Profinet (In Development)

The PROFINET driver implements a class 3 real time controller. Which is able to communicate with multiple devices on the same network segment.

Connection String Options

On linux as the Java executable won’t have permission to capture raw packets, this needs to be enabled via:-

sudo setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin=eip /usr/lib/jvm/jdk-19/bin/java

The executable will change based on the jdk and OS you are using.

Name

Type

Default Value

Required

Description

Name

Profinet

Code

profinet

Maven Dependency

 
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.plc4x</groupId>
  <artifactId>plc4j-driver-profinet-ng</artifactId>
  <version>pre-release</version>
</dependency>

Default Transport

raw-socket

Supported Transports

  • raw-socket

Config options:

gsd-directory

STRING

~/.gsd

required

dap-id

STRING

ip-address

STRING

Transport config options:

raw-socket

raw-socket.interface-name

STRING

Network interface name to use (e.g., "eth0", "en0", "\\Device\\NPF_{GUID}" on Windows). If not specified, will use the first available interface.

raw-socket.local-address

STRING

Local MAC address to send from. If not set, uses interface’s MAC address.

raw-socket.remote-address

STRING

required

Remote MAC address to send to.

raw-socket.protocol-id

INT

required

EtherType / Protocol number (e.g., 0x88B5 for PROFINET, 0x88CC for LLDP, custom values)

raw-socket.promiscuous-mode

BOOLEAN

false

Promiscuous mode - capture all packets on the network, not just those destined for this interface.

raw-socket.capture-timeout

INT

1000

Packet capture timeout in milliseconds.

raw-socket.snapshot-length

INT

65536

Snapshot length - maximum bytes to capture per packet. 0 means capture entire packet.

raw-socket.buffer-size

INT

1048576

Buffer size for packet capture in bytes.

raw-socket.vlan-id

INT

0

VLAN ID (0 means no VLAN tag). Range: 0-4095

raw-socket.vlan-priority

INT

0

VLAN priority (0-7). Only used if vlanId > 0.

raw-socket.reuse-interface

BOOLEAN

false

Reuse the underlying network interface across multiple transport instances. When true, instances with the same interface and protocol will share a pcap handle. This is useful for protocols where multiple logical connections share one Ethernet type.

raw-socket.bpf-filter

STRING

BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) expression to filter packets.

raw-socket.max-frame-size

INT

1500

Maximum frame size (MTU) in bytes.

raw-socket.read-timeout

INT

0

Read timeout for blocking reads in milliseconds.

raw-socket.include-ethernet-header

BOOLEAN

false

Deliver full Ethernet frames to the driver and accept raw Ethernet frames on send. Required for L2 protocols that build their own Ethernet headers.
Name Value Description

Supported Operations

subscribe

Only the subscription service is currently supported.

Connection String

The Profinet driver uses the connection string

profinet:raw://{ip-address}:{port}?{options}

Where the {ip-address}, unlike other PLC4X driver, uses the local IP address of the network interface you would like to bind to. This allows us to connect to multiple devices at once via the devices parameter.

An example of this connection string which has two devices test-device-1 and test-device-2, connected on the localhost interface would be:-

profinet:raw://127.0.0.1?gsddirectory=/Profinet/GSD&devices=[[test-device-1,MOD_1,(SUBMOD_1,,SUBMOD_1,)],[test-device-2,MOD_1,(SUBMOD_1,,SUBMOD_1,)]]

Note the transport, port fields shouldn’t have to be changed

Address Format

The format of address will be in the format.

device.slot.id.module_name.channel.bit:format

An example would be

device-1.1.1.DIGITAL_INPUT.0.1:BOOL

Note:-

Data Types

The following data types are supported

  • BOOL (boolean)

  • SINT (int 8)

  • USINT (uint 8)

  • BYTE (uint 8)

  • INT (int 16)

  • UINT (uint 16)

  • WORD (uint 16)

  • DINT (int 32)

  • UDINT (uint 32)

  • DWORD (uint 32)

  • LINT (int 64)

  • ULINT (uint 64)

  • LWORD (uint 64)

  • REAL (float)

  • LREAL (double)

  • CHAR (char)

  • WCHAR (2 byte char)

  • STRING (utf-8)

  • WSTRING (utf-16)

Some useful tips

Although the GSD file contains all the information needed to configure which data will be available from a device. The easiest approach is to use the browsing function of the Profinet driver to return a list of all available tags. Then only the addresses of interest can be selected.