This is the README for both Swap and Upload, please follow the individual README in Documentation for more details on the operation you would like to perform.
Swap: Swaps the projects on the SD card and the PLC and archives the project from the PLC on the SD card.
Upload: Uploads the given project to the PLC and archives the old project on the SD card.
- PLCnext Control AXC F X152
- SD card
- Phoenix Contact SD Card preferred, but a normal SD Card can be configured to work
- Computer w/ Windows OS
- Can also be set up on Linux, but Windows is necessary for PLCnext Engineer projects
- SFTP client
- SSH client
- PLCnext Engineer
- Ext4 File System Driver for Windows (with write capability)
- PLCnext Control AXC F 2152
- Hardware version: 06
- Firmware version: 2024.0.5 LTS
- Linux kernel version: #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Thu Nov 16 06:49:45 UTC 2023
- Linux kernel release: 5.4.257-rt87-pxc
- Hardware platform: armv71
- PLCnext Engineer version 2024.0.3
- WinSCP version 6.3.4
- PuTTY release 0.79
- Linux File Systems for Windows by Paragon Software version 6.1.5
- GNU bash version 5.1.16(1)
- dpkg version 1.21.9
- udev version 243
- crontab version cronie 1.6.1
- Packages installed with Upload (all armel)
- gcc-10-base 10.2.1-6
- inotify-tools 3.14-8.1
- libc6 2.31-13
- libcrypt1 4.4.18-4
- libgcc-s1 10.2.1-6
- libinotifytools0 3.14-8.1
SD card Support must be deactivated before swapping files. If it is left activated, and the SD card has a project on it when inserted, the project on the PLC will be lost.
After connecting to PLC, open Web Based Management, either through PLCnext Engineer, or directly via web browser at 0.0.0.0/wbm (replace with your PLC's IP address)
Login to WBM and navigate to the SD card window under Security. Ensure that Support for External SD card is deactivated. If support is activated, deactivate it by pressing the Deactivate support button and reboot your PLC.
After SD card support is deactivated, login to a new session in your SFTP client. Use the IP address of your PLC as the Host name. If this is a fresh PLC, the user name will be admin and the password will be printed on the front of your PLCnext Control.
After connecting, navigate to /opt/plcnext and transfer install.sh, uninstall.sh, SDcardSwap, and Upload to this directory. All files needed can be found in this repo.
Now, open a new session in your SSH client and log into the PLC. Use the same IP address, user, and password as used in the SFTP session.
Next, enter the following command:
sudo passwd root
When asked for a password, use the password entered previously. Enter a new password for the root user. Then, enter su and login with the newly created password:
login as: admin
admin@192.168.1.10's password: password
Last login: Mon Jul 15 15:35:00 2024 from 192.168.1.1
admin@axcf2152:~$ sudo passwd root
Password: password
New password: rootPassword
Retype new password: rootPassword
passwd: password updated successfully
admin@axcf2152:~$ su
Password: rootPassword
root@axcf2152:/opt/plcnext/#
You should be in the /opt/plcnext/ directory. If you are not, navigate there by using cd /opt/plcnext. Enter the following command, which will give the installation file the necessary read/write permissions:
chmod 777 install.sh
Finally, run the installation file using:
./install.sh
You will see an output asking if you would like to install each of the packages. Enter y for the packages you would like to install. The Swap and Upload packages will not interfere with each other, so feel free to install both.
If you are using a normal SD card, you will need to create some of the file structure that exists on the Phoenix Contact SD cards in order to archive the projects from the PLC. First, you will need to format the SD card as Ext4. I used a trial for this driver: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/. In Linux File Systems for Windows, click the three dots icon, then click Format new volume. Select your SD card, the Ext4 format, and then click Format.
After you have formatted the SD card, create the folders upperdir and work. Then, create the folders in this filepath: upperdir/opt/plcnext/projects. After uploading the PCWE folder, you will need to create a symlink called current that links to the PCWE folder. Please note that while this SD card can be used for storage and uploading projects to the PLC, it cannot be mounted as the primary filesystem to run the PLC.
Ensure the SD card is properly formatted by checking that the following filepath exists: /upperdir/opt/plcnext/projects.
To upload the project to the PLC, you will first need to find the project on your computer. Depending on where you installed PLCnext Engineer, this could vary slightly. To find where the project is stored, in PLCnext Engineer go to Extras, then open the Options. Open the Directories tab under Tools.
While you have your project open in PLCnext Engineer, rebuild the project. Go to Project then hit Rebuild. You do not need to connect to your PLC to rebuild the project. This is to make sure all of the configs are correct and all the right files are generated.
Navigate to the folder labeled Binaries in your file explorer. Then, navigate to:
\Binaries\your_project@binary\RES_XXXXXX\Configuration\Projects
In Projects, there will be a folder labeled PCWE. This will be the folder and filepath this document refers to when it says PCWE.
You will need to upload your project manually before swapping or uploading a project, or the PLC will just have an empty project assigned to it. This can also be a way to clear the project on the PLC without losing it.
There are multiple ways to do this, including using SCP to transfer the files and uploading through the PLC using SFTP. For Swap, you can also upload to the SD card directly.
The following instructions are for the SD Card Swap process, skip this section for the Upload instructions.
Ensure your computer is connected to the PLC and the SD card is in the PLC. Open a command prompt terminal. Enter this command:
pscp -scp -r "C:\Users\your_user\OneDrive\Documents\PLCnext Engineer\Binaries\project_name@binary\RES_XXXXXX\Configuration\Projects\PCWE" admin@0.0.0.0:/media/rfs/externalsd/upperdir/opt/plcnext/projects/
You will need to fill in the your_user, project_name@binary, and RES_XXXXXX fields with the ones found in your filepath. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to the PCWE folder and then copy the filepath from your file explorer. You will also need to replace 0.0.0.0 with the IP address of your PLC.
After you enter this command, a password will be requested. Enter the password for admin, found on the front of the PLC. The progress of the transfer will be shown. Once it is complete, you can move on to the Performing the Swap step.
Open your SFTP client and connect to the PLC. Ensure the SD card is in the PLC. Navigate to the PCWE folder on your local machine. Then, open /media/rfs/externalsd/upperdir/opt/plcnext/projects on the PLC. Copy the PCWE folder on your local machine to the PLC.
Make sure you are in the correct folder on the PLC. If you navigate to the wrong /opt/plcnext/ you could overwrite the project on the PLC. You can now move to the Performing the Swap step.
If you are using Windows, you will need to download an Ext4 File System Driver to read and write to the SD card. A trial download for a driver can be found here: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/ They offer a 10-day free trial, but the software will continue to work after the trial expires. There is also the option to upload the PCWE folder to a Linux computer, and then you should be able to read and write to the SD card directly with no driver necessary.
Upload the PCWE folder on your local machine to /upperdir/opt/plcnext/projects.
After you have an SD card with the desired project uploaded to it, the swapping process is simple. With the PLC powered on and running, insert the SD card into the SD card slot. If you used one of the steps where the SD card is already inserted in the PLC, you can either SSH into the PLC and manually run Swap.sh, or just remove and reinsert the SD card.
After approximately a minute, the PLC will reboot. After rebooting, the project that was uploaded to the SD card will be copied to the PLC, the project that was on the PLC will be archived in /opt/plcnext/project_archives on the SD card, and the project now on the PLC will run.
You can safely remove the SD card once the new project is running. You can also leave the SD card in the PLC if desired, the swap will not be performed again until the SD card is removed and reinserted. If the PLC is powered on or rebooted while an SD card is already inserted, you will need to remove and reinsert the SD card to perform the swap.
The following instructions are for the Upload process, follow the previous section for the Swap instructions.Ensure your computer is connected to the PLC and the SD card is in the PLC. If you have Swap installed already, insert the SD card when the PLC is off to ensure the swap process does not occur. Open a command prompt terminal. Enter this command:
pscp -scp -r "C:\Users\your_user\OneDrive\Documents\PLCnext Engineer\Binaries\project_name@binary\RES_XXXXXX\Configuration\Projects\PCWE" admin@0.0.0.0:/opt/plcnext/
You will need to fill in the your_user, project_name@binary, and RES_XXXXXX fields with the ones found in your filepath. The easiest way to do this is to navigate to the PCWE folder and then copy the filepath from your file explorer. You will also need to replace 0.0.0.0 with the IP address of your PLC.
After you enter this command, a password will be requested. Enter the password for admin, found on the front of the PLC. The progress of the transfer will be shown. After about a minute, the PLC will reboot and the new project will be running. The old project will be archived on the SD card.
Open your SFTP client and connect to the PLC. Navigate to the PCWE folder on your local machine. Then, open /opt/plcnext/ on the PLC. Copy the PCWE folder on your local machine to the PLC.
After about a minute, the PLC will reboot and the new project will be running. The old project will be archived on the SD card, and the temporary PCWE folder in /opt/plcnext/ will be deleted.
To remove the Swap or Upload programs from the PLC, you will perform a similar process to installation.
Using the same SFTP client procedure as before, check to make sure uninstall.sh is present in /opt/plcnext on the PLC.
Open a session in your SSH client, login to your user, and then root following the same procedure as installation.
You should be in the /opt/plcnext/ directory. If you are not, navigate there by using cd /opt/plcnext. Enter the following command, which will give the script the necessary read/write permissions:
chmod 777 uninstall.sh
Finally, run the script using:
./uninstall.sh
Similar to installation, you will see an output asking if you would like to uninstall each of the packages (if present). Enter y for the packages you would like to uninstall.
You can now safely reactivate SD card support. The same data concerns still apply, so be aware of what projects are present on the PLC and SD card before using this functionality.