1756-EWEB Module: Web Server and More - Rockwell Automation

Hands-On Lab Workbook
1756-EWEB Module:
Web Server and More
LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
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1756-EWEB Module: Web Server and More
In this lab we will explore the 1756-EWEB module. You are calling on your favorite
OEM, the Acme Tool and Machine Company (Acme). The machines that Acme
builds are systems of three or four different complex stations, each in line and tied to
the others, so that one station feeds the next. Acme’s machines are all of the same
general design, but each order Acme receives for a machine does have some
customization required. Acme nearly always starts with a ControlLogix system with
only a few modules of local I/O. The majority of I/O is Point I/O on ControlNet.
Every machine also has at least one PanelView on ControlNet. Acme brings up a
number of issues that they have been discussing with their customers, who are end
users.
1. Acme’s customers have been demanding better support from Acme;
2. Acme needs a better way to keep their machine documentation up to date for their
customers (this includes machine user manuals, maintenance schedules, service
manuals, troubleshooting documents, etc);
3. End user customers want to integrate data from Acme’s machines into their
business systems. End user customers in Acme’s industries tend to use main frames to
create production orders, collect data, generate reports, etc.
4. Acme always puts their I/O on ControlNet, so customers have always needed to
buy either a ControlNet card for their programming computer, or a 1756-ENBT for
their ControlLogix chassis. In either case, customers have not been happy having to
buy an extra module just for the sake of programming.
In this lab, we will see how the 1756-EWEB will help Acme to meet these demands
from their customers.
Key Topics Covered in this Lab:
• CIP Routing and Explicit Messaging (no I/O)
• Creating and Using Data Views (and Remote Custom Data Monitor)
• Sending Emails
• Modifying and Downloading Web Pages
• Backup and Restore: Web Pages, Data Views and Configuration
• Data Collection with XML
• Why the EWEB is not an HMI
• EWEB Performance, EWEB Effect on System Performance
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Background:
The EWEB module allows the user to host web pages from the ControlLogix rack. This
enables Acme’s customers to view data from their control systems on any computer that
has an internet browser. (If the viewing computer is outside of the company network, the
user will have to bridge the firewall, similar to the process one goes through anytime he
wishes to have external access to a protected network.) The EWEB also functions as a
great place for Acme to store user documentation and help files. Acme is especially
interested in the ability to remotely access its machines in the field and potentially correct
problems without traveling to the customer site.
Technical Details the Engineers Liked:
Topics such as email servers, html, xml and asp are important to the maximum use of the
EWEB module, but beyond the scope of this class. There are plenty of good online
resources to learn about these topics, which can be found through search engines. For
example, http://www.w3schools.com/ is one good, free resource.
For a good explanation of html vs. xml, go to
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
For a good explanation of ASP, go to
http://www.w3schools.com/asp/asp_intro.asp
CIP Routing and Explicit Messaging (no I/O)
1. Double click the “AcmeControl” file in the AU2004�EWEB folder to open the
RSLogix 5000 file.
The 1756-EWEB has all of the CIP Explicit Messaging capabilities of the 1756-ENBT. It
can do everything the 1756-ENBT can do, except control I/O.
2. Download the “AcmeControl.acd” file into the controller in slot 1 using the 1756-
EWEB IP address listed on the front of your computer (10.88.89.2xx). Notice the
1756-EWEB module is in slot 7.
3. Put the controller into Run mode.
Accessing the 1756-EWEB
4. Open Internet Explorer.
LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
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5. Click in the address field � type the IP address of your EWEB � press Enter. This
opens the default EWEB web page.
6. There are a group of folders on the left-hand side. Click Administrative Settings �
User Management � Edit Users. A log-in screen will appear:
7. Type “administrator” (not case sensitive) in the User Name field and click OK (no
password) to login to the web page.
NOTE: This is the out-of-the-box login account. The password will
always need to be changed in any application that requires security.
8. We are now on the “Edit Users” page. This is where we would set up accounts to
differentiate the amount of access to EWEB functionality by various users. We will
continue to use the default administrator account for simplicity. Access can be:
Read: read only access to tags in the Data Views;
Write: write and read access to tags in the Data Views;
Administrator: complete access to all Web server functionality;
Creating and Using Data Views (and Remote Custom Data Monitor)
9. Using the links on the left-hand side, click Data Views � Data Views.
10. We want to create a new data view. Click the New Data View tab at the top of the
right-hand screen.
11. Fill out the fields as below:
LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
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LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
Only the atomic data types
of BOOL, SINT, INT,
DINT, REAL and
STRING can be displayed
in a Data View
12. Click the Add button to add the tag to the new data view.
13. Click the Create View button to create the data view. (Note: A data view may
contain more than one tag of various types.)
14. Once the data view is created, we see a list of all the data views. Click the
My_View.xml link under “View Filename” to see the data view you just created.
Notice that an error is displayed where the tag’s value should be. The EWEB module
data views can not retrieve data directly from I/O. If we wish to access this data, we
must reference the data through an alias tag in the controller.
15. Click on the Data Views tab and then click the Edit button for your data view.
s
16. Click the Edit button for the tag we created.
17. Once the view enters edit mode, change the Tag Name to “DI12_to_IB16D.”
18. Click the Update button followed by the Save View button.
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The EWEB data
views cannot read
directly from I/O.

19. Click the My_View.xml link under “View Filename” to see the updated data view.
20. The current value of the DI12 switch on your demo case should be displayed.
21. Flip the DI12 switch and then click the Update button. You will see the updated
value in the value field.
22. Data views can also be used to write values to tags. Click the Data Views tab.
23. Click the HOTT_Lab.xml link.
24. Click the Value field for the acknowledge_1 tag. Type in the opposite value
(‘FALSE’ if ‘TRUE’) and click the Update button.
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True, T or 1 all work for “True”;
False, F or 0 all work for “False”

Different Data Views can act as different Custom Data Monitors that Acme or their
customers can use from anywhere, without needing programming software on their
computer. At some point, programming software might be required to troubleshoot
further, but a well designed Data View can be a great troubleshooting assistant.
Sending Emails Through the Web Interface
25. Click Administrative Settings � Device Configuration � Email Configuration.
26. Obtain the SMTP Server IP address from the instructor.
27. Uncheck SMTP Authentication, as our Rockwell SMTP Server does not require it.
SMTP Authentication is usually used with servers on the internet, so only authorized
users are allowed to "relay" mail through them. In this case, the ability to use the
server successfully is based on authentication, and not at all on IP address. The idea is
to prevent spammers from using any old email server on the internet to send more
Viagra ads to unsuspecting folks. Edit this tab as indicated by the image below:
28. Click Apply Changes.
29. Click Send an Email, the last selection on the left-hand side.
30. Fill the form out as shown below and click Send. Currently, the CompactLogix L35E
is the only other controller that can send Emails directly. Other controllers can do it
through a NET-ENI. This email page stands as a good way of communicating with
the OEM.
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Sending Controller Generated Emails
The email interface used in the previous section is great for testing the mail server and
may, from time to time, prevent a user from having to open a separate email client.
However, the greatest benefit of the embedded email client is that it allows our control
system to send email messages.
31. Open the AcmeControl file in RSLogix 5000 and make sure that you are Offline.
32. On the left side of the screen, right click the Data Types folder and select New
String Type.
The default STRING type in RSLogix 5000 is only 82 characters. Since our email
messages will likely be larger than 82 characters, we need to create a larger string type.
In addition, CIP messaging can support email messages of up to 474 characters.
33. Edit the dialog as indicated by the image below and click OK.
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34. You must now create three tags:
• Create a tag of the string type that you created and call the string email_text. In
the string browser, edit the string according to the image below.
• Create another tag of the string type that you created and call it email_status.
• Create a MESSAGE tag and call it email_message.
The first tag you created holds the email message that you are going to send. The second
tag will hold a status message from the controller, and the third is used by the MESSAGE
instruction to manage the message transmission.
35. Go to the MainRoutine and edit the logic until it looks like the image below.
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36. Open the Message Configuration dialog by clicking the button on the MSG
instruction you just created.
37. Edit the Configuration tab as indicated by the image below.
38. On the Communication tab, enter the Path to your EWEB module and click OK.
39. Download the program to the controller and Go Online.
40. In the demo box, make sure that your DI12 switch is turned to the right. The button
labeled DI18/DO2 should be illuminated.
The illuminated button signifies that you will be able to send your email message by
pressing the button.
41. Press the illuminated button.
42. Your message will be sent, so deactivate the message-sending capability by turning
your DI12 switch to the left. Check with your instructor to confirm that message has
been sent.
Modifying and Downloading Web Pages
43. The first step is to enable FTP.
• In the links on the left-hand side, click Administrative Settings �
Device Configuration � Device Services.
• Click the Enabled checkbox for the FTP Service.
• Click the Apply Changes button.
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44. In the browser’s address bar, type “ftp://administrator@10.88.89.2xx”, using the IP
address for your EWEB module.
If you exclude the “administrator@” portion of the URL you just entered, you would be
prompted to enter a user name and password. Again, the user name is “administrator”
with no password. Notice from the EWEB User Manual:
FTP stands for File Transport Protocol. Its purpose manage files on a remote server.
45. On the desktop, double click the AU 2004 folder � double click the EWEB folder�
double click the GetAndPostPage folder.
46. Press CTRL-A to select all � Press CTRL-C to copy.
47. Go back to the Internet Explorer being used for FTP. Press CTRL-V to paste the
files, transferring them to the EWEB.
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48. Refresh the browser.
The web browser caches pages/folders that you have viewed in the computer’s memory.
To ensure that your view is up-to-date, you should refresh the browser window.
49. For security purposes we need to disable FTP on the EWEB. On the EWEB home
page in Internet Explorer navigate to Administrative Settings� Device
Configuration� Device Services and click the FTP enabled checkbox to turn off
FTP. Click the Apply Changes button.
50. Let’s look at the web page we downloaded: Type
“10.88.89.2xx/user/web/index.html” using the IP address for your EWEB module.
Note: All user downloaded files are displayed on the web in the /user/web
folder.
51. Using RSLogix 5000 � Controller Tags, edit the values of the tags displayed on the
web page. Notice that the values update as soon as the browser refreshes, but that the
screen doesn’t blink each time.
52. Type a new value into the blank field on the right-hand screen (post.html). Click the
Set tag button and notice that the value updates on the left-hand screen (get.asp) and
in RSLogix 5000.
Backup and Restore Web Pages and Data Views
There are several items that are stored on the web server module that you might want
to archive in a backup copy:
• User accounts and passwords
• Data views
• Custom web pages
Furthermore, Acme may wish to create the same EWEB module over and over again,
without having to start from scratch. Using backup and restore, Acme can easily
copy one setup configuration to many modules.
Backup the EWEB’s files:
53. Right click on the Desktop and click New�Folder.
54. Name the folder “EWEB Backup”.
55. Enable FTP: Administrative Settings � Device Configuration � Device Services
� check FTP Enable checkbox�Apply Changes.
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56. We want to prevent a third party from making changes to the EWEB while we
backup or restore, so we must lock the module. Administrative Settings � Server
Management � Backup/Restore. Click the Lock Site button.
57. Click OK to the warning.
58. As we did earlier in the lab, type “ftp://administrator@10.88.89.2xx” in the address
bar of the browser. You may need to refresh the browser.
59. Press Ctrl + A to highlight both the System and Web folders.
60. Drag both of these folders and drop them into the “EWEB backup” folder on your
desktop.
61. Open the EWEB backup folder�open the system folder�open the configuration
folder.
62. Right click on network.xml and open it with Notepad. Notice that the IP address,
subnet, etc. for the EWEB module is stored here. Information in any of the files in the
configuration folder can be modified. So, for Acme’s next job, they could modify
these files all offline, in order to:
• Set the EWEB to a different home page,
• Change the IP address,
• Set the Email Config to their customer’s internal Email Server, Etc.
Be very careful modifying these files in the Config folder, things can get really
messed up if these settings are modified incorrectly! Don’t mess around in here
unless you have to.
Acme can modify these backed up files in order to create custom EWEB applications
using only Wordpad, Notepad, FrontPage, Visual Studio or some other design tool.
These folders can then be copied to any EWEB module. But again, be careful.
In order to restore, just move the selected files to their appropriate folders in the
EWEB through ftp.
63. Return to the other Internet Explorer and unlock the EWEB module by pushing the
Unlock Site button.
Using graphics and other resources in a web page
Your customer might wish to take advantage to the web’s ability to present graphics.
We will download a graphics based web page.
Follow these steps to download a (previously written) graphics based web page:
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64. Use Internet Explorer to get FTP access to the module as we did earlier in the lab.
• Delete the get.asp, index.html, and post.html files from the EWEB.
• Copy all of the files from the AU2004� EWEB� enip-livedata folder to the
EWEB.
By default, browsing to the IP address of your EWEB module causes the system’s
index.html page to load. Let’s change this behavior so that our new index.html page
loads instead.
65. Use Internet Explorer to navigate to the EWEB home page.
66. Open Administrative Settings->Server Management->Server Settings.
67. Edit the page until it looks like the image below, then click Apply Changes:
When you change the EWEB’s home page, you must enter
“http://10.88.89.2xx/index.html” in the address bar in order to get to the original
home page.
68. Let’s look at the web page we downloaded: Type
“10.88.89.2xx/user/web/index.html” using the IP address for your EWEB module.
This should have caused you to navigate directly to our new home page. The animated
graphics are attached to the tags motor1 and motor2. They stop when the respective
value is 0 and go when the value is non-zero. The lights are attached to the tag switches.
A value of 1 for a bit turns the light green while a value of 0 turns the light red.
This page uses jpg and gif files to present graphics and animation. The advantage is that
they are simple to use and maintain and do not require the browser to download any
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additional software to view (unlike Flash files, which require the browser to download
and install plug-in software). The images do not have to be located on the EWEB, either.
Since we only have 6 MB of memory on the module, we can save space by storing
graphics and other large files on company servers or other computers. You should notice
that the background image for this file was loaded from a website on the internet. This
means our applications can be as big as the internet!
In the next steps we are going to tweak one of the files we just loaded to replace the
current background image and add a factory view camera to the application.
69. Open the AU2004�EWEB� enip-livedata folder.
70. Right click the main.html file�Select Open With�Select Word Pad.
In HTML, the strings “” are the open comment string and the close
comment string, respectively. We are going to uncomment one line and comment
another.
71. Scroll to the line of code after the line “”.
72. As indicated in the image above, highlight the open comment () and drag it to the end of the next line.
74. Press Ctrl + S to save the changes. This will cause a different background to load
when we open the page in our web browser.
75. Scroll down to the line labeled “”.
A few lines below the cameraTag comment, you should see the word APPLET. The
camera image is loaded directly from the camera to the web browser using a java applet.
So again, we can load applications and other resources from the internet/intranet, and
reserve module memory for our ASP/HTML code and our data views.
76. Delete the lines indicated by the following image.
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77. Save the file as we did earlier, and close WordPad.
78. As we did earlier in the lab, move the main.html file to the EWEB using FTP.
79. Use the EWEB’s IP address to navigate to our homepage using Internet Explorer.
You may need to press the browser’s refresh button to see the changes.
Data Collection through XML
One of the great benefits of the EWEB module is that it Queries and stores data in XML,
a widely supported, platform independent file format. In this section, you will see some
examples of how we can extract data from our XML data views. We will also see an
example of how we can use email in our web pages.
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80. Close ALL instances of Internet Explorer.
You must close ALL instances of Internet Explorer in order to see the effects of the
following steps!
81. Open a new Internet Explorer to get FTP access to the module as we did earlier in the
lab.
82. Copy the UDWeb.html, UDXSL.html, UDEmail.html, and lab.xsl files from the
AU2004\EWEB\XML folder to the EWEB.
83. Disable FTP. Administrative Settings � Device Configuration � Device Services �
FTP disable checkbox.
84. Click Apply Changes.
85. Let’s look at the web page we downloaded in Internet Explorer: Type
“10.88.89.2xx/user/web/UDXSL.html” using the IP address for your EWEB
module.
LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
This popup appears because the
web page we are loading does not
have access to administrative data.
You should get the error above. By default, the Data View XML files are accessible only
by an administrator. There are three ways to solve this problem: Either lower the access
restriction on the Data View, increase the access restriction on the html file, or do both.
Eliminating all restrictions to the Data View will allow our page to load correctly, but
anyone who can access the IP address of the EWEB module would have access to read,
and perhaps write to the Data View. If, instead, we were to increase the access restriction
on the HTML file to that of administrator, the user would be prompted to log in whenever
they try to access the HTML file. This protects our Data View, but it limits the number
of users who can use your page. However, we are going to reduce the access restriction
on the Data View to write access and increase the access restriction on the HTML file to
the same level. This protects our Data View while giving access to those who need it.
86. Go back to the EWEB Home page (10.88.89.2xx).
87. Navigate to Administrative Settings � User Management � Edit Access Limits
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LAB 1: 1756-EWEB Module
Highlight and copy
(Ctrl + C) the data
view URL.
88. Highlight the text that represents your data view.
89. Copy the text: press Ctrl + C
90. Paste the text into the text box labeled URL
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Paste the text in
the URL field.
91. Change the selection box labeled Group to “Write” and click the Add button.
The display should now show Write under the Group With Access column for your
Data View. Now, we need to apply an access restriction to the HTML file.
92. Type /user/web/UDXSL.html in the URL text box.
93. Change the selection box to Write and click Add.
We have two other files which we would like to give access to the Data View. Let’s
apply an access restriction to those files now.
94. Repeat the two steps immediately above for the files /user/web/UDWEB.html and
/user/web/UDEmail.html.
We are now prepared to view our example files.
95. Close all instances of Internet Explorer.
96. Reopen Internet Explorer and navigate to
http://10.88.89.2xx/user/web/UDXSL.html.
The table that appears has been generated using XSL. XSL stands for Extensible Style-
Sheet language. Where as XML is used to structure data, XSL is used to format and
display data. Like XML, XSL is a widely supported technology and because it is text-

ased, it is platform independent. Below the table are the contents of the files used to
generate this table.
Next we will see the same table generated using a different technology.
97. Navigate to http://10.88.89.2xx/user/web/UDWeb.html.
On the surface, seeing the same table recreated over and over again isn’t exciting; but this
example illustrates how another technology can be used to access our Data Views. This
example uses a Microsoft ActiveX Object and JavaScript to parse the XML file. We
could use Visual Basic to import the data into a Microsoft Office application, or we could
even use and non-Microsoft solution on a non-Microsoft platform.
Using XML in office 2003
97a. Navigate to the dataviews and copy the shortcut to one of them (rightclick);
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Open a new MS Excel file and select Data�XML�XML Source;
You will get a toolbar, click on the Import XML Data icon;
In the field where you can enter the filename, hit Ctrl+V to paste in the link you copied
from the dataviews page.
You will be required to log in to get the data and select the cell where you want to paste.
After this, you have controller data direct from the EWEB in your Excel sheet.
This option makes it extremely easy to paste production data into a report, for example
after each plant shift.
We’ll wrap up this section by demonstrating some of the Email capabilities of the
module.
98. Navigate to http://10.88.89.2xx/user/web/UDEmail.html.
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In this example, we will send data directly to our instructor using email.
99. Enter your name where indicated on the web page.
100. Click on the button labeled See message you are going to send.
A dialog box will appear containing the text of the message we want to send to our the
instructor. It contains all of the text from the XML Data View file.
101. Click OK.
102. Click the button labeled Send to Instructor.
Email messages sent through the EWEB module are limited to 476 characters. This is
due to some limitations placed on the system by the size of CIP messaging packets.
Since our message is too long, we need to shrink it down.
103. Click OK.
104. Click the button labeled Insert small message.
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105. Click the See message you are going to send button again and make sure that a
smaller message is displayed in the popup.
106. Click OK.
107. Click the Send to Instructor button.
108. Click OK on the dialog that confirms the message has been sent. Your message
should arrive in your instructor’s inbox momentarily.
Why the EWEB does not replace the PanelView Plus
• The EWEB is a single threaded Web server, it cannot do high speed data
collection. This is intentional, so that control system performance is not
compromised by the presence of the EWEB.
• All the tag names have to be known in order to read or write them. All the
benefits of FactoryTalk Directory Direct Tag Referencing are lost.
• There is no simple HMI graphics editor that allows you to drag and drop objects
onto screens. Any graphic HMI pages would have to be written as web pages.
• Web pages need to be refreshed. This effect is virtually non-existent with HMIs.
• There is no Alarming or Unsolicited data from the EWEB.
• Data Views can access only Controller Scoped Tags, and only tags of type
BOOL, SINT, INT, DINT, REAL or STRING. Custom Web pages do not have
these limits.
• Only 2500 tags can appear in all Data Views combined, but there is no limit to the
number of Data Views or the number of tags per Data View, except for the 2500
total tag limit. Custom Web pages do not have these limits.
• Quick and Dirty Simple Summary: HMI: Allows you to look at lots of data
locally. EWEB: Allows you to look at a limited amount of data from anywhere.
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EWEB Performance, EWEB Effect on System Performance
The following table has been taken from the EWEB User Manual.
Extra Task:
When a Data View is edited or created from within the EWEB’s default home page, the
only tags that can be accessed are of type BOOL, SINT, INT, DINT, REAL and STRING
residing in controllers in the local chassis. There is also a limit of 2500 tags in all Data
Views. However, when Web pages are created, these limitations do not exist. Your
mission is to create a project in your FlexLogix controller and have your EWEB retrieve
data from that FlexLogix controller. Modify the get.asp file by changing the path of
ReadLogixTag.
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