I apologise in advance, as I'm just a humble PLC automation engineer and (currently) have limited knowledge of the world of JavaScript development. However, that's what brought me into the wonderful world of Node-Red, so I could avoid that and still get done what I need to
So, I have connected a Siemens PLC controlled machine to Node-Red. I've created a dashboard, and I'm able to display all of the data I need to, essentially just using the dashboard to read PLC values in a live state. It's great!
However... I can only view this dashboard on my laptop and only when I'm plugged into the PLC. The aim is to have a dashboard available for anyone on our LAN (or via website access?) to double-click a desktop shortcut, and it'll just bring up the dashboard. This will then be shown in meetings, kept logged in on TV's around the site, etc.
But when I attempt to type in the 127.X.X.X:1234/ui into another PC's browser, it fails to show anything. I appreciate it'll be my lack of skill in this, but could someone please point me in the direction of how I can fully 'publish' my dashboard for others to view?
Firstly, Dashboard is not really multiple user (there is no individual login system with role based access) - but multiple users can view the dashboard.
127.x.y.z is a loopback addresses - these are used for testing and not accessible outside of the device.
The IP address of the computer will be something like 192.168.x.y or 10.176.x.y or 172.x.y.z
Check your computers network configuration.
If you need more help, then you will need to provide more details - e.g. is this running on windows? linux? mac? docker? How is the device connected to the network? Does it have a firewall blocking port 1234? etc.
Re-reading - i suspect you have an Siemens IOT box (1040 or something?) - my guess is it is on its own subnet and not connected to the wider LAN.
Provide more details and we will see if we can help.
EDIT
Re-reading again - as you are accessing a loopback address (127.x.y.z) you must actually have Node-RED installed on the laptop right? In which case, you will need issue the public IP (and check that if it has a firewall, that port is not blocked)
Just to be clear on the application, it would just be for multiple users to view the same dashboard only. There are no switches, buttons, etc. on the dashboard - It'll just be displaying numbers and gauges.
So for example, the PC will node-red and the dashboard will be IP 192.168.0.241 and the PLC IP will be IP 192.168.0.1. The PC is Windows 10, and will have a plugged in ethernet connection to our server room network, as will the PLC (and all other PLCs). All of the PLCs are connected to our LAN through an unmanaged switch, and they all have static IPs.
This PC will be the node-red 'operator' and will essentially sit there, read inputs from all of the connected Siemens PLCs onsite, and show these on a dashboard.
I'd need to check the firewall blocking port, as I don't have access to this.
Couple of questions based on this:
Do I need node-red and dashboard installed on each PC that wants to access the main dashboard? Or can they just type in the IP address and essentially view this dashboard through the node-red dedicated PC?
If I want to access this dashboard, just to view from anther PC, would I just open a browser and type http://192.168.0.241:1234/ui
When you mentioned about issuing a public IP - Is this something that is done in Node-Red? Or is this something that I would do on the PC so it's open to the network and others can access it to view the dashboard?
No. Think of it like the internet where you view pages in you browser. Nothing to install (that's the beauty)
Correct (see next point though)
The IP address of your computer is set by the operating system and/or network. Nothing to do with node-red.
Note. It is very likely your computer has an IP address assigned by the network and therefore can change upon reboot. It is better to issue access to the dashboard by hostname (e.g http://hostname: port). This is also set by the operating system. A lot of this depends on the network it is connected to and whether there is active directory / ldap / wins / DNS / proxies involved. If
That's great, thanks Steve.
I'll probably need to sit down with our IT team to get all of these settings checked.
Once I know all of these, and I can get the hostname used as a fixed address, I'll start rolling this out to other departments that will use this data.
Note. It is very likely your computer has an IP address assigned by the network and therefore can change upon reboot. It is better to issue access to the dashboard by hostname (e.g http://hostname: port ). This is also set by the operating system. A lot of this depends on the network it is connected to and whether there is active directory / ldap / wins / DNS / proxies involved.
Just to update on this, I've managed to get connected Thank you for your help with this! As you explained, it was a bit of fun with Windows Defender, corporate port blocks, etc.
