Replication and Deployment Utility (RAD)

[Che_T.]

I was working with Sean when we identified that the incorrect behavior pointed to the way the utility handles password protected cRIOs.  Here is his log file

[Burt_S]

Just to be clear, is it accurate that this issue only occurs when running the RAD in Win8 and when communicating with a cRIO that is pw protected?  Does working with pw protected cRIOs in Win7 work as expected?

Unfortunately I have run into issues where the System Configuration driver returns a different error code for an invalid password for different versions of the driver.  It's possible that it could do the same for different OS's.  If you are willing to take some time to modify the source code and rebuild the EXE, it is probably worth a shot to try and catch a few additional errors in the "rad_Open System Config Session.vi".  This VI checks for specific errors indicating an invalid password, and then displays the password dialogue so that the initialize can be attempted again.  This may be as simple as adding error -2147220621 to the list.  I have also seen error -2147220598 occur in the past which is why it is shown below.

(Sorry for the missing icons, but I had to pull the code up from a different machine.)

Using the source code can provide the added benefit of allowing you to create your own installer for the tool that includes the specific LabVIEW Runtime and System Configuration driver versions that you would like to use.

[engineer987]

Hi Burt,

I apologize, I have two completely distinct issues here.  I posted them one after the other, not realizing they'd be appearing together in the same thread.

The first issue (Message #155) is that I can't get RAD to work on a Windows 8 machine that does not have the full Labview environment installed. In that case I am not using a password-protected cRIO.  I can't get it to work on any cRIO.

The second issue (Message #157) is that I can't get RAD to deploy to a password-protected cRIO.  In that case, I am using my normal RAD installation (on Windows 7, with full Labview development environment) which works without problem on non-password-protected cRIOs.

The first issue above is the far more critical one for our project right now, so perhaps we could attack it first?  The error I'm getting there is "Error 15 at Call Library Function Node in nisyscfg.lvlib..."

thanks,

Sean McCrossin

[JoshuaP]

You just need to install the NI System Configuration Runtime on the target. You can even pull it in as an additional installer when you build the RAD installer from LV.

[JoshuaP]

By on the target I mean on the windows 8 machine or where ever you are trying to execute the RAD.

[engineer987]

Joshua,

I have already installed NI System Configuration 5.1 Runtime on the Windows 8 machine that is executing RAD.  (Please see original posting - Message #155.)  Yet I still get "Error 15 at Call Library Function Node in nisyscfg.lvlib...".  Do I perhaps need an older version of NI System Configuration Runtime?  Or some additional software?

Or have I misunderstood -- do you mean to say that I need to install some extra software on the cRIO?

This is rapidly becoming a critical issue.  We will be shipping units in a few days.  If we don't have the RAD utility working on the PCs that ship with the units, we will have no means of updating software in the field. 

[JimMacD]

If all else fails, you could try making a Virtual Machine with Windows 7 installed, and then use the Hyper-V capabilities of Windows 8 to run it. Then if software needed to be updated, the field technician would run it from the VM.

-Jim

[QFang]

Also, depending on who would be doing the field updates, there is always the option of connecting via ftp and just do the update manually.  The  biggest trouble with that (but still less than a VM setup if you have never done that before), will be in maintaining the ni-rt.ini file, but you can pretty much steal the one off of a lab/desk cRIO and bundle in with your image.. The images are essentially just zip files, and the "install" is basically just a "wipe" of c\ on the cRIO followed by an ftp transfer of all the zipped files and folders. . Of course, RAD lets you use black lists etc., but if you have company tech's (rather than end user/customer) that does the updates, then this is a workable interim solution, it just requires some training, but ultimately is not that hard.

This becomes evne simpler if the only thing you are "updating" is your application from version a to version b.. In that case, all you need to do is to delete/replace all the files and folders in the c:\ni-rt\startup folder (usually just an alias file and a .rtexe file). As an added bonus for those cases, the "image" is suddenly ~3MB or less vs 15+.

This is how we did all field upgrades until RAD started to become more useful/stable.

[JoshuaP]

I just tested the latest RAD (http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id/5986) with NI System Configuration 5.3.3 (http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3564/lang/en) on a Windows 8 VM and it worked perfectly.  You may need to upgrade from 5.1 to 5.3 or higher.

[engineer987]

Hi Joshua,

Which version of the Labview Runtime Engine and which version of RAD did you use?

Sean