Kernel Diagnostics

The Plant SCADA Kernel window diagnostics framework (known as the Kernel) is the primary gateway into the internal workings of Plant SCADA at runtime, and is provided for diagnostics and debugging purposes only.

Note: Use the Kernel window carefully: once you are in the Kernel, you can execute any Cicode function with no privilege restrictions. You (or anyone using the Kernel) has total control of Plant SCADA (and subsequently your plant and equipment).

You need to configure your Plant SCADA project to provide run-time access to the Kernel diagnostics window. You can do one or both of the following:

• Enable the Kernel on Plant SCADA start-up.

• Add the Kernel menu item to the runtime Plant SCADA Control menu.

The Plant SCADA Kernel window is a diagnostics framework that can display several different diagnostic windows, each displaying an active view into the workings of the Plant SCADA runtime system. Each window is displayed when selected from the Plant SCADA Kernel View menu. For details, refer to the Plant SCADA User Guide.

The key diagnostic windows included with the Kernel for testing I/O device communications are the I/O Devices window and the Main window:

• The Kernel I/O Devices window displays the current status of devices defined in the I/O Device database.

• The Kernel Main window displays the diagnostic messages a line at a time indicating the current Plant SCADA startup operation and status. When running, the Main diagnostics window continues to report changes in the status of the I/O Devices.

You can also use the Plant SCADA Kernel command Page Driver to call up a drivers diagnostic window that displays information about each driver in Plant SCADA . The statistics it presents include read requests, physical reads, digital reads per second, register reads, cache reads, error count, timeouts, and so on.

This window is only displayed if the Plant SCADA computer is configured as an I/O server with physical I/O devices attached.