LabVIEW VI Server port using netstat command

Question

Hi Ppl,
I have been trying to use the netstat command to find out the port of VI server for LabVIEW as  well EXE's running VI Server. Here is how we do it
First we have to get the process ID of LabVIEW or the EXE using the task list command ->tasklist |find /i "labview"
We then use the netstat command to find out the ports in which LabVIEW is listening ->netstat -a -o -n |find /i "<process id>"
I quite surprised to see that actually LabVIEW is listening in more than one port, here is the response to the above command:
  TCP    0.0.0.0:3363           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       7120
  TCP    127.0.0.1:55462        0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       7120
  TCP    0.0.0.0:3363           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       7120  TCP    127.0.0.1:55462        0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       7120
Here 3363 is the VI Server port that I'm using. I'm wondering what is the other port ? Is there any way that will help us narrow down to the VI Server port from these ports?
Thanks,
Sathish

Answer 1

127.0.0.1 is localhost. A server binding to that should be only accessible from local applications. Most likely it has to do with the LabVIEW online help or example finder application. The online help allows to drop for instance functions into your LabVIEW diagram and there has to be some form of interapplication communication for that to make it work. I would guess they do it through TCP/IP rather than a Windows only solution to allow this to work on non-Windows platforms too.
Other than that it is obvious that the 0.0.0.0 address is the VI server listen socket as it will need to be able to allow connections by remote clients too.
And the VI server default port is  3363. To use a different port you have to have a specific entry in your LabVIEW or executable ini file. So reading the ini file instead would seem even simpler.
Rolf Kalbermatter
CIT Engineering Netherlands
a division of Test & Measurement Solutions