Visit the BACnet website at
http://www.bacnet.org

BACnet for Linux

Summary

Open-Source BACnet Protocol (www.bacnet.org) stack for Linux.

This project's goal was to develop a complete implementation of the BACnet protocol for use by anyone who wishes to give their products BACnet communication capability. Note: This project is no longer active. See BACnet Stack at SourceForge for an active BACnet stack that runs on Linux.

Current Status

So, what does it currently do?

Opens an 802.2 Ethernet connection to communicate with BACnet devices.
Queries all devices for their object list.
Subscribes Change of Value (COV) to all objects that make sense (or polls the values if COV is not supported).
Periodically checks device status (online and object list).
Devices, their objects, and the current object values can be viewed from a browser.
Send TimeSync messages to all devices every hour to synchronize time.
Can send Write Property messages, if so desired.
See some screenshots: Console Window, Browser Initial Window, and Browser Showing Objects of a Device.

How do I use it?

First, download the source code.

Extract and build the project:

$ tar -xvzf bacnet4linux-0.0.0.tgz $ cd bacnet $ make clean all

Run the resulting executable file with some parameters:


  $ ./bacnet4linux --help

  BACnet4Linux - Version 0.3.10

  An Open-Source BACnet Protocol stack for Linux.

  Copyright (C) 2003 Greg Holloway

  BACnet4Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

  This is free software, and you are welcome

  to redistribute it under certain conditions.

  

  Usage:

  ./bacnet4linux [options]

  -c#    BACnet COV support (0=disable,1=enable)

  -C###  BACnet COV lifetime (seconds)

  -D#    debug level, larger is more verbose (0-9)

  -h###  HTTP server port (0-65534)

  -I###  Number of concurrent queries (invoke ids)

  -q###  Initial query delay (seconds, 0=disable query)

  -rfilename Initialize device database from XML 'filename'

  -s###  BACnet Sync Time Periodic (seconds,0=disabled)

  -wfilename Write device database to XML 'filename'

  -x###-###  eXclude devices except range ### to ### (multiple -x's OK)

  -d###  BACnet device instance number (0-4194303)

  -e#    BACnet Ethernet (0=disable,1=enable)

  -iname BACnet Ethernet interface name (eth0, eth1, etc.)

  -m###  BACnet MS/TP port number (0-65534)

  -p###  BACnet/IP UDP port number (0=disabled,1-65534,0xBAC0)

  -t###  BACnet APDU timeout (seconds)

  -v###  BACnet Vendor Identifier (0-65534)

  -V     Returns the version information

  default settings:

  -c1 -C300 -D1 -h8000 -I1 -q5 -s0

  -d2 -e1 -ieth0 -m0 -p0 -t10 -v6

Well, that was neat, but you probably want to make bacnet4linux do some real work. Run the code without parameters:

$ ./bacnet4linux 0.193: BACnet4Linux Version 0.3.10 0.194: ethernet.c:82: ethernet: Not being run as root, so an 802.2 socket is impossible.

Well, it does need root priveleges to do BACnet/Ethernet, so run it under root or with sudo (see the sudo man pages for more details about sudo). Use CTRL-C to stop it (or send it a kill from another console session).


  $ sudo ./bacnet4linux

  0.392: BACnet4Linux Version 0.3.10

Impressive, no? Well, to see it really working, use a browser and browse http://localhost:8000/ if you have access to a browser on the machine that is running BACnet4Linux. If not, browse to the machine that is running BACnet4Linux on port 8000 (or another port specified by the -h command line parameter. You should see something like this.

BACnet4Linux also has a fair amount of debug information built into it. Use the -D parameter to control the amount of debug information.


  $ sudo ./bacnet4linux -D4

  0.392: BACnet4Linux Version 0.3.10

  0.692: MAIN: Program built: 10:38:30 Jan 27 2005

  0.692: MAIN: Configuration from command line parameters:

  0.692: MAIN:      Acting as BACnet Device: 2

  0.692: MAIN:      Vendor ID: 6

  0.692: MAIN:      APDU Timeout: 10 seconds

  0.692: MAIN:      802.2 Ethernet interface: eth0 (enabled)

  0.692: MAIN:      Using BACnet/IP port: 0 (0x0)

  0.692: MAIN:      Using HTTP port: 8000

  0.693: MAIN:      COV Support: enabled

  ...

What needs to be done?

The following items have been started, but still require additional work to complete.

Simulate a number of standard BACnet objects in itself for testing other front-ends.
Viewing all object properties from the browser, not just the Present Value.
BACnet/IP connectivity.
Other BACnet services.

How can I help?

Our hope is that others can contribute to this project by adding in the parts that their application requires until the entire protocol has been implemented. Greg works with BACnet products daily and had an interest to learn the protocol more thoughly, which is why he started this a few years ago. Since then, others have expressed interest in helping, so he wanted to open this up to a larger audience.

The project is currently licensed under the LGPL.

Links

Try out the current released code. CVS is setup so any additions or changes can be checked in, or the latest and greatest cutting edge code can be checked out. SourceForge has documentation about CVS, and this project name is bacnet4linux. The module names are bacnet, stable, and mstp.

See the BACnet4Linux Project Summary

To discuss this project, jump to the Discussion Forums

You can email Greg, at grh@users.sourceforge.net or Steve at skarg@users.sourceforge.net if you have any questions or comments.