Scan engine access protection on CRIO?

[Robert_Hoffman]

I am running a high volume production tester using the CRIO in an automotive plant, and my application uses the scan engine.  I just came across the scan engine vi's in the Measurement I/O palette that allows you to target a CRIO and change the scan engine period.  While handy, it seems like that is a pretty dangerous thing to allow without protection or some sort of user access rights. 

Can I password-protect changes to the scan engine settings to prevent this sort of change?  Does locking the CRIO accomplish this?

Thanks,

Rob

[PaulRB]

Hi Rob,

I'm not exactly sure what locking the cRIO entails, but if you mean setting permissions in MAX, you will still be allowed to change the scan mode settings. As far as I know, there is no good way to lock the scan mode settings. If you want the option for some people to change the scan settings, you can password protect a tab control that will control these settings. Here is a discussion forum post that has an example of how to do this.

Thanks,

[Robert_Hoffman]

So, effectively what that means is that anyone with Labview and network access to the CRIO can change the scan engine timing....that seems like a very bad thing to me.

Any thoughts on how to better protect that?  What about some of the vi server access settings from within the project?

Rob

[PaulRB]

Hi Robert,

It is possible to prevent changes to the cRIO, but it involves deleting a .dll on the cRIO, which can be dangerous. I am still looking to see if there are other ways other than deleting this .dll, because I hesitate to recommend this solution.

Thanks,

[Robert_Hoffman]

Thanks for checking on that...I agree that deleting a .dll doesn't seem like a good solution.

[PaulRB · Accepted solution]

Hi Rob,

I found a better way to protect the cRIO. In your project, right click on your cRIO controller and go to Properties. In the properties menu on the left side, you'll see a list of Catergories. If you click on User Access, you can allow and deny access to certain IP addresses. Now, only IP addresses on the grant list will be able to connect to the cRIO (and if you can't connect, you can't deploy any code). I tried this out and accidentally locked myself out of the cRIO. If you ever lock yourself out, you will have to change the ni-rt.ini file, located on the RT controller. Since you can change access from this file as well, you will want to password protect the cRIO in MAX as well so this file cannot be changed.

Thanks,

[Robert_Hoffman]

Paul,

That sounds good, I am glad there is a way built-in.  I will start investigating that and go from there.

Thanks,

Rob