Question on granting one camera access to a user

Weather_Junkie

Getting the hang of it
Oct 16, 2017
101
15
Smoky Mountains, TN
In short, I installed a camera at my front door to cover walk ups, the street and my neighbor's driveway. I got him to pay for it all and now I want to grant him 24/7 access to just that camera so he can monitor his precious vehicles (don't ask).

Is it possible in BI to limit my neighbor to just that one camera? I created a user profile for him, selected "Limit to Camera Group" and created a group for him but I don't know where to select the camera. Also, I did a search about this on the forums and someone mentioned that you can't have just one camera in the group. If that is the case, I can give him access to my driveway cam but again, I don't know where to set that up.
Thanks.
 
Why not set up a user directly on the camera and give him access via the camera's IP and interface skipping BI all together?
You'd have to port forward to cam's IP and give cam access to Internet, a big no-no.
 
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You'd have to port forward to cam's IP and give cam access to Internet, a big no-no.

Or could give wifi access to the LAN as they are right next door. Obviously may need to limit what he can access on the LAN. Maybe use port isolation on guest wireless network?
 
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hopefully you didnt port forward
I have not done anything yet. Is it okay to let him use the Dahua app on his phone? Sometimes on my phone I use the Amcrest app instead of BI to check on the cameras. Is this unsafe? For the BI app, I created a 1050 port to check on my cameras when I get an alert. I know no open ports are the best practice but I only check the alert and then close the app.
 
I have not done anything yet. Is it okay to let him use the Dahua app on his phone? Sometimes on my phone I use the Amcrest app instead of BI to check on the cameras. Is this unsafe? For the BI app, I created a 1050 port to check on my cameras when I get an alert. I know no open ports are the best practice but I only check the alert and then close the app.

If the port is open, it's open 24/7 regarding when you open the app! Close the ports and setup a VPN for checking your cameras when you are away from your network
 
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OpenVPN client is free for your phone, A Raspberry Pi with OpenVPN server cost about $30 - $40... Failing that depending on what router you have you may already have the OpenVPN server application sitting on it already.
 
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Is it possible in BI to limit my neighbor to just that one camera? I created a user profile for him, selected "Limit to Camera Group" and created a group for him but I don't know where to select the camera.
The next step is easy. For each camera that you want him to have access to, go into that camera's properties and on the General tab, click the "Select..." (next to groups) and then add the group you created for him to that camera.
 
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Or could give wifi access to the LAN as they are right next door. Obviously may need to limit what he can access on the LAN. Maybe use port isolation on guest wireless network?
He lives across the street but him buying this camera and having it point at his house is so that when he travels, he wants to be able to check on his vehicles and garage so remote phone access is top priority. Plus, he does everything through his iPhone and doesn't even own a computer in his house. Like I said, big time traveler.
 
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If the port is open, it's open 24/7 regarding when you open the app! Close the ports and setup a VPN for checking your cameras when you are away from your network
Since I barely know about much about ports and nothing about configuring VPN on my PC, I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. When I said I opened a port to check on my cameras, I did it through my AT&T router by creating a pinhole just for Blue Iris. Is that still a bad thing because I'm not behind a VPN?
 
He lives across the street but him buying this camera and having it point at his house is so that when he travels, he wants to be able to check on his vehicles and garage so remote phone access is top priority. Plus, he does everything through his iPhone and doesn't even own a computer in his house. Like I said, big time traveler.

HI Weather,

Maybe best to just get a camera which has a microSD slot on the board and set up the camera for this purposes isolated from your network w/a vlan.

Since I barely know about much about ports and nothing about configuring VPN on my PC, I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. When I said I opened a port to check on my cameras, I did it through my AT&T router by creating a pinhole just for Blue Iris. Is that still a bad thing because I'm not behind a VPN?

YES.. bad thing! Like parking your nice car in a bad neighborhood.... doesn't matter if you think it's locked, it will get taken / vandalized
 
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HI Weather,

Maybe best to just get a camera which has a microSD slot on the board and set up the camera for this purposes isolated from your network w/a vlan.



YES.. bad thing! Like parking your nice car in a bad neighborhood.... doesn't matter if you think it's locked, it will get taken / vandalized
Well crap! I guess I'll have to research how to get a VPN working on my system. Initiate brain scramble mode.
 
You could do this as in my post #3 of June 6 of this year ==>> Guest View of a Single Camera

Just ignore my instruction to "....Have custom HTML 'Homepage' launched when the user logs in successfully" by not typing in "ui3.htm" or anything else in the 'Homepage' box.