Network Connection

In order to communicate with the Pulse Streamer, you need to know its IP address. By default, the device will attempt to acquire an IP address via DHCP. There is also a preconfigured second permanent IP address that allows direct connection to the PC, see Permanent Static IP.

# Example:
#  using default hostname
ps = PulseStreamer('pulsestreamer')

#  using fallback IP
ps = PulseStreamer('169.254.8.2')

Starting from the Pulse Streamer v1.2, you are able to discover all accessible devices in the network and their IP addresses using findPulseStreamers(). No need to fiddle with your router setting or use various hacky methods to find out what IP address your Pulse Streamer is available at.

# Example
# query the network for all connected Pulse Streamers
devices = findPulseStreamers()

# query the network for a Pulse Streamer with specific serial number
devices = findPulseStreamers("00:26:32:F0:3B:1B")

Assign a static IP with the MAC address and DHCP

You can configure your DHCP server or router to assign a static DHCP IP to the Pulse Streamer’s MAC address. In this way you know the IP that the Pulse Streamer will receive by DHCP. The MAC address of your Pulse Streamer is specified on the bottom label of the device and is the same as serial number.

To verify your network configuration, open a terminal and enter

[user@host~] arp

Address                  HWtype  HWaddress           Flags Mask            Iface
192.168.1.108            ether   00:26:32:f0:09:30   C                     wlp1s0
router                   ether   18:83:bf:c1:1f:67   C                     wlp1s0

In this example the first line is the Pulse Streamer and the second line is the router.

Permanent static IP: 169.254.8.2

The Pulse Streamer is always reachable via a permanent second static IP-address 169.254.8.2 (netmask 255.255.0.0). This address allows you to estabish connection when the Pulse Streamer is connected directly to your computer with an Ethernet cable. This shall work out-of-the-box on both Windows and Linux (requires avahi/zeroconf). In some cases, however, you may need to reboot your computer to detect the Pulse Streamer, if there has been a DHCP-connection before.

Modify the network settings

Requirements:

  • network access to your Pulse Streamer (for example using 169.254.8.2 permanent static fallback)

  • ssh / putty

If you wish to assign a certain IP address to your Pulse Streamer, you can disable DHCP and configure a static IP instead. We provide a tool for doing so on our website www.swabianinstruments.com. To modify your network settings:

  • Download the network configuration script

  • Start windows shell (press Windows+R, type cmd and hit Enter)

  • In the Windows shell select the folder with the setNetworkConf.bat file

  • Run the script with hostname or IP address as parameter

    > setNetworkConf.bat pulsestreamer
    

    or in case the IP address should be used

    > setNetworkConf.bat IP_ADDRESS
    

    where IP_ADDRESS is the address of the Pulse Streamer, e.g. 169.254.8.2

The tool will guide you through the network configuration. You can edit the IP address, the netmask and the standard gateway. Then you can test the new network settings and subsequently decide, if you want to set the static IP permanent. For assistance please contact support@swabianinstruments.com.