The samples in this repository are hosted by the OPC Foundation to keep the sample code available for the community.
However, to avoid internal competition with OPC members that offer commercial SDKs, the OPC Foundation limits its own resources for maintenance and support to a minimum.
Contributions of the community to improve and maintain the samples and to help with issues to keep this repository alive are very welcome.
Please follow the steps outlined here to start contributing.
Sample Servers and Clients, including all required controls, for .NET Framework 4.6.2, .NET Core 2.0 and UWP.
Integrates the offical OPC UA NuGet package containing the OPC UA reference implementation targeting .NET Standard.
.Net Standard allows you develop apps that run on all common platforms available today, including Linux, iOS, Android (via Xamarin) and Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (including embedded/IoT editions) without requiring platform-specific modifications. Furthermore, cloud applications and services (such as ASP.Net, DNX, Azure Websites, Azure Webjobs, Azure Nano Server and Azure Service Fabric) are also supported.
For more information and license terms, see here.
- Sample Servers and Clients, including all required controls, for .NET 4.6.2, .NET Core >= 2.1, and UWP.
- Sessions (including UI support in the samples).
- Subscriptions (including UI support in the samples).
- OPC UA Aggregation Server.
- OPC Classic adapter for OPC UA. (Removed in 12/2024)
- OPC UA Global Discovery Client and Global Discovery Server.
- OPC UA Xamarin Client. (Removed in 12/2024)
- OPC UA Quickstart Samples.
- The Core UA stack and SDK has been tested with Mono 5.4 to add support for the Xamarin Client and the Mono console application samples. (Removed as of 12/2024)
Use this table to quickly find the project that suits your needs. If you already have an external OPC UA server (e.g. KepServerEX, Prosys, or another vendor server), you only need to run a Client sample and point it at your server's endpoint URL.
| Project | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ReferenceServer | Server | The OPC UA Reference Server. Implements a rich address space designed for OPC UA Compliance Test Tool (UACTT) testing. Use this as a standards-compliant server to test clients against. |
| ReferenceClient | Client | A Windows Forms OPC UA client that can connect to any OPC UA server. Use this if you want to browse, read, write, subscribe to nodes, or test client connectivity against an external server such as KepServerEX. |
| UA Sample Server (.NET 4.6) | Server | A feature-rich OPC UA sample server with Windows Forms UI for .NET Framework 4.6. Demonstrates sessions, subscriptions and a sample address space. |
| UA Sample Client (.NET 4.6) | Client | A feature-rich OPC UA sample client with Windows Forms UI for .NET Framework 4.6. Can connect to any OPC UA server. Use this to explore and interact with an existing server. |
| GlobalDiscoveryServer | Server | OPC UA Global Discovery Server (GDS) for .NET 4.6 with SQL Server as database. Manages application registration and certificate issuance across a UA network. |
| NetCoreGlobalDiscoveryServer | Server | Cross-platform console GDS server using a JSON-based database. Use for testing GDS workflows without SQL Server. |
| GlobalDiscoveryClient | Client | Windows Forms GDS client. Use this to register applications, request CA-signed certificates, and manage trust lists via a running GDS server. |
| Opc.Ua.Samples.Hosting | Library | The bootstrap every sample shares: dependency injection, the .NET Generic Host and file based logging. Read this first if you want to know how a sample starts up. |
These paired client/server samples each demonstrate a specific OPC UA feature set. If you have an external server that supports the relevant feature, you can run only the Client against it.
| Project | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Aggregation Server | Server | Aggregates multiple OPC UA servers into a single namespace. Browse aggregated servers via the Aggregation Client or any OPC UA client. |
| Aggregation Client | Client | Connects to an Aggregation Server and browses its aggregated address space. |
| ConsoleAggregationServer | Server | Cross-platform console version of the Aggregation Server. |
| AlarmCondition Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA Part 9 Alarms & Conditions: areas and sources which route events, latching trip alarms, re-alarming, silencing, the two suppression patterns and alarm metrics. See the sample README. |
| AlarmCondition Client | Client | Subscribes to alarm events, shows the Part 9 state of each condition, and calls every condition Method through the typed AlarmClient. |
| AliasNames Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA Part 17 alias names: a searchable index of the tag names people use, laid over an address space organized by structure, served both on the standard well-known categories and on an application-defined category tree. See the sample README. |
| AliasNames Client | Client | Searches a Part 17 category by wildcard, resolves a tag name to a NodeId and back, and adds or deletes aliases at runtime. |
| Boiler Server | Server | Simulates a boiler process with UA object instances. Demonstrates object types, methods and data variables. |
| Boiler Client | Client | Connects to the Boiler Server to read boiler state and invoke control methods. |
| DataAccess Server | Server | Demonstrates the OPC UA DataAccess profile with analog items, discrete items and array variables. |
| DataAccess Client | Client | Reads and writes DataAccess items (analog/discrete) on a DataAccess server. |
| DataTypes Server | Server | Demonstrates how to define and expose custom structured data types in OPC UA. |
| DataTypes Client | Client | Reads custom structured data types from a DataTypes server. |
| FileTransfer Server | Server | Publishes a directory of the host as an OPC UA file system (Part 5 Annex C / Part 20 FileType and FileDirectoryType), using the file system node manager of the SDK. See the sample overview. |
| FileTransfer Client | Client | Browses the file system of a server and uploads, downloads, creates and deletes files and directories. Works against any server which offers Server/FileSystem. |
| HistoricalAccess Server | Server | Serves a file based archive of past values through the historian provider model of the SDK (raw, modified, at-time, processed, annotations, updates and deletes). See the sample overview. |
| HistoricalAccess Client | Client | Reads, aggregates, annotates and rewrites the history of a variable on any server, through session.Historian(). |
| HistoricalEvents Server | Server | Serves an archive of well test reports as event history through an IHistorianEventProvider, including writing and deleting events. |
| HistoricalEvents Client | Client | Queries and displays historical events from a HistoricalEvents server. |
| Methods Server | Server | Exposes UA methods with various input/output arguments to demonstrate method invocation. |
| Methods Client | Client | Discovers and calls UA methods on a Methods server. |
| NodeManagement Server | Server | Demonstrates the OPC UA Part 4 §5.8 NodeManagement service set: a node manager opts in with one property, and decides where clients may build, what they may not delete, and what a server-assigned NodeId looks like. See the sample README. |
| NodeManagement Client | Client | Creates and deletes nodes and references in the running server, and follows the model change events which report what other clients did. |
| PerfTest Server | Server | Performance test server that exposes a large number of monitored variables for throughput benchmarking. |
| PerfTest Client | Client | Performance test client that subscribes to many variables and measures data-change throughput. |
| RoleManagement Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA Part 18 role-based security: identities earn Roles, RolePermissions on nodes decide what each Role may browse, read, write or call, and the RoleSet lets a SecurityAdmin change that at runtime. See the sample README. |
| RoleManagement Client | Client | Connects as different accounts to see how the address space and the permissions change, and manages the RoleSet of the server. |
| SimpleEvents Server | Server | Generates simple OPC UA events to demonstrate event subscriptions. |
| SimpleEvents Client | Client | Subscribes to and displays simple events from an events server. |
| StateMachines Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA Part 16 state machines: one declared with the fluent StateMachineBuilder (states, transitions, causes, guards, timed transitions) and the standard ProgramStateMachineType with behaviour attached to it. |
| StateMachines Client | Client | Drives both state machines of a StateMachines server and streams their transitions as they happen. |
| UserAuthentication Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA user authentication with username/password and certificate-based identity tokens. |
| UserAuthentication Client | Client | Connects using different user identity tokens (anonymous, username, certificate) to a UserAuthentication server. |
| Views Server | Server | Demonstrates OPC UA Views — subsets of the address space exposed as named views. |
| Views Client | Client | Browses and reads nodes through Views defined on a Views server. |
| Empty Server | Server | A minimal server template with no custom nodes. Use as a starting point to build your own OPC UA server. |
| Empty Client | Client | A minimal client template. Use as a starting point to build your own OPC UA client. |
Quick tip: If you already have an OPC UA server running (e.g. KepServerEX, Prosys OPC UA Server, or another vendor product), you do not need to start any server sample. Simply run the ReferenceClient or UA Sample Client and connect to your server's endpoint URL (e.g.
opc.tcp://myserver:49320).
All the tools you need for .Net Standard come with the .Net Core tools. See here for what you need.
The samples build against the preview packages of the OPC UA .NET Standard stack from the
public nuget.org feed -
no authentication or extra package source is needed. The version the samples currently build
against is pinned in a single place, the OpcUaNetStandardVersion property in
targets.props.
Since Nuget version 1.4.363.107 there is support for symbol snupkg packages on Nuget.Org and github source link.
- See devblog for more information on how to setup the debug symbol server.
- Support for Sourcelink for integrated source code debugging experience.
All required application certificates for OPC UA are created at the first start of each application in a directory or OS-level certificate store and remain in use until deleted from the store.
By default the self signed certificates are stored in a X509Store called CurrentUser\UA_MachineDefault. The certificates can be viewed or deleted with the Windows Certificate Management Console (certmgr.msc). The trusted, issuer and rejected stores remain in a folder called OPC Foundation\CertificateStores with a root folder which is specified by the SpecialFolder variable %CommonApplicationData%. On Windows 7/8/8.1/10 this is usually the invisible folder C:\ProgramData.
Note: Since the sample applications in the UA-.Net repository use the same storage and application names as UA-.NetStandard, but create only certificates with hostname localhost, it is recommended to delete all existing certificates in MachineDefault to recreate proper certificates for all sample applications when moving to the UA-.NetStandard repository.
By default the self signed certificates are stored in a X509Store called CurrentUser\UA_MachineDefault. The certificates can be viewed or deleted with the Windows Certificate Management Console (certmgr.msc).
The trusted, issuer and rejected stores remain in a folder called OPC Foundation\CertificateStores in the LocalState folder of the installed universal windows package. Deleting the application state also deletes the certificate stores.
The self signed certificates are stored in a folder called OPC Foundation/CertificateStores/MachineDefault with a root folder which is specified by the SpecialFolder variable %LocalApplicationData% or in a X509Store called CurrentUser\My, depending on the configuration. For best cross platform support the personal store CurrentUser\My was chosen to support all platforms with the same configuration. Some platforms, like macOS, do not support arbitrary certificate stores.
The trusted, issuer and rejected stores remain in a shared folder called OPC Foundation\CertificateStores with a root folder specified by the SpecialFolder variable %LocalApplicationData%. Depending on the target platform, this folder maps to a hidden locations under the user home directory.
By default all sample applications are configured to register with a Local Discovery Server (LDS). A reference implementation of a LDS for Windows can be downloaded here. To setup trust with the LDS the certificates need to be exchanged or registration will fail.
- Open the UA Sample Applications.sln solution file using Visual Studio 2017.
- Choose a project in the Solution Explorer and set it with a right click as
Startup Project. - Hit
F5to build and execute the sample.
This section describes how to run the NetCoreConsoleClient and NetCoreConsoleServer sample applications.
Please follow instructions in this article to setup the dotnet command line environment for your platform. As of today .Net Standard 2.0 is required.
- Once the
dotnetcommand is available, navigate to the root folder in your local copy of the repository and executedotnet restore UA Sample Applications.sln. This command calls into NuGet to restore the tree of dependencies.
- Open a command prompt.
- Navigate to the folder Samples/NetCoreConsoleServer.
- To run the server sample type
dotnet run --project NetCoreConsoleServer.csproj -a.- The server is now running and waiting for connections.
- The
-aflag allows to auto accept unknown certificates and should only be used to simplify testing.
- Open a command prompt
- Navigate to the folder Samples/NetCoreConsoleClient.
- To run the sample type
dotnet run --project NetCoreConsoleClient.csproj -ato connect to the OPC UA console sample server running on the same host.- The
-aflag allows to auto accept unknown certificates and should only be used to simplify testing. - To connect to another OPC UA server specify the server as first argument and type e.g.
dotnet run --project NetCoreConsoleClient.csproj -a opc.tcp://myserver:51210/UA/SampleServer.
- The
- If not using the
-aauto accept option, on first connection, or after certificates were renewed, the server may have refused the client certificate. Check the server and client folder %LocalApplicationData%/OPC Foundation/CertificateStores/RejectedCertificates for rejected certificates. To approve a certificate copy it to the %LocalApplicationData%/OPC Foundation/CertificateStores/UA Applications folder. - Retry step 3 to connect using a secure connection.
- Please refer to the OPC Foundation UA .Net Standard Library Aggregation Client and Server for a detailed description how to run the aggregation client and server.
We strongly encourage community participation and contribution to this project. First, please fork the repository and commit your changes there. Once happy with your changes you can generate a 'pull request'.
You must agree to the contributor license agreement before we can accept your changes. The CLA and "I AGREE" button is automatically displayed when you perform the pull request. You can preview CLA here.