Tag Archives: web

Remote Access via Mobile/Cellular/Satellite Internet

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[Update 8 Nov 2022: although the below solution still works, ngrok have put up their prices significantly since this post was written. We now have a new post that describes some alternative solutions, many of them free, so we recommend you refer to this one instead: Remote Access Without Port Forwarding.]

In order to connect to any server over the Internet (such as SecuritySpy’s built-in web server for remote access to your CCTV system), the server must be exposed to the Internet via a public IP address.

Most standard home and commercial Internet connections (Fibre, ADSL, Cable) provide a public Internet address, which makes setting up remote access to SecuritySpy fairly straightforward, as described in the Remote Access section of the SecuritySpy Installation Manual.

However, Mobile/Cellular Internet connections (i.e. those that use a 3G, 4G or 5G modem to connect wirelessly over the cellular network) are becoming increasingly common, as their speed and reliability increase and costs decrease. Unfortunately, most mobile Internet connections do not provide a true public IP address, but rather provide a private address within the Internet provider’s network (this is called Carrier-Grade NAT). Therefore it is not possible to set up remote access in the same way. Typically, this is the case with Satellite-based Internet connections as well.

Some mobile Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can provide a true public IP address for an extra fee, but not all do.

The solution to this problem is to use a service called ngrok, which allows you to set up a secure tunnel to your server in order to provide access to it from the Internet. Here’s how it works: Continue reading →

Adding Live Video To Any Web Page

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This tutorial will show you how to add live video from SecuritySpy to your own web page. This does involve editing the HTML of your web page, but it’s relatively simple. Our favourite tool for this is TextMate.

Firstly, you must set up SecuritySpy for remote monitoring, so that it can be accessed over the internet. Next, create a special user account in SecuritySpy that has permission only to view the camera that you want to use. Finally, determine the camera number for the camera in question – this is shown in the Camera Info window (highlighted in red below). If you don’t see this column, click the header bar where you see the column names, and a menu will pop up that allows you to add it.

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Three methods for embedding the video feed into a web page are outlined below. In the examples shown, the address of the SecuritySpy system is “demo.viewcam.me”, the port is 8000, and the camera number is 1.

Authentication is supplied via an auth parameter, which is the the Base64 representation of the string user:pass (i.e. the username and password, separated by a colon). Use an online Base64 encoder to generate this value: simply enter your user:pass string, click the Encode button, and copy and paste the result.

If you want to specify a particular size for the image, add width and height parameters, for example the URL in Method 1 would become something like this:

http://demo.viewcam.me:8000/++video?cameraNum=1&width=640&height=480

Continue reading →

Customising SecuritySpy’s Web Interface

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SecuritySpy has a built-in web server that allows remote viewing of live camera streams as well as access to previously-captured footage and settings. We sometimes get asked by customers how to customise the appearance of these web pages for various reasons, such as to change colours, add branding, modify text etc. The procedure is quite simple, though it does require some knowledge of HTML and CCS.

Continue reading →