Hello everyone,
this guide is for everyone trying to connect to their PLC from AS 6 to a PLC via a PC with an older PVI version.
The issue
My situation so far has been the following:
PLC (PPC3100) with AS 4.12 project <--> Regular PC (Win 7) <--> My development laptop (Win 11, AS 4.12)
This allowed for a regular remote PVI connection just fine
Now the situation has changed due to the fact I had to upgrade to AS 6:
PLC (PPC3100 with AS 6 project <--> Regular PC (Win 7) <--> My development laptop (Win 11, AS 6)
This made connection via the remote PVI impossible (since the version line 6 (AS, PVI) removed a lot of old code, this is kind of expected), but I still need to debug stuff on my PLC without having physical access.
The solution
Disclaimer: This solution will require Admin-Access to the PC the PLC is connected to
You can create a tunnel on the PC which will route regular PVI traffic to the PLC.
The command for that is as follows:
netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=11169 connectaddress=<PLC IP> protocol=tcp
This will route the PVI connection via port 11169 (default ANSL port) to the iven PLC address directly, no PVI on the remote system required.
In AS you then simply use the “Ethernet” tab instead of the “Remote” tab and specify the PC’s address instead of the PLC’s address. The PC will take the connection and route it to the PLC, your PC will not know that it is involved at all.
Note: This might need firewall rules for in- and outgoing traffic on all the ports you create routes for.
Bonus: Multiple PLCs on remote PC
You can add multiple connections on the same PC as well, you simply have to change the listenport to any other known port. In AS you can insert the “Destination port” column in the Online settings and choose one unique port per PLC on your remote PC.
Thanks to @unterbergerc for providing these details
Hope this helps anyone out there
best regards
Michael