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twincat-bsd-ansible

A repository for trying out Ansible provisioning of TwinCAT BSD PLCs.

Quick start: set up a new plc in prod

  1. clone the repo
  2. Edit ./inventory/plcs.yaml to add your plc (and possibly an appropriate group)
  3. run ./scripts/first_time_setup.sh your-plc-name
  4. Optionally edit ./host_vars/your-plc-name/vars.yaml if you'd like to change settings
  5. run ./scripts/provision_plcs.sh your-plc-name
  6. commit and submit the file edits as a PR

Install requirements

If you have a physical PLC to use, you'll only need the following:

  • bash
  • ansible
  • gettext to interpolate the host variable template

To work using a PLC Virtual Machine (i.e., without a physical PLC), you'll also need the following:

  • VirtualBox
  • TwinCAT BSD image from Beckhoff

TcBSD Documentation

Here's some documentation from Beckhoff on the OS:

TwinCAT_BSD_en.pdf

And their security recommendations:

IPC_Security_Guideline_TwinCATBSD_en.pdf

Create a VirtualBox VM

  1. Download TwinCAT BSD image from Beckhoff
  2. Run ./create_tc_bsd_vm.sh (plcname) [tcbsd.iso]

This will generate a VM with:

  • 8GB OS primary OS (SATA) disk image
  • 1GB of RAM
  • One network adapter (NAT -> may require reconfiguration)
  • The bootable TwinCAT BSD installation media connected as the second SATA drive
    • This will boot until the installation is complete. It can be removed after installation is done, but it will not interfere with TC/BSD from booting post-installation even if it remains.

Deploy useful settings with ansible

  • Bootstraps the PLC by installing Python 3.9 (required for ansible)
  • Installs system packages that I like and find useful to have everywhere
  • Installs system packages specified in the host inventory
  • Installs TwinCAT tools and a couple libraries
  • Lists all of the available libraries I saw in pkg search, with easy uncomment-ability
  • Sets an AMS Net ID based on the host inventory
  • Sets locked memory size in the TcRegistry based on the host inventory
  • (Optionally) Sets heap memory size in the TcRegistry based on the host inventory
  • (Optionally) Installs C/C++ development tools
  • (Optionally) Changes the default shell for Administrator to bash
  • (Optionally) Configures initial static routes, by default just adding the machine from which ansible is being run.
  • (Optionally) Configures add or remove a list of static routes with a custom ansible module tcbsd_route (see library/).
  • Provides a basic bash configuration, which shows the current TC runtime state: 
    [TCBSD: CONFIG] [Administrator@PC-75972A  ~]$
[TCBSD: RUN] [Administrator@PC-75972A  ~]$
  • Enable color in ls and bash tab completion, if using bash.
  • Adds a "site" firewall (pf = packet filter) configuration which lets through insecure ADS
  • Reloads the packet filter if the configuration was changed
  • Restarts the TwinCAT service if any TcRegistry changes were made

Sample session: VM

  1. Install requirements
  2. Download TwinCAT BSD image from Beckhoff and put it in the same directory as these scripts.
  3. Pick a name for the VM: let's choose "tcbsd-a".
  4. Run ./create_tc_bsd_vm.sh tcbsd-a
  5. Open "tcbsd-a.vbox" in VirtualBox. Start it and run the installation. a. Select "Install" b. OK the overwrite of the disk. c. Set "1" as the password for Administrator and confirm it. (or better yet, set it according to good password standards and change 1 in the configuration files) d. Reboot
  6. Update the VM network settings based on where you want to use it and make note of its IP address. a. The default setting is NAT, but you should consider switching it to host-only (or even bridged to allow usage of the VM on your local network; that's up to you). b. See also here c. Check the VM IP address (log in and run ifconfig)
  7. Edit Makefile to set appropriate PLC_IP (192.168.2.232 in our case) a. Alternatively, you can just set it in your environment: 
    $ export PLC_IP=192.168.2.232
$ export PLC_NET_ID=...
  8. Run make to pre-configure SSH communication with the VM and then the playbook. (*) a. Log in to the PLC when asked. The generated SSH key will be used in the remaining steps.
  9. Launch TwinCAT XAE and add a route to your PLC (if on Linux/macOS, you can also use adstool/ads-async via make add-route if the auto-generated StaticRoutes.xml is insufficient)
  10. You can use the shortcut make ssh after this point to log into the PLC with the generated key.

(*) The make steps, if too magical, can be broken down a bit further. Run:

  1. make ssh-setup (SSH key + initial login)
  2. make host_vars/test-plc-01/vars.yml (create host variable configuration file)
  3. make run-bootstrap (install Python on the PLC, required for ansible)
  4. make run-provision (provision the PLC)

Side notes / flight rules

ADS

You can download the ADS library source code, which comes with adstool, from here.

Trouble building adstool on macOS due to clang and C++14 standards being used?

Try:

$ meson setup build -Dcpp_std=c++14
$ make

I have multiple PLCs with different roles, where do I put that information?

Per-PLC configuration goes in host_vars/. Overall configuration for the "tcbsd_plc" role goes in group_vars/tcbsd_plcs/.

The host inventory can be restructured to have whatever hierarchy you so choose; take a look at the ansible documentation for further details.