Keysight J-BERT N4903B and N4906B Quick start guide

Brand: Keysight

Model: J-BERT N4903B and N4906B

Type: Quick start guide

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Agilent

J-BERT N4903B

(High-Performance-BERT)

and

N4906B

Operating in a Non-WinXP

Environment

Setup Guide

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Notices

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Edition

Version 1.10, Apr 2014

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

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Safety Notices

A CAUTION notice denotes a

hazard. It calls attention to an

operating procedure, practice, or

the like that, if not correctly

performed or adhered to, could

result in damage to the product or

loss of important data. Do not

proceed beyond a CAUTION notice

until the indicated conditions are

fully understood and met.

A WARNING notice denotes a

hazard. It calls attention to an

operating procedure, practice, or

the like that, if not correctly

performed or adhered to, could

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Do not proceed beyond a

WARNING notice until the

indicated conditions are fully

understood and met.

CAUTION

WARNING

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Content

1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 2

2 WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL THREATS .......................................................................... 2

3 PROPOSED SETUPS ......................................................................................................... 3

3.1 Disconnect the N4903B from your LAN ................................................................................................................ 3

3.2 Use USB or GPIB Connectivity for Remote Programming ........................................................................... 4

3.3 Use a Separate and Isolated 2nd LAN ..................................................................................................................... 6

3.3.1 Setting Up the Second LAN Card............................................................................................................................. 7

3.3.2 Add a new Rule to the Windows Firewall .............................................................................................................. 8

3.3.3 Adding the Network Share (“Letterbox”) ..............................................................................................................13

3.3.4 Security Level .................................................................................................................................................................16

4 CONTACT INFORMATION ............................................................................................... 17

5 DOCUMENT CHANGE LOG ............................................................................................. 17

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

1 Introduction

Microsoft has announced the end of support (April 8, 2014) for Windows XP. No further security patches

will be delivered by Microsoft beyond that date.

The Agilent J-BERT N4903B and N4906B products have and will continue to have Windows XP as their

operating system. We have made the conscious decision to not migrate the product to Windows 7. The

Windows XP drivers used in the product cannot be migrated to a Windows 7 environment for technical

reasons.

We have developed comprehensive plans on how to deal with this situation and the proposed setups are

described in the following document.

In the explanations on the following pages in this document we pick the N4903B product as example.

However, everything applies as well for the N4906B product. Therefore wherever you read N4903B you can

substitute this by N4906B.

2 What are the Potential Threats

The N4903B internally consists of the measurement hardware and it also has a PC built inside which is

running WinXP. Therefore the same rules and precautionary measures that apply to laptop and desktop PCs

apply to this instrument as well.

Almost all threats are spread via the internet (network) or via USB thumb drives that are connected to a PC.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3 Proposed Setups

Depending on your requirements you may select among the following setups.

3.1 Disconnect the N4903B from your LAN

Disconnect your N4903B from the LAN (unplug the LAN cable).

Disconnecting the unit from the LAN is the simplest procedure to reduce the risk or to comply with the rules

setup by your IT department.

For transferring files from and to the N4903B use a “disinfected” USB thumb-drive. Use the USB ports on the

rear panel as they are USB 2.0 compliant and they allow for higher transfer speeds.

3.1.1 LAN Ports MUST stay enabled

Attention: Do not disable your LAN ports as the N4903B licensing mechanism uses the MAC

address of the LAN ports for authentication and to enable the licensed functionality. If you

disable the LAN ports in Windows you will lose all licenses.

Please check that your LAN ports status stays “enabled”:

Use the following instructions to make sure that both LAN ports of the BERT are enabled and accessible.

1. In Windows go to the “Control Panel” and then to “Network Connections”

2. There are 2 “Local Area Connections”. Make sure that both of them are enabled. If the LAN interface

is disabled it will look like the following LAN interface:

3. Both LAN interfaces must show the status “Enabled”:

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.2 Use USB or GPIB Connectivity for Remote Programming

If you are presently sending commands to the N4903B from a remote PC to automate your tests and you are

using the LAN port to connect to the N4903B please consider the following approach.

J-BERT N4903B

Remote Host

USB Port or

GPIB Port

USB Port or

GPIB Port

LAN Port

Sending Commands to the J-BERT using USB or GPIB

Company LAN

The N4903B supports 3 different communication interfaces to send commands: USB, GPIB and LAN. The

J-BERT uses a SCPI interface for communicating with the outside world. To communicate with the J-BERT

from a remote computer, the Agilent IO Libraries Suite must be installed on this remote host computer.

The Agilent IO libraries are used to connect to the instrument regardless what interface is used. It may be

USB, GBIB or LAN. Successful communication only depends on the correct VISA identification string

(destination address). In your program you currently may use something like the following (when you are

using a LAN connection):

viOpen (defaultRM, "TCPIP0::10.0.1.255::INSTR", VI_NULL,VI_NULL, &vi);

In order to use USB or GPIB you have to replace the address with something like:

viOpen (defaultRM, "GPIB0::14::INSTR", VI_NULL,VI_NULL, &vi);

viOpen (defaultRM, "usb0[2391::20496::SNN4900AXXXDE::0::INSTR]", VI_NULL,VI_NULL, &vi);

The correct string can be retrieved with help of the Agilent IO Libraries (Agilent Connection Expert).

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

The whole structure of your program, the modules, etc. all can stay the same and you can reuse them as is.

Only the addressing level has to be changed as indicated above.

Depending on the options, your J-BERT came with a set of features for advanced measurements (such as

the Output Timing, Output Level, Eye Opening, Fast Eye and Spectral Jitter measurement). These advanced

measurements can only be accessed over the LAN interface. They are not available when using the USB or

GPIB interface. Please see the “Measurement Software Programming Guide” for more information on

programming these measurements.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.3 Use a Separate and Isolated 2nd LAN

If you need LAN access to your N4903B instrument, we suggest using the following setup:

Company LAN

N4903B

2nd LAN Port

LAN Port

Internet

Sending Commands to the J-BERT using 2nd LAN Port

You have a dedicated PC which will act as a “go between” between your corporate network and a separate

LAN connection to your N4903B.

For this you have to add a second LAN card to your remote host PC. The first LAN card of this PC is

connected to your corporate network. With the second LAN card you establish a point to point connection to

your N4903B. In this setup the N4903B is not accessible from any place other than this dedicated remote

host PC. The N4903B cannot access the internet. To allow file transfer between the 2 worlds you can setup

a share on the remote host that is accessible from both sides and that acts as “letterbox”.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.3.1 Setting Up the Second LAN Card

When you setup the second LAN card, make sure that you select a different subnet from your company LAN.

If your company LAN uses the subnet 192.168.1.x, then you can use the 192.168.2.x as subnet for the 2nd

LAN (or any other subnet that is different from the company LAN).

Since there is no DHCP server in the second LAN you have to use fixed IP addresses. For example use

192.168.2.1 for the remote host PC and use 192.168.2.2 for the N4903B. The subnet mask would be

255.255.255.0. Leave the other fields empty (Default Gateway and Preferred and Alternate DNS server). You

get there by selecting Control Panel, then Network and Adapter Settings. Here is the picture from the remote

host PC side:

Do the same step on the N4903B side. Make sure that you use the address 192.168.2.2. on that side.

Now directly connect both units with a LAN cable.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.3.2 Add a new Rule to the Windows Firewall

You need to add an entry to the Windows Firewall of your remote host PC in order to allow access to this 2nd

LAN from the N4903B side (“Inbound Rule”).

On your remote host PC go to the Windows Firewall settings (Control Panel  Windows Firewall). Add an

exception for inbound connections from the N4903B. If the N4903B wants to access the “letterbox” (see

next chapter) this creates an inbound connection from the remote host point of view. Go to “Advanced

Settings” and add a new “Inbound Rule”.

The following Window will open. Select the “Rule Type” to be “Port” and continue with “Next”.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Accessing a share (“letterbox”) from the outsides requires port 445. Please enter “TCP” and port “445” and

then click “Next”.

Allow the inbound connection and press “Next”:

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Select the scope to be “Domain” (Corporate Network) and “Private”.

Give the rule a descriptive name:

Press “Finish”.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Search for the new rule in the list of inbound rules, select the rule and right-click to see the properties.

We have to fine tune the rule a bit.

Click on “Customize”.

We want to limit the allowed connections to really only be the one to the N4903B.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Limit the interface type to “LAN”.

And specify a particular IP address (or address range) that is allowed to access. This is the address you gave

the N4903B earlier.

Press “OK” to finish.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.3.3 Adding the Network Share (“Letterbox”)

Add the network share on your remote host PC: Go to Control Panel and Administrative Tools. There select

Computer Management and then Shared Folders and Shares:

Add a new share:

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

Select the location in the file system of the remote host PC and give it a descriptive name:

Add the access permissions:

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

You can give access for “Everyone” or specify the permissions on a user or group level if you want.

Click on “Finish”. The setup is complete now.

The N4903B can access the “letterbox” on the remote host now. In Windows Explorer on the N4903B type

in the address: \\192.168.2.1.

After a few seconds the explorer will show you a list of all accessible shares on the remote host and you will

find the “letterbox” in the list and you can add it as a network drive. You can exchange files by reading and

writing to the “letterbox” from both sides.

You can use the dedicated LAN connection to the N4903B to send commands from the remote host.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

3.3.4 Security Level

This approach does not give you a 100% confidence that no threats can leak in to and from the N4903B by

using the “letterbox”.

However, if you combine the described approach with up-to-date anti-virus software on both sides of the

“letterbox”, then you are quite safe, i.e. for the N4903B side you have to do the regular updates manually, as

the unit is not connected directly to the internet..

Please contact your IT department for further and detailed instructions if you run into problems when

executing the steps above.

J-BERT N4903 High-Performance BERT: Operating in a Non-WinXP Environment

4 Contact Information

The technical support for the N4903B product can be reached via the following email address:

bvs-pdga_support@agilent.com

5 Document Change Log

Date and Revision

Description

20-Mar-2014

 Initial version

02-Apr-2014

 Enabling LAN ports

Keysight J-BERT N4903B and N4906B Quick start guide

Keysight J-BERT N4903B and N4906B Quick start guide

Keysight J-BERT N4903B and N4906B Quick start guide

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