Physical Layer

Select the physical layer on a list. Available options are Serial, Ethernet, Modem, and RAS. The selected interface must be configured on its specific tab

Timeout

Configure a time-out, in milliseconds, for the physical layer. This is the amount of time an I/O interface waits to receive any byte from reception's buffer

Start driver OFFLINE

Select this option so that the Driver starts in Offline mode or stopped. This means that the I/O interface is not created until this Driver is configured to Online mode by using a Tag in an application. This mode enables a dynamic configuration of an I/O interface at run time

Mode

Selects a management mode of a connection. Selecting the Automatic option allows a Driver to manage the connection automatically, as specified in the next options. Selecting the Manual option allows an application to fully manage a connection. Please check topic Driver Statuses for more details

Retry failed connection every ... seconds

Select this option to enable a Driver's connection retry in a certain interval, in seconds. If the Give up after failed retries option is not selected, the Driver keeps retrying until a connection is performed, or until the application is stopped

Give up after ... failed retries

Enable this option to define a maximum number of connection retries. When the specified number of consecutive connection retries is reached, the Driver goes to the Offline mode, assuming that a hardware problem was detected. If a Driver establishes a successful connection, the number of unsuccessful retries is cleared. If this new connection is lost, then the retry counter starts at zero

Disconnect if non-responsive for ... seconds

Enable this option to force a Driver to disconnect if no byte was received by the I/O interface during the specified time-out, in seconds. This time-out must be greater than the time-out configured in the Timeout option

Log to File

Enable this option and configure the name of a file to write a log. Log files can be large, so use this option for short periods of time, only for testing and debugging purposes.

If the %PROCESS% macro is used in the log file name, it is replaced by the ID of the current process. This option is particularly useful when using several instances of the same Driver in E3, thus allowing each instance to generate a separate log file. For example, when configuring this option as c:\e3logs\drivers\sim_%PROCESS%.log, a file named c:\e3logs\drivers\sim_00000FDA.log is generated for process 0FDAh.

Users can also use the %DATE% macro in the file name. In this case a log file is generated every day (in the format aaaa_mm_dd). For example, when configuring this option as c:\e3logs\drivers\sim_%DATE%.log, a file named c:\e3logs\drivers\sim_2005_12_31.log is generated in 12/31/2005 and a file named c:\e3logs\drivers\sim_2006_01_01.log is generated in 01/01/2006