Configure the host for real-time Ethernet communication

Real-time Ethernet communication is only supported on x86/AMD64-based Beckhoff IPCs with a supported Ethernet controller. It is not available on Arm^®-based devices. For these IPCs, the vfio-pci kernel module must be used as a driver for the Ethernet controller which is intended for real-time communication.

To easily assign the vfio-pci driver to the supported Ethernet controllers, use the tool TcRteInstall from the package tcsysconf, which has already been installed as a requirement. For more information see TcRteInstall -h.

Example

For example, running sudo TcRteInstall -l could generate the following output:

sudo TcRteInstall -l
No Name MAC Standort Treiber Override Modell
0 enp3s0 00:01:05:9d:43:21 0000:03:00.0 igc [-] Ethernet Controller I226-IT
1 enp2s0 00:01:05:9d:43:20 0000:02:00.0 igc [-] Ethernet Controller I226-IT

To assign the vfio-pci driver to the enp3s0 interface, use the following command:

sudo TcRteInstall -b 0000:03:00.0

You can check the result by listing the interfaces again with sudo TcRteInstall -l:

sudo TcRteInstall -l
No Name MAC Standort Treiber Override Modell
0 enp3s0 unbekannt 0000:03:00.0 vfio-pci [*] Ethernet Controller I226-IT
1 enp2s0 00:01:05:9d:43:20 0000:02:00.0 igc [-] Ethernet Controller I226-IT

To ensure that the TwinCAT runtime recognizes the new configuration, restart the Runtime Container:

sudo make restart-containers