Supported interfaces
- USB
- IP Tunneling
- these interfaces are based on the KNXnet/IP protocol
- the KNXnet/IP protocol is the successor of the EIBlib/IP protocol
- EIBlib/IP
- these interfaces are based on the EIBlib/IP protocol, which was the first released IP protocol for KNX
- these interfaces can only be used if the 'EIBlib/IP' app has been licensed
Configured vs. Discovered interfaces
- Discovered interfaces are automatically detected by ETS and cannot be modified by the ETS user.
- Configured interfaces are manually added by the ETS user and offer a flexible set up.
Editing interfaces
Suppose ETS has discovered a KNXnet/IP router, with the name 'This is a KNX/IP-Router', which also supports one or more KNXnet/IP interfaces. While this device remains in the 'Discovered Interfaces' section, nothing can be changed about it. Only after selecting (use the 'Select' button) this device as 'Current Interface' it will be possible to define the name of the interface and its Individual Address.
Configured interfaces are created from scratch and offer the most flexible set, i.e. also the IP Address and IP Port can be defined by the ETS user.
IP Tunneling & IP Routers
Not only IP Interfaces but also IP Routers can support IP Tunneling. If an IP Router device is also used as interface then this device has in fact at least (*) two Individual Addresses:
- the 'Host Individual Address': this is the address of the actual router (i.e. 'coupler', see here for more details)
- the 'Individual Address': this is the address of the actual interface
(*) Both IP Interfaces and IP Routers can support additional interfaces.
IP Tunneling & additional interfaces
Besides the 'actual' interface it is possible to configure additional interfaces (if the device supports them). The advantage is that several connections in parallel can be made within the same line. These parallel connections can however NOT be used for parallel download (see here for more details), there role is actually in the context of KNX Secure: i.e. Group Addresses and/or Group Address ranges can be assigned to them in order to send and receive encrypted Group Address based (multicast/runtime) telegrams.
Interfaces can be set per Line, Area and per project
- Per Line: via the Line property 'Bus Connection' one interface can be set as 'Line connection'
- Per Area: via the Area property 'Bus Connection' one interface can be set as 'Area connection' (placed in the Main Line of that Area)
- Per project: via the Topology property 'Bus Connection' one interface can be set a 'Project connection' (placed in the Backbone Line)
The advantages of this concept are:
- ETS can automatically select & build up the connection with the appropriate interface
- Parallel download
The interfaces can only be selected if they already have been 'discovered' or 'configured'.
- Configured: lists all manually added interfaces so far.
- Discovered: lists all automatically discovered interfaces, unless the discovered interface is already in the configured list.
Further optimizations
(via Bus/Connections/Options)
- IP interfaces
- Can automatically become active upon discovery
- Condition = matching multicast address with ETS + matching serial number from the ETS project
- Project connection
- The project connection, if defined can become automatically active instead of the 'current interface'
- Automatic disconnect
- Setting this option means that is not necessary to close the interface explicitly after it has been used for e.g. device download, i.e. the interface becomes automatically available again.
- For first generation interfaces it is recommended to disable this feature in order to avoid time loss, because closing such interface takes quite some time.