How to access NI-4100 file system?

pushtoplay

For example the help file indicates the i!-schedule stores the schedule as per the following text from the helpfile. Is there a way to access the file system from the PC (ie, not programmatically)? File transfer does not seem to be able to select bin or non-standard files.

"i!-Schedule stores the schedule information in a file called Schedule.bin located in the doc:\user\schedule directory. All event information will be stored in this file and recalled during power up. Any event scheduled by the user is stored during a power cycle and will not be lost. This file is only read during start-up."

? AMX 2005

vining

I would think that file is encoded (written) using the VAR_TO_STRING function in which case you need to decode it using the STRING_TO_VAR function through code. Of course it may have been written using the XML_TO_VAR function and just given a .bin extension when !Schedule wrote it in which case you can just copy it and paste to you desktop using an FTP utility and open it in any XML or text editor, notepad, notepad++, etc.

DHawthorne

You can access the file system via FTP. I've looked at the schedule.bin file, and having access to it isn't much help ... it's not .bin for no reason . The best you can hope for working with it is backing it up, the internal format is not human readable.

pushtoplay

Thanks guys. Dave, I found in another post you use Core FTP. I installed it. What do I use for user name and pwd? I have NOT enabled security on the NI-4100.
thanks a ton,
keith

Darkside

pushtoplay wrote: »

Thanks guys. Dave, I found in another post you use Core FTP. I installed it. What do I use for user name and pwd? I have NOT enabled security on the NI-4100.
thanks a ton,
keith

I have found that Filezilla works particularly well too - just in case there is an issue with CoreFTP. Some FTP clients such as SmartFTP connect correctly, but fail to display the files on a NetLinx Master, which caught me out early on....

The default username and password can be found in the manual under 'default security settings' - I'm not sure if it's right to print them here or not!

As long as the FTP process is enabled (allowed) in your master (default = YES) then the documented u/n and pwd will allow an FTP session.

If it is base system scheduling (i.e not user scheduling), I always copy the .bin file off and store it in on my laptop and associate it with the workspace. Quite often I copy the file back onto the flash card and call it schedtmp.bin in case there is any undesirable behavior during a schedule update etc.

In this instance, simple file manipulation on the CF card using FTP can repair the schedule if necessary simply and quickly.

HTH

pushtoplay

Thanks Stephen, and excellent suggestion. I am up and running with CoreFTP, but will check out Filezilla as well. Thanks again, Keith

DHawthorne

I've switched from Core to FileZilla. Core required a license for commercial use, and FileZilla does not ... and does just as good a job, if not better. I don't mind paying for good software, but it's kind of silly if you don't need to.

The default user name is "administrator", and the password is "password". Naturally, you will want to change these if the master is accessible from outside the premise.