Multiple BACnet Instances or Non-standard port

Owned by Petrescu, Ioana (FT D EU RO BP)
Last updated: Apr 08, 2017 by Ricky Villa
2 min read

Having trouble discovering devices or not sure how to find non-standard devices over the network? Below are some examples that you can try to find devices on the network. Remember that this doesn't find devices over VPN.

In the discovery window, you can try the following formats for broadcast address and bind address.

Broadcast Address is the address we are looking for, we are calling for. (the address of our Bacnet Device in this case - default port 47808 doesn't have to be typed in)

 device ip

 255.255.255.255

 x.x.x.255

 x.x.x.x:47808

 x.x.x.x:otherPort

Bind Address is the address where we receive the answer (this is our local machine that is doing the discovery - and we are setting the port to 47809 - instead of the default to be able to get that answer)

 0.0.0.0

 local machine ip

 localMachineIp:port

 localMachineIp:otherPort

If a BACnet connector was created manually, a string property tag called "bacnetLocalAddress" with the value being the ip:47809 where FIN Stack service is running will help connect to it. Or any other options mentioned for bind address above. Make sure that you disable and re-enable the connector after applying this change, then ping it.

bacnetLocalAddress (bind address)

Applied to bacnetConn to force the connection to bind to a local address. It is useful when the local machine has multiple IP addresses or NICs attached to it, and it is required to direct the BACnet traffic to a specific interface. The format of bacnetLocalAddress looks like IP:PORT, i.e. 10.10.10.5:47808

Firewall & Network Interface

Make sure firewall isn't blocking the specified ports being used. The BACnet stack requires full access to port 47808 on the network interface(s) you run it on.

Also make sure there aren't two applications running bacnet IP on the network (ie FIN Stack and Niagara). If so, you'll need a second network interface card (NIC) to run them simultaneously. 
Tip: To see if this is the case, stop Niagara service and see if Bacnet now works in FIN Stack.

Here is an example: