Network requirements
GroundControl and connectors use three network paths. Two of them stay on the lab machine or the lab network and need no firewall changes. The connection to your tenant needs one outbound port.
Network paths
| Path | Protocol | Port | Direction | Required? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edge machine → Lab instrument | Device-specific (TCP, serial, USB) | Varies per instrument | Local | Yes |
| GroundControl ↔ Connector | gRPC (SiLA 2) | 50000–60000 | Local loopback | Yes |
| GroundControl/Connector → UniteLabs Cloud | gRPC over TLS (HTTPS) | 443 (default) | Outbound only | Yes |
Instrument connectivity
The edge machine must be able to reach the instrument directly. This is typically:
- Serial (RS-232/USB): physical cable, no network configuration needed
- TCP/IP: the instrument's IP address must be reachable from the edge machine. If instruments are on a separate VLAN or subnet, ensure routing is in place.
The specific address and port are entered in the connector's configuration form in GroundControl.
Local SiLA 2 port
A connector's default port is 0. Set a port in the connector config; one in the range 50000–60000 is typical. The port is bound to the loopback interface and does not need to be opened in any external firewall. If you run several connectors on the same machine, give each its own port (50052, 50053, 50054, …).
Cloud connection
The connection to your tenant is a persistent gRPC stream over TLS to:
<tenant-id>.unitelabs.io:443
It is outbound only, so no inbound firewall rules are needed. If your network enforces egress filtering, allow outbound TCP on port 443 to *.unitelabs.io. Connect to Platform explains what the connection enables and how to turn it on.
mDNS discovery (optional)
GroundControl uses mDNS (Multicast DNS) to auto-discover SiLA 2 connectors running elsewhere on the local network. mDNS uses UDP port 5353 on the 224.0.0.251 multicast address.
This is only relevant if you're using the Discovered connector mode. Local-only and cloud-only setups don't require mDNS.
Instruments on separate network segments
The edge machine needs a route to the instrument's subnet. If there's none, for example when the instrument sits on a restricted VLAN, Multi-device networking shows the 2 ways around it.
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