Almost cracked it! But need help to fix and finish please!

[ChrisRR]

New kid on the block here so please bear with me! Briefly: Apple router died of old age, replaced with new one - lost CCTV - as you do! Couldn't get hold of any CCTV guys to take the job on so I undertook to have a go myself. I have managed to get to the point (after so many hours!) where I can now see all 4 cam views on my iPhone both on internal WiFi and on 4G so I assume I've cracked the tricky bit of being able to view away from the house. Not been out for 3 days so don't know 100% if this is true. I run Apple Macs which prior to router death were fine and I was able to view cams on them using iVMS4200. After hours of fiddling I have now been able to see the view from all cams in iVMS BUT only through the settings; "Remote Configuration". I can't see anything in "Main View". I have probably stumbled my way to this point by guessing each step and I guess some steps were wrong as I hadn't a clue what the hell I was doing. I assume the program might have picked up remnant settings prior to the disaster and through luck I am able to see the cam views in that setting? Or I made some lucky guesses? What I need help with is what I need to do - perhaps from scratch - to bring/import/setup the system so that I can get back to normal. When I open up iVMS now, I get the setup wizard which is where I think is my problem. I literally need a wizard to sort me out! So, in summary, I can see what there is to see on my iPhone and I get all 4 cams and I can play back recordings etc. It's just on the main iVMS where I'm having issues. I've done work inside the router opening ports (8000) but again, I'm not 100% I've done everything I need to do in there, but would love to learn and reunite with my family, my job, and Earth. Apologies for the long post! Cheers, Chris.

 

[Securame]

If you opened/forwarded just one port (8000 server port), you are missing the RTSP port (by default 554).

 

[ChrisRR]

Thanks for that - I'm just trying to work out how to open that one in the Airport Extreme router as I type. I have entered an extra port '554' and have restarted the thing. I'll report back with any news. Thanks again.

 

[ChrisRR]

YESSSS!!!!! IT'S WORKED! You're a star! I am so chucking fuffed I've managed to get it all back on (only taken 3 bloody days!). Brilliant, thank you so mucking fuch. Really appreciate your help. Take the rest of the week off mate. Cheers! Chris

 

[tangent]

If you forward ports and expose your cameras to the internet, it's pretty much guaranteed that your cameras will eventually get hacked and/or bricked.

 

[ChrisRR]

OK - thanks for that. What do I need to do to prevent that then? As I'm new to this, I understood that if I want to be able to see what the cameras see when I'm away from home, I need to set up port forwarding?

 

[tangent]

OK - thanks for that. What do I need to do to prevent that then? As I'm new to this, I understood that if I want to be able to see what the cameras see when I'm away from home, I need to set up port forwarding?

A secure method of accessing your network remotely. Options include: setting up a vpn server (on your router is easiest if it's supported), hamachi, ngrok...

 

[ChrisRR]

OK thank you - understood. I very rarely use the internet web interface with the system I have - I just used that as a way of checking that it would still work when I am away from the house. What I do use a lot is the iPhone app when I'm away. What I can do, now I have it all running well, is to only use the Mac application set to the internal IP address of 192.168.1.xx etc. Or am I farting up the wrong gum tree here? In any case, I appreciate the advice and I'm grateful for your time. I just now need to know how I get the display of playback to show little spikes of activity rather than a sold, 12-hour line of recorded nothingness that I have to scrub through to see what went on... Any help in that regard would be brilliant. ;-)