between MC and PC, turn on the MC.

On the serial console screen you will see the boot printouts. After MC boot is complete, type:

/sbin/ifconfig

You will see:

Note that in the eth0 section, inet addr will show your MC's current IP address, and not 10.4.20.210 as in the example above.

Setting the Permanent Default IP Address

The following steps describe how to set the default IP address.
To set a non-default address, use the command SYS.IPADDRESSMASK

	NOTE
	Your PC must have an IP address in the same address space as you are assigning to the MC

Creating FWCONFIG File

Via the serial console we will create the file FWCONFIG (no extension) on the Linux operating system.
Type in the command line:
nano /FFS0/FWCONFIG.
Enter the text as it appears in the example with the following content:

ipaddressmask aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:255.255.255.0
sleep 20
ramdisksize=64 mByte
StringPreload=300000

Where aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd holds the permanent IP address you want to assign to the MC.
For more details on the FWCONFIG file refer to: FWCONFIG syntax

After you are done typing the text click ctrl+x. The lower menu bar will change, prompting you to save the new file.
Click y. Nano will save the file and exit back to the command line:

Now you can reset the MC and it will boot up with the permanent IP address you chose.

Getting the IP Address from DHCP Server

	NOTE
	Your PC must have an IP address in the same address space as the DHCP will assign to the MC

Creating FWCONFIG File

As described in the previous example, create FWCONFIG using Nano with the following content:

ipaddressmask dhcp
sleep 20
ramdisksize=64 mByte
StringPreload=300000

For more information on setting up the FWCONFIG file, refer to: FWCONFIG syntax

Now you can reset the MC and it will boot up with the IP address from DHCP pool.

Assign Manual IP address via ControlStudio

Start the ControlStudio. Open the 'Settings' Tab. Under 'Controller Monitor' Set 'TCP/IP Connection' to 'Manual IP'

At this point ControlStudio sends a broadcast over the network, looking for softMC's that are present. Those who don't have an IP address yet are assigned an IP from the 'IP Pool' file.

Open the 'Controller Monitor' Tab. All the softMC controllers that are present in the network will appear in the list, with the manual IP address that was assigned to to them.



You can choose a softMC controller and connect to it by double clicking the controller's name.