How to Install and Configure the Canary Module for Ignition

Module Documentation

The Canary Module for Ignition by Inductive Automation can be used to both write data from Ignition 8 projects to the Canary System as well as read historic and last known values from Canary and publish them to Ignition 8 projects.

Installation

Begin by downloading the module above.

Install the module on your Ignition Gateway as well as the Canary Admin and Sender Service.

This documentation assumes your Canary Historian Server is already configured.  If you need to install and configure the Canary Historian Server, see this guide.

Note, as a best practice it is always recommended that the Canary System be installed separate from the Ignition Gateway, with only the Sender Service, Canary Admin, and Canary Module for Ignition installed local to the gateway.  This ensures local data buffering should the Historian be disconnected from the network and will provide maximum resources to both the Historian as well as the Ignition Gateway.

Configuration Of Writing Data To Canary

Open the Canary Admin application on your Ignition Gateway and navigate to the Sender tile.

Use the 'Configuration' menu (at bottom) and then open the 'Endpoints' menu at left.  Ensure port 55253 is enabled and click 'Apply'.

Next select 'Access' from left menu and add 'ANONYMOUS LOGON' to the 'Allow' window and click 'Apply'.

Navigate to your Ignition Gateway and launch the Gateway Configuration in your browser.  Towards the bottom of the left menu, select 'Configure Collectors' under the 'CANARY' subheading.

Select 'Create new Collector' and configure Canary as a tag Storage Provider within Ignition by completing the following fields:

Name:

The display name of the Storage Provider instance.

 

Sender Service:

Assuming you are following best practices and your Ignition Gateway is running on a Windows platform, this should be 'localhost', otherwise enter the machine name or IP address of where the Sender Service is located

 

Sender Service Port:

55253 by default

 

Anonymous:

Enabled by default

 

Username, Change Password, and Password:

All unnecessary if Anonymous is enabled.  Leave blank.

 

Historian:

The machine name or IP address of your Canary Historian.  It is recommended this not be the same machine as your Ignition Gateway.

 

DataSet:

The name of the DataSet you wish to log all tags from this Storage Provider to.  As a best practice it is recommended to keep each DataSet to less than 25,000 tags.  Additionally, the DataSet is part of a tag's name.  Logging the same tag to more than one DataSet will result in more than one historical record.  The DataSet will automatically be corrected for you within Canary as soon as you begin logging.

 

Lower Case Tag Paths: 

By default Canary will copy the case structure of your Ignition tag names.  If you enable this field you will force all upper case to lower case and will result in your Canary tag names being entirely lower case.  Note, Canary is case sensitive and will create separate historical tags if case does not match.

Click 'Save Changes' when complete.  

You may create additional Collectors to enable additional logging to additional DataSets.  it is recommended you keep a 'one-to-one' relationship for your Collector sessions to DataSets, meaning do not create multiple Collectors logging to the same DataSet.  While this will work, it is not a best practice as you may later wish to individually manage your DataSets without interrupting the logging of data for your entire system.

Open your Ignition Project, and navigate to a tag you wish to enable history for.  Right-click on the tag and select 'Edit tag'

You may now enable history for your tag and select your newly created Canary Collector as the Storage Provider.  Since the module is built on top of Ignition's Tag History Module you can take advantage of all history settings including, deadbands, tag groups, and min/max times between samples.

Configuration Of Writing Data To Canary

Open the Canary Admin application on your Canary Historian Server and navigate to the Views tile.

Use the 'Configuration' menu (at bottom) and ensure port 55235 (Anonymous - Web API) is enabled and 'ANONYMOUS LOGON' is allowed within the 'Access' menu, clicking 'Apply' after each step.

Navigate to your Ignition Gateway and launch the Gateway Configuration in your browser.  Towards the bottom of the left menu, select 'Configure Providers' under the 'CANARY' subheading.

Select 'Create new Provider' and configure Canary as a Tag History Provider within Ignition by completing the following fields:

History Provider Name:

The name you wish to be displayed as a Tag History Provider.

 

Hostname:

Machine name or IP address of the Canary Historian. 

 

Port:

Default to 55235.

 

Anonymous:

Enabled by default.

 

Username, Change Password, and Password:

Blank by default.

Click "Save Changes" when complete.

You may now open your Ignition Designer and browse the Canary Historian referenced above as a Tag History Provider.  Note, not only will you able to browse the historian archive, but Canary will also expose any Virtual Views and Asset Models created on top of the historical record.

Known Issues

Historical Data and Perspectives

 

Currently Canary can only function as a Tag History Provider for Perspective projects thru the scripting of tag paths.  The Tag History Provider U/I that was used for Vision has not yet been added to Perspectives limiting your ability to browse Canary tags.  To overcome this, prepend your Canary tag paths with the following:

[CanaryHistorian/default:default]canaryhistorian/Ignition 1/Pump 1

The above example indicates 'CanaryHistorian' is the name of your Provider as configured within the History Provider Name field.  Keep the 'default:default' and '[ ]' part of the path the same.    'canaryhistorian/Ignition 1/Pump 1' indicates the name of the Canary Historian Server (canaryhistorian), the DataSet (Ignition 1), and the tag name (Pump 1).  Note, your tag name will likely be must longer as Canary respects the folder structure found within Ignition.  Add the '/' between each part of tag name hierarchy. 

Deleting Tags

 

Deleting a tag currently does not pass a NoData value to the tag within Canary.  This means the tag will continue to have the timestamp extended and will appear to still be logging data.  This can be fixed with a module restart.

Releasing Tag Licenses

 

There is currently not a mechanism within the module to release a tag license.  This will be added to the next major release.  

Bug Report

Please report any bugs to info@canarylabs.com.