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14.3 IEC 60870-5-101 Slave

Configuring datapoints (slave)

The IEC 60870­-5­-101 Slave in WCC Lite has to be configured in Excel. This configuration contains two Excel sheets where parameters must be filled in ­Devices and Signals.

IEC 60870-­5-­101 slave parameters for Devices tab
Parameter

 Type

 Description

 Required

Default value

(when not specified)

Range

Min

Max

name

 string

User-friendly name for a device

 Yes


description

 string

Description of a device

 No


device_alias

 string

Alphanumeric string to identify a device

 Yes


enable boolean

Enabling/disabling of a device

 No 1 0 1
protocol string

Protocol to be used

 Yes
IEC 60870­-5-101 slave
device

string

Communication port

Yes


PORT1

PORT2
baudrate integer

Communication speed (bauds/s)

No

9600

300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200
databits integer

Data bit count for communication

No

8

6

9
stopbits integer

Stop bit count for communication

No

1

1

2
parity

string

Communication parity option

No

none

none, even, odd
flowcontrol

string

Number of requests, before the link is considered lost (device status signals are changed) and reconnect attempt will be issued

No

none

none
link_address integer Destination address when in transmit and source address when broadcasting Yes
0 65535
link_size integer Link address size in bytes No 1 1 2
asdu_size integer Common address size in bytes No 1 1 2
ioa_size integer Information object address (IOA) size in bytes No 2 1 3
cot_size integer Cause of transmission (COT) size in bytes No 1 1 2
time_sync boolean Allow time synchronization, 1 to enable and 0 to disable No 0 0 1
message_size integer Maximum length of a message Yes 253 0 255
cache_size integer Maximum number of events to store in a buffer No 100 0 1000
respond_delay integer Time in microseconds to wait before sending responses Yes 100 0 1000000
single_byte_ack boolean Use single character acknowledge, 1 to enable and 0 to disable

No

 0 0 1
keep_alive_timeout integer Time interval in seconds before serial
connection is considered offline

No

 60

keep_alive_timeout timer is used for the connection tracker to display protocol status. This parameter does not affect protocol functionality and only tracks its status in the connection tracker.

IEC 60870­-5-­101 slave parameters for Signals tab
Parameter

 Type

 Description

 Required

Default value

(when not specified)

Range

Min

Max

signal_name

 string

User-friendly signal name

 Yes


device_alias

 string

Alphanumeric string to identify a device

 Yes


signal_alias

 string

Unique alphanumeric name of the signal to be Yes used

 Yes


source_device_alias

 string

device_alias of a source device

 For commands


source_signal_alias

 string

signal_alias of a source signal

 For
commands


enable boolean

Enabling/disabling of an individual signal

 No 1 0 1

log

 integer

Allow signal to be logged. If the log is 0, the signal will not be logged. If the log is more than 0, the signal will be logged

 No 0

gi boolean Including/excluding (1 or 0) signals from General Interrogation No 0 0 1
common_address integer Address of a destination device Yes


info_address integer Information object address Yes


data_type integer ASDU type identifier Yes
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63
periodic_update_ms integer Signal value is published periodically according to the value set. No -
-
Device status signals
 

IEC 60870-­5-­101 has an additional signal which can be configured to show communication status. It indicates if the master device has disconnected from the slave (WCC Lite). To configure such signal for IEC 60870-­5-­101 protocol, job_todo and tag_job_todo fields with string values are required. For IEC 60870-­5-­101 slave required parameters for status, signal will be signal_name device_alias, signal_alias, common_address, info_address, data_type, job_todo and tag_job_todo. Job_todo value must be device_status and for tag_job_todo there are 4 variations: communication_status, device_running, device_error, uknown_error. Each signal has 4 possible values and is based on the same logic. If the signal returns the value of 0, it means an unknown error has appeared, 1 – the device or protocol connection is on and working properly, 2 – the device is off or protocol is disconnected, and 3 – the error or service is down.

Debugging an IEC 60870-­5­-101 slave application

If the configuration for IEC 60870-­5-­101 devices is set up, the handler for the protocol will start automatically. If the configuration is missing parameters or contains errors, the protocol will not start. It is done intentionally to decrease unnecessary memory usage.

If IEC 60870-­5-­101 does not work properly (e.g. no communication between devices, data is corrupted, etc.), a user can launch a debug session from the command-line interface and find out why the link is not functioning properly. To launch a debugging session, a user should stop the iec101­-slave process and run the iec101-­slave command with respective flags as shown in the table below.

Procedure for IEC 60870-­5-­101 slave service debugging:

  • Step 1: Service must be stopped by entering the following command into the WCC Lite:
    /etc/init.d/iec101-­slave stop
  • Step 2: After the service is stopped it must be started with the preferred configuration file (JSON
    files found in /etc/ folder) and a debug level 7: iec101-­slave-­c /etc/iec101-slave/iec101slave.json ­-d7
    Additional output forming options are described here: Command line arguments.
  • Step 3: Once the problem is diagnosed normal operations can be resumed with the following
    command: /etc/init.d/iec101-­slave start
IEC 60870-­5­-101 command line debugging options
-h [ –help ] Display help information 
-V [ –version ] Show version
-d<debug level> Set debugging level 
-c [ –config ] Config path
-r [ –raw ] Show raw telegram data
-f [ –frame ] Show frame data
-R [ –readyfile ] Ready notification file
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