The Lon Router Manager view of the LonNetwork (Figure 23) provides support for discovering and adding Lonworks routers to the database, and for managing router addresses.
If no Lonworks routers are installed on the physical network, you can safely ignore this view.
The following sections provide more details:
A routed Lonworks network configuration must follow certain rules:
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A channel is a network segment between routers. A particular subnet must be contained in a single channel. There can be multiple subnets on a single channel.
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The network must be configured such that there is only one path between and two specific nodes. There cannot be any loops.
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Routers have two Neuron chips (and IDs). Each Neuron is a member of a separate channel, and must be assigned to a unique subnet/node address.
Routers have a “far” and “near” interface relative to the network management device.
In many ways, this view works like the Lon Device Manager. See Lon Device Manager for more details. However, the Lon Router Manager is unique in that it is for management of Lon routers (only), meaning you do not see other (non-router) Lon devices in it.
As in the Lon Device Manager, there is a second row of buttons below ones common to most device managers. These buttons are available when not in “learn mode” (split panes, “Discovered” and “Database”).
These buttons are:
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Commission
To set a selected router’s internal tables (including address-related) to a functioning state. For details, see Commission.
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Replace
Performs the same function on a router as a Commission.
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Quik Learn
To both discover and automatically add routers in the station. Generally, this is recommended only for “previously managed” routed networks. This works much the same as in the Lon Device Manager. For general information, see Quik Learn.
Commission in the Lon Router Manager is used to set a router’s internal tables to a functioning state. You typically perform this on any newly-added router except those created by a Quik Learn of a previously managed network, where the initial state of the router is already “Config Online.”
You can examine a router’s internal tables using the Lon Utilities Manager.
For more details, see Router commission process.
A commission command results in the following steps:
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If using a service pin, the process waits for a service pin message to obtain the router’s Neuron ID, otherwise, the Neuron ID already stored is used.
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The router’s domain table is initialized, both far and near side, as follows:
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Domain index 0 is set to the LonNetwork’s working domain.
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If the device has two domains, domain index 1 is set to either:
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“not in use” (if the working domain is the zero-length domain), or
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zero-length domain (if the working domain is not the zero-length domain).
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Use Netmgmt authentication key and devices subnet/node address in all active domains.
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Update configuration device data as follows:
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channelId: per property under LonNetMgmt.
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nodePriority: per Lon device property.
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location: per Lon device property.
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authenticate: per property under LonNetMgmt.
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The router table is set per the current network configuration.
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Router is set to state
Configured, online.