Quick Start

The most simple and quick way to run the modbus simulator is by using docker, in this example we will run the modbus simulator without simulation.

  1. Pull the Modbus Simulator
docker pull paulorb/modbus-simulator-cli
  1. Run the Modbus Simulator
docker run --rm -p 5002:5002 paulorb/modbus-simulator-cli

This simulator offers many other types of simulation, predefined ones or custom (based on a configuration file)

Predefined Simulations

Random values

By specifying -sr argument the simulator will generate random numbers for register values, each time a read operation is performed, write operations are ignored.

Custom Simulation

The simulation can be customized by providing a configuration (in XML format) to the simulator. This is an example of configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII" ?>
<device ip="0.0.0.0" port="502">
    <configuration initializeUndefinedRegisters="true" initialValue="0">
        <registers>
            <register addressType="HOLDING_REGISTER" address="14" symbol="RPM_MOTOR">500</register>
            <register addressType="HOLDING_REGISTER" address="10" datatype="FLOAT32" symbol="TEMPERATURE">-12.5</register>
            <register addressType="HOLDING_REGISTER" address="0"  datatype="INT16" symbol="RPM_MOTOR1">1</register>
            <register addressType="COIL" address="1" symbol="RELAYON">1</register>
            <register addressType="DISCRETE_INPUT" address="0" symbol="RELAY_STATUS">1</register>
            <register addressType="INPUT_REGISTER" address="0" symbol="RPM">1</register>
        </registers>
    </configuration>
    <simulation plcScanTime="1000">
        <set symbol="TEMPERATURE">2.0</set>
        <set symbol="RPM_MOTOR">15</set>
        <delay>500</delay>
        <set symbol="RPM">1</set>
        <delay>500</delay>
        <set symbol="RPM">0</set>
        <delay>500</delay>
        <sub symbol="RPM_MOTOR">10</sub>
        <delay>500</delay>
        <add symbol="RPM_MOTOR">10</add>
    </simulation>
</device>

Sections device and configuration are mandatory

Custom simulation with docker

For the custom simulation to work, the configuration file must be defined.

  1. Place the configuration file in a folder for example simulation folder
  2. From inside the folder (cd simulation) execute the following command 
docker run -it -v $PWD/:/simulation -p5002:5002 paulorb/modbus-simulator-cli   -f /simulation/simulation.xml

Device section

Device section is used to configure the network parameters of the driver TODO: define device section