CRio inside school network, IP adresses are changing and causing problems

[VilleH]

Hello

We have about five CRio modules in our laboratories, and they are connected via ethernet to the our school network. We need to use all those CRios from about 3-5 different computers. 

We have a problem that due to internet security IP addresses are changed during some time period, i.e. every second month. We have always to find out from the Measurement and automation explorer what is the IP, and then change it to the application (.VI), and then compile new .exe file and then copy it to all the other computers. 

Is there easy way to keep the CRio IP at the same (can we "lock" it?) or is there easy way to do it inside the .VI, without to do it every time again and again to all the computers.

[Wayne.C]

VilleH,

It sounds like you are using shared variables to communicate with your cRIO's?  If so, then you can write your code such that this can be done.  See this post.

[JasonSmith]

If your network properly synchronizes DHCP leases with your DNS server, you should be able to refer to your controllers using their hostname instead of an IP address. Alternatively, you could talk to your network administrators about assigning static IP addresses for your cRIO controllers.

-Jason S.

[VilleH]

Jason;

Could you please give an example how/where I can change by using hostname instead IP address?

[JasonSmith · Accepted solution]

In your LabVIEW project, you can right-click on the controller, select properties, then change the IP address to the hostname. If you use the IP addresses in your VIs, you should be able to simply replace the IP address with the hostname in most cases. Jason S.

[VilleH]

Thanks. I will try to get this one working, this is what I was looking for. 

[VilleH]

Hi

I could not make it work. It does not connect if I change the DNS name ie. to "HEATEXCHANGER". 

[JasonSmith]

You should probably try to ping the hostname from a command prompt, to see if your network properly resolves the address. Whether this works or not depends a lot on how the school's DNS and DHCP interact. If you are having issues I would talk to your networking people to see whether they expect devices using DHCP to be resolveable using DNS. If not, you should probably pursue static IP assignments for these devices.