BSAP Ethernet Time Synchronization

Configuring the BSAP Device with OpenBSI

Some settings in the BSAP device may need to be changed before ACM can successfully synchronize the time using BSAP Ethernet. This can be done using OpenBSI.

The screen capture below is taken from OpenBSI Netview V5.6 and shows the Ethernet communication settings of the BSAP device. To get to this screen, right click on the device in Netview, select RTU | RTU Configuration Parameters, and click the Load From RTU button.

The following fields must be set to the correct values for ACM to perform a BSAP Ethernet time Sync:

NHPs

IP ADDR A must be set to the IP address of the host computer on which ACM is running, unless ACM is acting as the redundant backup host of the device. In that case, IP ADDR B must be set to the host computer IP address.

UDP Ports

Time Synch must be set to a port that is not being used for something else on the host computer on which ACM is running. The default port 1235 will usually be available, but if the BSAP Ethernet time syncs are failing, check for conflicts on this port.

Configuring ACM

These fields, found on the Ethernet tab of the BSAP Protocol object in the ACM configuration, must be set correctly before ACM can successfully synchronize the time using BSAP Ethernet.

The fields described below are the ones that are used only for Ethernet time sync. Other fields used for both Ethernet and serial must also be configured correctly. These fields are found on the Time Sync tab of the BSAP Protocol object and in the TimeSync object assigned to the Time Synchronization Configuration field on the Time Sync tab.

Time Sync IP Address 1

This field should be set to the IP address of the host computer on which ACM is running, which must have been configured as an NHP in the BSAP device.

Time Sync IP Address 2

This field is used when replicating or mirroring the ACM database. It should be set to the IP address of the host computer that the replicated or mirrored instance of ACM is running on, which must also have been configured as an NHP in the BSAP device. If ACM detects that Time Sync IP Address 1 is not the address of the host computer, it will try to use Time Sync IP Address 2 instead.

Time Sync Port

This field must be set to the same port that has been configured as the Time Synch UDP Port in the BSAP device.

The Time Sync Port must not be in use by any other program running on the host computer.
Some firewalls will not allow incoming connections on a port unless they've been specifically configured to do so. Verify that the host computer's firewall will allow incoming UDP connections on the Time Sync Port.

How BSAP Ethernet Time Synchronization Works

An Ethernet BSAP time synchronization using Internet Bristol Protocol happens in two parts:

ACM sends a Time Sync message to the BSAP device using the regular connection port. The BSAP device sends back a Time Sync Acknowledgement message, also using the regular connection port.
The BSAP device then connects to a dedicated Time Synch UDP Port and exchanges short handshaking messages with the ACM thread monitoring it to get the most accurate possible timestamp:

2017/09/25 08:08:43.964,Info,asiBSAP,TimeSynchThread,[192.168.1.22:1235] R: 01 00 0C 00 00 00 1E 3A 00 00 AC 72 00 00 F0 C0 03 00 74 FD 0B 90 4C F7 06 10 24 9D 05 10

2017/09/25 08:08:43.964,Info,asiBSAP,TimeSynchThread,[192.168.1.22:1235] RTU Time is: 2017-09-25 08:09:16

2017/09/25 08:08:43.964,Info,asiBSAP,TimeSynchThread,[192.168.1.22:1235] Host Time is: 2017-09-25 08:08:43

2017/09/25 08:08:43.964,Info,asiBSAP,TimeSynchThread,[192.168.1.22:1235] S: 01 00 0C 00 00 00 1E 3A 00 00 AC 72 00 00 F0 C0 03 00 74 FD 0B 90 4C F7 06 10 24 9D 05 10 02 00 0C 00 00 00 1E 3A 00 00 AC 72 00 00 F0 C0 03 00 1E 3A 00 00 8B 72 00 00 E0 9C 41 00

Log Viewer Filtering

If you're using the Log Viewer filter to display only messages being logged by a particular BSAP device, you will not see the time sync thread handshaking messages. Because multiple devices may use the time sync port, and the handshaking messages don't contain a device address, there's no way to log these messages with the device name.