Network Traffic

creativebush
creativebush
edited September 2014 in SecuritySpy
I have a quick question about network traffic. I've been running security spy for quite a while now and I just recently was looking at the network traffic as reported by my router. There was nearly 300KB/s going in and out of my network. After doing a little digging I noticed shutting down security spy brought the traffic to zero.

I have 5 cameras, 3 are wireless and 2 are wired all were in active mode but not recording. I only have them record on motion detection.

While I can understand the incoming traffic numbers as I would imagine security spy is monitoring the cameras for motion. But the outgoing traffic is what is concerning me. Also, I've had this router for about a year and don't recall seeing traffic like this before.

I checked the web server page of security spy and it showed no web connections in the log which I thought was kind of weird as I was connected too it.

You can see the bandwidth graphs here:
http://www.creativebush.com/pictures/Traffic-wired.png
http://www.creativebush.com/pictures/Traffic-internet.png

The flat areas before and after the usage is with Security Spy off.

I also tried putting all the cameras in passive mode. That had no discernible affect on the amount of network traffic.

Just wondering if all this traffic/bandwidth usage is normal and what it is actually taking place.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Paul

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Paul,

    300 KB/s throughput on your local network is perfectly normal for the number of cameras you have. SecuritySpy is receiving video and audio data from the cameras continuously in order to display the video in its video windows, detect motion, record, send video via the web server and so on.

    However, this data should not be showing up as internet traffic; it should be purely on your local network.

    What addresses are you using for the cameras in the Video Device Settings window in SecuritySpy? If they are internet addresses then this may be causing the problem. If they are local IP addresses, then SecuritySpy will be making connections to the cameras over the local network only, and the internet traffic reported by your router is a bit of a mystery - maybe due to a router misconfiguration or maybe it's simply a mistaken report of traffic that doesn't actually exist.

    Hope this helps.
  • creativebush
    creativebush
    After thinking about this for a while after posting I figured traffic was going through the router, in from the camera and out to the mac with security spy installed. The wired network data graph matched the internet graph almost identically so I do wonder if it's some kind of error in reporting.

    I did just install a new firmware to my router and maybe that's the difference in traffic I'm seeing now.

    The camera's all have internal IP's and aren't available outside my router. I use security spy to view the camera's outside my network.

    I just was concerned about the outgoing internet traffic as reported by the router but now am questioning it. I'll have to investigate this a bit more and see how the router reports traffic.

    Thanks for your help and the awesome security spy. Let me know if you think of anything else.
  • DsrtRngr
    DsrtRngr
    Ben; what is the maximum through-put using a Gigabit Ethernet switch?

    I use Apple's Activity Monitor utility on the Network setting. I usually see 5-7mb data received per second. How much upside is left (mac mini / recent)

    thanks,
    chip
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Chip - Gigabit ethernet has a theoretical maximum throughput of a billion bits per second, which translates to 125 MB/s (megabytes-per-second) - though the real-world performance will be about half this. If Activity Monitor is reporting 7 MB/s then this is significant but well within the capabilities of the network with plenty of bandwidth to spare.
  • acorona
    acorona
    I've the same problem, I think that is because I installed SecuritySpy first at my office Mac and then I moved the Installation (I copied the preference file) at my home. At office the Mac Pro have 192.168.1.230 as IP address and at home the Mac mini is 172.18.2.7. The IP of the camera is 172.18.2.6 and I can connect to it from my work Mac via PtP radio link to my house. So I think that SecuritySpy is doing a sort of loop from my house to the office because I first installed it at office, If I open the preference file with TextExit from the Mac mini I can see a 192.168.1.230 IP address inside....

    If I create a the camera directly at home the problem is solved.

    If I delete the preference file and I start from scratch at home the problem is solved.

    I also noted that at home I cannot delete the device created at work anymore, the app crash.

    Have you any Idea?
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi @acorona, firstly please check that you are using the latest version of SecuritySpy.

    You will at least need to update the IP addresses of the network cameras, when moving SecuritySpy to a different location where these IP addresses have changed.

    However, you certainly shouldn't be getting a crash when deleting a network camera. It's possible that updating your version of SecuritySpy will fix this, but if not, please email us the crash log files for SecuritySpy and we'll take a look.

    These files are located in the ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ folder (within your user folder). To get to the Library folder, hold the alt (option) key while clicking the Finder's Go menu, and select the Library item that will appear in this menu. Then navigate within this Library folder to Logs and then DiagnosticReports.
  • acorona
    acorona
    Hi Ben, I don't need to update the IP address of the camera because the home and the office subnets are connected by the PtP radio link, so the SecuritySpy setup can be the same. This is why I moved the preference file from the office Mac Pro to the home Mac mini. I've the latest version of SecuritySpy so I'll mail to you the Crash Report.
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi again @acorona - thanks for sending the crash log. The crash is due to an errant Broadcast. Please open the Broadcasts window and delete all the broadcasts listed there, and then try deleting the camera again.

    If the office network uses 192.168.1 addressing and the Mac mini uses 172.18.2 addressing, then these are two separate networks, connected together by a router. This should be OK as long as the connection between the two networks is fast, but the ideal setup is to have the Mac and cameras on the same network, all connected together by a high-quality gigabit ethernet switch (or WiFi if the signal is strong, though this is never as good as wired ethernet).
  • acorona
    acorona
    Ben, now everything make sense to me... The extra traffic was because of 4 Broadcasts active, but I never went on this window before, so I don't know why I have 4 Broadcast active. Thanks for your great support!!
  • Ben
    Ben
    Great to hear everything is resolved.

    Broadcasting is a feature that's seldom used these days, and it gets confused with the web server feature, so this may be why someone set them up on your system. We're planning to remove the Broadcasting feature in the next major update of SecuritySpy.

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