Activating a virtual gateway

The virtual gateway under the NiagaraNetwork is in a station component (Station and EdgeStation components).

You are working in Workbench connected to a Supervisor station.
Once you enable a virtual gateway, any Supervisor station user with admin-level permissions can view all users in each remote station’s UserService by expanding the Property Sheet of the virtual component for the UserService. The same user can expand the remote station’s PlatformServices as a virtual component and access critical properties and child services including an action to restart station/reboot host!

Therefore, before enabling any Virtual gateway, you should restrict user access by assigning a restricted category to the virtual gateway. Then, on each virtual component under that gateway, assign the appropriate category(ies) before re-assigning less restrictive category(ies) to the parent gateway.

Note: The Supervisor station maintains the categories assigned to active virtual components even after removing them from the station’s memory cache.
  1. Expand Config > Services and double-click CategoryService.
    The Category Browser opens.

  2. Expand the Config row in the Category Browser to expose the virtual gateway, configure the allowable categories and click the save tool ().
  3. To enable the use of the virtual gateway, expand Config > Drivers > NiagaraNetwork in the Nav tree and double-click a station component.
    The station component’s AX Property Sheet opens.

  4. Change Virtuals Enabled to true and click Save.
  5. To open the gateway, double-click the Virtual device extension or expand it in the Nav tree.
    The driver gathers data from the device. The results appear as child virtual components.

    Unlike most device extensions, there is no special Workbench view for a virtual gateway.

  6. If you expanded the Virtual node, you can further expand each object to view its virtual properties including its value and poll status.