UniversalRobots
Run Universal Robot Driver through Virtual Box?
Summary
Introduction to the issue
Versions
- ROS Driver version: melodic
- OS: Windows 11, running Ubuntu 18 through a virtual box
I want to install ubuntu 18 on a virtual box on my windows 11 System. Is it possible to run the UR5 ROS driver through my virtual box? The problem im seeing is that i have to change the static IP Adress and the netmask of my Ubuntu VM to match the UR5 IP. Will that work through the Virtual box or do i have to also change the static ip Adress of my Windows 11 Host System?
This issue has not been updated for a long time. If no further updates are added, this will be closed automatically. Comment on the issue to prevent automatic closing.
![github-actions[bot] avatar](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/in/15368?v=4 "Published by a pub.dev verified publisher"){kind=small}
Sorry for the delayed answer.
I see a couple of implications here:
- I would suggest not using ubuntu 18.04 with ROS melodic, since this is end of life. Please consider using ubuntu 20.04 with ROS noetic. (Or even consider switching to ROS 2)
- Running the driver in a virtual machine will most probably cause performance problems, since the driver has pretty strict requirements regarding cycle times. Expect the driver to be occasionally disconnecting. Also see #615 for a more detailed explanation (which is only considering different Linux setups.)
- Regarding networking: You could
- Have your host in the same subnet as your UR, use a NAT interface for your VM and have ports 50001 to 50004 forwarded to your VM
- You could use a bridge network device for your VM. Then, this device gets its own IP address that you can use as a remote address on your UR
- I have absolutely no knowledge about performance implications of the different network implementations mentioned above. I absolutely would not recommend running the driver in a VM, as also mentioned above. You could consider using WSL2 instead.
This is about all I can say about running the driver in a VM on windows (Though I would like to actually test it myself and make the same analyses I've done in #615 at some point...).
