Visual BACnet version 1.6 is being released today with a plethora of long anticipated new features.
Visual BACnet version 1.6 is being released today with a plethora of long-anticipated features. Thank you to our many customers who gave feedback and requested these additions. If you are not using Visual BACnet, register for an account today!
MSTP Diagnostic Checks
Three brand new diagnostic checks have been introduced.
- Average Token Round-Trip Time (RTT) is an average of every token round-trip that happened during a capture. A high token RTT often indicates a high amount of traffic and/or can also point to potential buffer overflow.
- Standard Deviation of Token Round-Trip Time shows you if the time it takes a token to complete a round trip varies dramatically throughout a capture. This would indicate something is interrupting token trips.
- Token Disruptions happen when a token is lost. The device sends a token retry, and if this is unsuccessful it sends a Poll for Master. This indicates that something is very wrong in the MS/TP network.
Commenting
On the bottom of the summary screen you now have the ability to add comments. These comments will stay in the file, and can be used to makes notes and observations. By ticking the box in the bottom right saying “show on report” you can choose for each comment to appear on the downloadable PDF report.
Add a non-standard BACnet Port
In the top right corner of the summary screen you can access your settings. In settings you can add a custom BACnet port. This will allow packets from this custom BACnet port to be analyzed in addition to the standard BACnet ports that are automatically analyzed. The custom BACnet port needs to be set prior to uploading the PCAP file. Once the PCAP file is uploaded and analyzed, the custom port can be changed without impacting the stored information.
Enable and Disable Diagnostic Checks
By clicking on the wrench icon by Diagnostic Checks on the summary screen, you can access your Diagnostic Check Settings.
In these settings you can disable specific checks, and add comments as to why you disabled them. These comments will appear on the PDF download report. Be sure to “save changes” after adding comments. Note that the thresholds are shown but cannot be modified. We believe these thresholds need to be universal for the Health Score to be relevant.
Devices Observed
The summary of devices that have been active during the capture has been split into fully identified devices and partially identified devices. Fully identified devices have an I-Am in the capture that allows us to identify them. Partially identified devices do not have an I-Am in the capture. They do, however, have either a Who-Is that is allowing us to identify them, or an SNET and SADR that allows us to partially identify them.
Enjoy these new features, and please don’t hesitate to provide your feedback. Maybe it’ll make it into v1.7!
