Remote Surveillence over Internet not working

[rpearson]

We installed a DVR surveillence system(Win98,PC based),which is essentially a PC with surveillence software installed,complete with NIC ,and PCI slots with camera cards to handle the givin amount of cameras needed.The customer has the option to "remote view" the premise off site over the internet from home, via some client software,which communicates with the surveillence system(PC)at the business.Now,the manufacturer requested broadband internet(Roadrunner at this point),and a Static IP for the system,which is networked with another standard PC via a 10mb HUB(not 10\100).Now the DVR and the PC are sharing the same static IP.The manufacturer requested we use a HUB,not a switch or router for this sytem.Upon recieving the Static IP,we opened TCP\IP on the surveillence PC and entered the IP,it loaded something,possibly drivers,and then that was it.The regular PC was able to connect to the internet.Later,The customer loaded there remote client software at home,but was not able to connect to the remote equipment as expected.Any suggestions or guidence would be appreciated.Here is the system manufacturer:

http://www.sigmaxsecurity.com

 

[Gpurrz]

Yo Cablepuller - I'm a little fuzzy on what your setup is, but I had to deal with remote Internet access to our suveillance system a couple of years ago, and it all boiled down to firewall issues. We have proxy server software on the PC that functions as the Internet gateway to the other workstations in our office, and part of its job is to BLOCK access to PC's connected behind it. I had to go into the configuration menu of the proxy server program and "map" the virtual communication ports that the surveillance software was "listening" on - in our case, tcp port 1999 and udp port 1234. If there is a firewall in your Internet connection, you need to ask the video tech support guys what you need to do to connect to the video server computer that's behind it. Of course, this might not be your problem at all, but I thought it couldn't hurt to throw it in the mix.

 

[rpearson]

I think I may have forgot to enter the Gateway that the ISP gave them while setting this up.Just to sum things up...We have the surveillence PC and a typical PC connected to a 10mb HUB.1 Static IP is present for the remote viewing(per manufacturer).I have the Cable modem connected directly to the HUB via Uplink port.Does the main PC need to be set-up as a host or Internet Connection Sharing?

 

[Gpurrz]

Yes, the static IP address assigned to your client's Internet connection needs to be the IP address of the PC that is the video server. Seems to me that you should have two network cards in the video server machine with one connected to the cable modem and the other connected to the other PC so it can also have access to the Internet. You would set the network card connected to the modem to have its IP address assigned automatically by the Internet connection - this would make the static Internet address, the address by which the video server could be reached by the remote client. Then, if you set up connection sharing on the video server, the other PC would then be able to access the Internet through the same connection. I must say however, that it's not a good idea to be connected directly to the Internet without a firewall - especially with a static address and a high speed connection - but that's a subject for another day.

 

[rpearson]

Can this be done via a HUB by setting the Static IP on the DVR,then setting OBTAIN an IP on the other standard PC?

 

[bcastner]

The server would have two lan adapters.

Adapter #1 is connected to the modem. Its IP if set to obtain it automaticly would be identical to that of the modem. Make sure the modem is in "bridge" mode. The server now has a public Internet IP address.

Adapter #2 would connect to the hub. You would install Windows Internet Connection Sharing. This adapter would have a private LAN address of 192.168.0.1.

The other computer would have its TCP/IP properties set to obtain an IP address automaticly. It would obtain this address from the server machine. It would be a private LAN address.

See this step-by-step guide to setting up Internet Connection Sharing:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/index.htm?image.x=51&image.y=18