Occasionally the situation will arise where a customer will need to support multiple automation platforms that may come in conflict with one another, or software packages that are required to run on different operating systems. To remedy this situation, a Virtual Machine (VM) is an efficient approach that mirrors a computer’s operating system and provides the full functionality of that operating system without the need for additional hardware. For scenarios where the TIA Portal software platform needs to be installed on a VM, we are able to use a VM to connect to a physical PLC to download, upload, and perform online troubleshooting by following the below process.
To establish connection to the PLC, you will first need to verify that your VM connection is bridged to the computer’s network adapter.
After bridging the connection, navigate to “Virtual Network Editor” and manually change the settings to bridge the VM to your physical port. NOTE: You may need to disable firewalls on your VM and PC, depending on any pre-existing security protocols.
The reason you will need to bridge the connection in order to use the discovery protocol is because it is a Layer 2 protocol. In VMware, Workstation, “VMnet0” is always going to be the bridged connection. If the name doesn’t show up in your Virtual Network Editor, select the “Restore Defaults” button and it should show up.
