Niagara Fox Station Discovery With OTserver
Overview
Niagara Fox is used by Niagara Framework stations in building and industrial automation. OTserver uses the protocol’s hello exchange to identify a station and its software platform without attempting an authenticated session.
How OTserver discovers Niagara Fox stations
OTserver connects to TCP ports 1911 and 4911 on each discovered target and sends a fixed Fox version 1.0 hello. It first tries plain Fox. If that response is not valid, it reconnects and tries the same hello over TLS.
Only successful fox a 0 hello responses are parsed. The reader enforces a timeout, a 65,536-byte response limit, and a complete };; terminator. It accepts only a defined set of identity keys.
Evidence extracted
| OTserver evidence | Fox hello field |
|---|---|
| Name | hostName |
| Operating system | os.name |
| Vendor | brandId |
| Software evidence | Fox, application, and VM names and versions |
| Host evidence | Host address, time zone, host ID, and VM UUID |
| Transport evidence | Responding port and whether the hello used TLS |
The raw observation also preserves the accepted hello response and recognized fields such as fatal when a station reports them.
Security and read-only safety
The scanner sends only the unauthenticated Fox hello. It does not log in, read station configuration, invoke actions, or write points. For discovery compatibility, the TLS attempt does not use certificate trust as device authentication; do not interpret a successful scan as proof of station identity.
Frequently asked questions
Why does OTserver try both plain Fox and TLS?
Niagara deployments expose different transports and ports. OTserver tries the same small identity exchange over each supported form and records which one responds.
Does OTserver need Niagara credentials?
No. The hello exchange used for discovery does not authenticate to the station or access protected configuration.
Compare all supported discovery protocols or configure the scanner.