Skip to content

Adding a new camera which is located far away

edited February 2021 in SecuritySpy
Hello!
I would like to put a security camera on my building site and view the stream at my principle location at home. My home network already has a LAN with cameras and SecuritySpy server and remote access from the Internet.

How could I make the remote camera at the building site visible in my home LAN and for the SecuritySpy in there?

I could make the remote camera streaming to the internet and view the stream with a browser using camera's own tools or external DDNS services. But how to make SecuritySpy to discover that stream?

I found some hints that there might be a solution but I'm not sure how to do it:

Multiple site solution
https://bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/1038/multiple-site-solution/p1

Anyone else have problems viewing IP camera remotely?
https://www.bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/495/anyone-else-have-problems-viewing-ip-camera-remotely

Basically, the problem is to add a new camera which is located in the Internet instead of the local LAN.

I would appreciate any ideas.
-Jake

Comments

  • Hi Jake, you need to make this camera available to the Internet. The three things you need to do are:

    1. The camera must have a static IP address on its local network. By default, most cameras are set to obtain an IP address automatically by DHCP, however these addresses can change over time, which would invalidate the port forwarding settings. Connect to the camera via a web browser and assign it a static IP address on its local network (LAN), making sure that the IP address you are assigning is on the correct subnet (see Local Networks for more info).

    2. You need to set up a DDNS address, which is an Internet (WAN) address that you use to connect to the camera. It sounds like the camera has built-in DDNS and you may have set this up already, is that correct?

    3. The router at the building site location needs port forwarding configuration, to forward incoming connections from the Internet to the camera at its static IP address that you configured above. You will need to forward port 554 (RTSP), and if you are using the ONVIF profile, you will also need to forward the camera's ONVIF port (usually 80, but not always).

    Then, in SecuritySpy at your home location, you set up a new network device, and enter the DDNS address you set up above, enter the username/password, and select the correct profile for the camera. If you are using ONVIF, and the ONVIF port is not 80, you'll have to enter this manually (as this can't be auto-detected over the Internet).

    ONVIF adds complexity because it works over a different port to RTSP. If you can use a dedicated profile instead (e.g. Axis, Vivotek etc.) this will be easier to set up.
  • Hi Ben, thanks for the excellent and specific advice. I have been busy building the house but soon I will get back to this camera surveillance task.

    Yes, I did do some experiments on setting up a DDNS address. I have some experience on that area but this time the difficulty was that Dahua ceased to provide DDNS for new cameras. I registered the camera (IPC-HFW1220S) early enough long time ago and now recently I almost got the DDNS working. At Dahua settings page there were different DDNS menus available for different browsers. Some of them did include Dahua DDNS and some didn't - very confusing. Finally, I chose some other DDNS provider and got it working at least for some time.

    Then I proceeded to set up my SecuritySpy. All this took place weeks ago but I remember that I wasn't successful with the URL I had. I was running out of time after spending too much time with the DDNS. I decided to look for the internet to see if SecuritySpy can actually catch an external internet stream or not. I wasn't quite sure about that after reading the manual.

    Now when I have your advice to confirm that I have the right approach and it can be done, I'm pretty sure I can manage. It's only matter of investing the time it takes (one evening at least) and I have been a little short on time lately. I'll get back to you on this topic. Thanks again for the great software and support.
  • Some routers have site-to-site VPN. UniFi Security Gateway SKU: USG supposed to be easy to set it up.eseittiost
  • OK. Done. Thanks!

    I chose No-IP DDNS as it was supported by the camera (Dahua). That solved the problems I experienced with other DDN Services not directly supported by the camera.

    During the installation and setup phase I had two parallel networks at home with two SIMs and routers. The old one was my home network and the new one with the camera is now ready to be moved to the construction site.

    When setting up the DDNS, I used the IP of new network (whatismyip.com). I was connected to the new network when setting up camera, server and DDNS. When setting up SecuritySpy, I was on my old network at home.

    SecuritySpy found the camera instantly when I gave the IP, port, username and password.

    What I still have to do is to check the firewall settings (canyouseeme.org) and upgrade passwords to a higher security level. And I have to refresh the free DDNS once a month.
  • Great to hear you got this working. Hopefully the move to the construction site will be trouble free.
  • edited May 2021
    Thanks! However ...

    Something strange happened ... I changed the password of Dahua camera login, but the SecuritySpy is still requiring the old password. I'm confused again, are there two password settings, one for the camera login and another for the video stream? Where does SecuritySpy get the password authentication for the camera?

    Now SecuritySpy goes to the DDNS and gets my up to date IP and a port number. The IP is the external IP for my local camera network. It does not include any other information.

    In the router, I have assigned a fixed IP for the Dahua and some port mappings. So far, I have assigned all ports used by Dahua camera from LAN to WAN (TCP, HTTP, UDP, RTSP and HTTPS). The only port I have configured in SecuritySpy is the ONVIF (8080) which is the HTTP port of Dahua.

    I just checked that the RTSP port seems to be closed (ismyportopen). SecuritySpy can still find the camera image with the old password.

    There must be something that I'm missing.
  • Are you saying that you changed the password in the camera, but SecuritySpy is still able to obtain the video stream using the old password?

    The only thing I can think of immediately is that sometimes cameras have dual sets of login details that can be set separately: the camera's own admin login, then the login for one or more ONVIF accounts. Perhaps you changed the camera's login, but the login for the ONVIF account(s) has remained the same?
Sign In or Register to comment.