Siemens RUGGEDCOM ROX II, User Manual

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Chapter 10
Serial Server
RUGGEDCOM ROX II
CLI User Guide
330 Raw Socket Applications
Section 10.2.1.1
Raw Socket Applications
The raw socket protocol transports streams of characters from one serial port on the device to a specified remote
IP address and port. The raw socket protocol supports TCP and UDP transport.
Broadcast RTU Polling
Broadcast polling allows a single host connected to the device to broadcast a polling stream to a number of
remote RTUs.
The host connects through a serial port to the device. Up to 32 TCP remote RTUs may connect to the device's host-
end via the network. For UDP transport, the device can send a polling stream to up to 64 remote hosts (RTUs).
Initially, the remote hosts place TCP connections to the device's host-end. The host-end in turn is configured to
accept the required number of incoming TCP connections. The host connected to the device then sequentially
polls each remote host. When a poll is received, the device forwards (i.e. broadcasts) it to all the remote hosts. All
remote hosts will receive the request and the appropriate remote host will issue a reply. The reply is returned to
the device, where it is forwarded to the host.
Host And Remote Roles
The raw socket protocol can either initiate or accept a TCP connection for serial encapsulation. It can establish a
connection initiated from a remote host, vice versa, or bidirectionally.
Configure the device at the host-end to establish a connection with the remote host when:
• The host-end uses a port redirector that must make the connection
• The host-end is only occasionally activated and will make the connection when it becomes active
• A host-end firewall requires the connection to be made outbound
If the host-end wants to open multiple connections with the remote-ends in order to implement broadcast polling,
configure the device to accept connections with the remote-ends.
Configure the device to connect from each side (host or remote) to the other if both sides support this
functionality.
Message Packetization
The serial server buffers receive characters into packets in order to improve network efficiency and demarcate
messages.
The serial server uses three methods to decide when to packetize and forward the buffered characters to the
network:
• packetize on a specific character
• packetize on timeout
• packetize on a full packet
If configured to packetize on a specific character, the serial server will examine each received character, packetize
and forward it upon receiving the specific character. The character is usually a <CR> or an <LF> character but may
be any ASCII character.
If configured to packetize on a timeout, the serial server will wait for a configurable time after receiving a
character before packetizing and forwarding it. If another character arrives during the waiting interval, the timer is
restarted. This method allows characters transmitted as part of an entire message to be forwarded to the network