Introduction

OPC UA Client is a backend application, whose role is to fetch data from OPC UA Server and write the data to DB using Vtrin API. OPC UA Client application can run on both Windows and Linux platforms.

OPC UA Client application is developed on with OPC Unified Automation .NET SDK and uses it to communicate and exchange data with OPC UA Servers. OPC UA is short for OPC Unified Architecture which is provided by Unified Automation.

Features

• Collecting numerical process history from 3rd party UA servers.
• Collecting process events and alarms from 3rd party UA servers. All attributes coming from standardized event types are supported.
• Tag and Equipment model-based configuration to cross-connect signals.
• Writing back to 3rd party UA server based on current value events in database when Tags-based configuration is used.
• Storing received values both to Current History and Stream History
• Supports all datatypes available in Current and Stream histories, including string and arrays of basic datatypes.
• Supports application instance certificates and secure communication protocols. User authentication types: anonymous, password, user certificate.
• Supports alarms and conditions.
• (Upcoming) Automatic configuration of variables and equipment model from an OPC UA server

Installation

Requires ABB Ability™ History to be installed, if you haven't installed ABB Ability™ History yet, follow the links below to installation guide.

Windows: https://docs.cpmplus.net/docs/installation-on-windows

Linux: https://docs.cpmplus.net/docs/installation-on-linux

OPC UA Client requires installation of .NET 8.0. You can check with command dotnet --info whether the correct version is already installed. To install, download and run the installer from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet. Select the ".NET Desktop Runtime" package.

#Go to the installation path "%RTDBRoot%\Bin\netcore\"
#For default installation folder
cd C:\Program Files\ABB Oy\RTDB\Bin\netcore\

#OpcUa client can be set up as a RTDB service
runcpm CSCommon_Cmd -setini [PATH_TO_DATBASE]\RTDB.INI Services Vtrin-OPCUAClient ON
runcpm CSCommon_Cmd -setini [PATH_TO_DATBASE]\RTDB.INI Vtrin-OPCUAClient CmdLine "%RTDBRoot%\Bin\netcore\VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d [PATH_TO_DATBASE]"

#Alternatively OpcUa client can set itself up as standalone service with the -install flag.
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe --install -d [PATH_TO_DATBASE]

#Run the following command to install OPC UA Client
apt-get install cpmplusvtrinopcuaclient

#OpcUa client can be set up as a RTDB service
runcpm CSCommon_Cmd -setini [PATH_TO_DATBASE]/RTDB.INI Services Vtrin-OPCUAClient ON
runcpm CSCommon_Cmd -setini [PATH_TO_DATBASE]/RTDB.INI Vtrin-OPCUAClient CmdLine "/usr/share/dotnet/dotnet /usr/share/cpmplus/netcore/VtrinOPCUAClient.dll -d [PATH_TO_DATBASE]"

Running

Vtrin OPC UA Client can be started with this simple command:

cd C:\Program Files\ABB Oy\RTDB\Bin\netcore\
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d [PATH_TO_DATBASE]

VtrinOPCUAClient -d [PATH_TO_DATBASE]

Commandline arguments

Examples

#Examples for data sources:
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d c:\rtdbdata
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d ws://127.0.0.1/History
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d wss://<REMOTE_IP>/History

#Examples for authentication for datasources:
#No authentication:
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d <DATASOURCE>
#Save/update password: (Saved credential will be printed. For example: "*VTRIN/c_rtdbdata")
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d <DATASOURCE> --user USERNAME --savepassword
#Start with saved credentials: (Instead of username, write the credential name, starting with asterix '*')
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d <DATASOURCE> --user *CREDENTIAL

#Examples for installing as a service: (credential should be saved beforehand)
VtrinOPCUAClient.exe -d <DATASOURCE> --user *CREDENTIAL --service --install

#Examples for data sources:
VtrinOPCUAClient -d /var/lib/rtdbdata
VtrinOPCUAClient -d ws://127.0.0.1/History
VtrinOPCUAClient -d wss://<REMOTE_IP>/History

#Examples for authentication for datasources:
#No authentication:
VtrinOPCUAClient -d <DATASOURCE>
#Save/update password: (Saved credential will be printed. For example: "*VTRIN/c_rtdbdata")
VtrinOPCUAClient -d <DATASOURCE> --user USERNAME --savepassword
#Start with saved credentials: (Instead of username, write the credential name, starting with asterix '*')
VtrinOPCUAClient -d <DATASOURCE> --user *CREDENTIAL

Configuration

SimpleConfig table

OpcUAClient can be configured from Vtrin SimpleConfig table under VtrinOPCUAClient section.

Bolded keys/values inside [brackets] are to be replaced with user set values.

Slash separated values inside [brackets] are choices.

SimpleConfig table example

Setting up data collection

OPC UA Client ONLY loads the records, whose attribute 'Owner Component' value is selected to 'OPC UA V3'.

Note: On Linux it may be required to add target machine IP and hostname to /etc/hosts file for connection to work.

Tags

OPC UA Client can subscribe the items configured in the Tags table. However, ONLY the ones whose attribute 'Da Type' is 'OPC UA V3', and 'Activity' is 'Active', can be subscribed.

The figure below shows an example of Tags configuration:

DataAccessSource table

The value of attribute 'Access Type' should be selected to 'Realtime'.

The value of attribute 'Access Path' should match the pattern: opc.tcp://[ip]:[port]///[value];UaIdType=[type];UaNamespace=[url]* . For an example, please see the figure below.

DataAccessRealTime table

Similar to the DataAccessSource table, the value of attribute 'Owner Component' should be selected as 'OPC UA V3'. For an example, please see the figure below.

DataAccessEvent table

DataAccessEvent Filter (Since version 25.01)

Filter column can be used to set conditions for event collection. No filter defined, means that all events are collected.

Filtering supports complex condition statements, and can target browsenames, such as event attribute like "Severity".

Syntax:

Filter can be inputted as whitespace ' ' separated array, position of the operator is not significant.

Operation inside parenthesis "(" and ")" will be resolved first. Operation in parenthesis can contain statements in parenthesis, and so on.

Text inside quotations " and ' is considered as constant string. Opening quotation must match the closing quotation.

Number is considered as a constant

Text without quotations are considered as browsename property, such as Severity or Message

Operators:

Additional operators can be found from here: https://reference.opcfoundation.org/Core/Part4/v104/docs/7.4.3

Limitations:

• 'IsNotEqual' -operator doesn't exist in OPC UA standard.
• Currently only properties of BaseEventType is supported.
• Browsepaths are not currently supported.

DataAccessEvent Options (Since version 25.01)

Multiple options are separated by ';'

Table of supported options:

DataAccessEvent Example

The figure below show an example of DataAccessEvent configuration:

Diagnosing

Logging directory is defined by --logpath (or -l) command line argument.

Since version 25.10:

Logpath is automatically determined by --datasourcename (or -d) argument, logs will be then found

[PATH_TO_DATBASE]\Diag (e.g. D:\RTDBData\Diag)

If no valid path for logs are found (for example when using wss:// connection instead of direct connection), logs are printed into:

%APPDATA%\ABB\VtrinOPCUAClient\Logs

/root/.config/ABB/VtrinOPCUAClient/Logs

(Upcoming) OPC UA Server Autoconfiguration

Vtrin OPC UA Client is capable of automatically importing variables and building equipment model to RTDB from OPC UA servers.

Autoconfiguration can be configured to run on startup, triggered manually, events raised by OPC UA server or by time interval.

Configuring

SimpleConfigTable

Bolded keys/values inside [brackets] are to be replaced with user set values.

Slash separated values inside [brackets] are choices.

Multiple options are separated by ';'

Setting changes take effect on run time.

All keys and values are case insenstive.

Run settings

Run settings control when autoconfiguration is run for a specified OPC UA Server.

All settings and values, besides prefixes and OPCUANodeID string identifiers are case insenstive

Example of run settings:

interval=0:01:00;enabled=true;runonmodelchange=true;runoninterval=false;

Common settings

Common settings contains model and tag configuration settings for autoconfiguration for specified OPC UA Server.

All settings and values, besides prefixes are case insenstive.

Example of common settings:

enabled=true;prefix="Prefix1";overwrite=true;equipmentsettings=[{typeprefix="_EQP1";typedefinition="i=58";maxdepth=15;startactive=true;startnodeid="ns=3;s=BuildingAutomation"}];

Tag settings

All settings and values, besides prefixes and OPCUANodeID string identifiers are case insenstive.

Example of tag settings: prefix="_DYNAMIC";startnodeid="ns=2;s=Demo.DynamicNodes";maxdepth=5;startactive=true;

Equipment model settings

All settings and values, besides prefixes and OPCUANodeID string identifiers are case insenstive.

Example of equipment model settings:

typeprefix="_EQP1";typedefinition="i=58";maxdepth=15;startactive=true;startnodeid="ns=3;s=BuildingAutomation";typestoignore=["i=2318"];

Examples

Example 1

This example loads autoconfiguration settings from a file, and runs the autoconfiguration when the server model has been changed, with minumum of a hour since last run.

enabled=true;prefix="Prefix1";overwrite=true;equipmentsettings=[{typeprefix="_EQP1";typedefinition="i=58";maxdepth=15;startactive=true;startnodeid="ns=3;s=BuildingAutomation";typestoignore=["i=2318"]}];tagsettings=[{prefix="_DYNAMIC";startnodeid="ns=2;s=Demo.DynamicNodes";maxdepth=5;startactive=true}];

Example 2

This example runs autoconfiguration every day at midnight.

Remarks

If generated equipment instance is deleted or edited manually, associated DataAccessSource and DataAccessRealtime instances should be removed, otherwise subsequent autoconfiguration runs will generate duplicate non-functional DataAccessSource and DataAccessRealtime entries, resulting in newly generated instance not receiving any values from server.

Using RTDB OPC UA Server as a source

❗️

Warning: When using RTDB database as a source, scope of tag and equipment model settings should be limited. startnodeid and typedefinition settings, should have setting other than default, as default settings will cause all classes and instances to be copied over to target database leading to collisions and issues, especially if preservenames -setting is on.

It is recommended to use NetSync instead.

However Vtrin OPC UA Client Autoconfiguration feature is useful for grabbing tags and (limited set of) equipments' from RTDB source server.

Example

This example copies over tags and equipment generated by autoconfig from another RTDB database keeping the original names. preservenames setting is set to true, and prefix is being aplied, and most importantly in equipment settings typedefinition is set to nodeId of baseclass of autoconfig generated classes, same applies to startnodeid where it is set to root instance of autoconfig generated equipment instances. In tag settings startnodeid is set to node containing just variables.

Note that the nodeIds' of typedefinition and root instance are unique per database.

enabled=true;prefix="RTDB1_";overwrite=false;equipmentsettings=[{preservenames=true;typeprefix="TYP_";typedefinition="ns=2;s=Path_Prefix1_EQP1;VtrinOPCUAClient AutoconfigClass";maxdepth=15;startactive=true;startnodeid="ns=2;s=/Path/f7882d48-9266-4807-81f3-373a0ca9071d|Prefix1;VtrinOPCUAClient Autoconfig";typestoignore=["i=2318"]}];tagsettings=[{startnodeid="ns=2;s=Variable";maxdepth=5;startactive=true;preservenames=true}];