Am I on the right track?

[Echo22]

Try searching Empiretecandy on this forum--his name is Andy. He's the vendor of choice for many of us here...highly respected/trusted. I bought all my Dahua cameras through Andy.
And ditto on what the guys said above...you WANT the low light cameras with the biggest aperture you can afford. The Dahua 5442 is an excellent affordable option.

Yeah after reading the sensor section that became clear to me. When I first found the site
i thought it was odd everyone bought from a member here so just glanced over it, but I ended up going through his posts and others and plan to buy my starlights from Andy. As long as I can figure out how to get my router and 2nd NIC setup correctly for BI.

 

[SouthernYankee]

read the following on setup up an ASUS router with openVPN

OpenVPN on a Asus router

Sept 2021 Turned off comments because of ads July 2021 Bought a new Asus router, an RT-AX86U. Loaded it right away with Merlin firmware, s...

randyshomeprojects.blogspot.com

Setting up a second nic is straight forward.
1) pick an IP address group for your second NIC, sub net, this is different then your primary network. like 192.168.2.xx , configure an static IP address for your BI PC
2) all address on the second NIC network are static, there is no DHCP.
3) The second nic is plugged into a switch
4) the cameras are plugged into the switch
5) all cameras have static IP address which are on the subnet like 192.168.2.xx

 

[Echo22]

read the following on setup up an ASUS router with openVPN

OpenVPN on a Asus router

Sept 2021 Turned off comments because of ads July 2021 Bought a new Asus router, an RT-AX86U. Loaded it right away with Merlin firmware, s...

randyshomeprojects.blogspot.com

Setting up a second nic is straight forward.
1) pick an IP address group for your second NIC, sub net, this is different then your primary network. like 192.168.2.xx , configure an static IP address for your BI PC
2) all address on the second NIC network are static, there is no DHCP.
3) The second nic is plugged into a switch
4) the cameras are plugged into the switch
5) all cameras have static IP address which are on the subnet like 192.168.2.xx

You say it’s pretty straight forward, buttt I’m having some issues and can not determine the cause yet. Second NIC doesn’t see anything. Tried hooking my switch to my router and using the amcrest view pro app, p2p connection (same network) and still can’t find anything. I just dug out a power supply cord and skipped the switch all together and was finally able to make a connection with the amcrest app. So I’m assuming the switch is bad. Hoping I can find a decent one locally.

 

[SouthernYankee]

If set up correctly you will NOT be able to access cameras from the internet or even your local network. The only place to access the cameras on the second NIC is the BI computer.

What are the IPs of the cameras ?
What is the IP of your first nic ?
What is the IP of your second nic ?
What is the ip of your router ?

 

[Echo22]

If set up correctly you will NOT be able to access cameras from the internet or even your local network. The only place to access the cameras on the second NIC is the BI computer.

What are the IPs of the cameras ?
What is the IP of your first nic ?
What is the IP of your second nic ?
What is the ip of your router ?

Yeah my switch has providing power and status light blinking so it may not be that.
first/main NIC:
ipv4: 10.122.15.192
DHCP/gateway: 10.122.15.26

2nd NIC:
IPv4: 10.204.32.

router:
Wan ip: 173.45.189.x
LAN ip: 10.122.15.26

cameras I am unable to find an ip for. They do not show up when searching in BI or amcrest ip config tool.

 

[samplenhold]

1. Dahua cams default to 192.168.1.108 until you initialize and change the IP in the camera web GUI. So initially to be seen by any computer on your LAN, that computer needs to be on the following subnet: 192.168.1.xxx
2. Your cams should never be on the same subnet as your gateway, either physically or logically.
3. Cams should never have to pass through a router.

See the simplified diagram below.



Edit: The BI PC NIC #1 does not have to be connected to the router. It could just as easily be connected to the switch that then connects to the router. That is actually how I have mine set up.

 

[SouthernYankee]

The second dic does not have a complete address.

If the dahua IP camera is on the same physical network as your PC, then use the Dahua IP config tool to access the camera and change its IP address. Sometime it is not necessary to change the IP address of the PC.

DahuaWiki

dahuawiki.com

on your BI PC with the two NICs, screen shots of the TWO "Internet Protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties" screens

 

[samplenhold]

Here is a better representation of a simple two NIC network topology. The second one is what I actually use. I can directly access the cams from the BI PC or my Office PC. The cameras are physically isolated from the internet and the rest of my LAN. But I can RDP into the BI PC from anywhere on my LAN.

This also allows me to temporarily place a new cam on the 192.168.1.xxx LAN so I can initialize it and then change it's IP address while I am in my office by using a POE power injector.

 

[Echo22]

The second dic does not have a complete address.

If the dahua IP camera is on the same physical network as your PC, then use the Dahua IP config tool to access the camera and change its IP address. Sometime it is not necessary to change the IP address of the PC.

DahuaWiki

dahuawiki.com

on your BI PC with the two NICs, screen shots of the TWO "Internet Protocol version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties" screens

 

[Echo22]

Here is a better representation of a simple two NIC network topology. The second one is what I actually use. I can directly access the cams from the BI PC or my Office PC. The cameras are physically isolated from the internet and the rest of my LAN. But I can RDP into the BI PC from anywhere on my LAN.

This also allows me to temporarily place a new cam on the 192.168.1.xxx LAN so I can initialize it and then change it's IP address while I am in my office by using a POE power injector.

View attachment 64666View attachment 64667

so mine just goes modem -> router -> lan line to BI PC nic 1 -> bi pc to poe switch. that should be fine right?

 

[samplenhold]

so mine just goes modem -> router -> lan line to BI PC nic 1 -> bi pc to poe switch. that should be fine right?

Not sure what you mean here. What is Ian line to BI PC nic 1?

If you are saying that the BI PC is connected to the router from NIC 1 and the POE switch is connected to the BI PC through NIC 2, then yes that would work once you have the cameras IP addresses all configured to the same sub-net as the BI PC NIC 2.

 

[samplenhold]

So it looks like you have changed the IPV4 addresses since your post #25? Where you stated that the addresses were in the 10.122.15.xxx ranges?

 

[Echo22]

Not sure what you mean here. What is Ian line to BI PC nic 1?

If you are saying that the BI PC is connected to the router from NIC 1 and the POE switch is connected to the BI PC through NIC 2, then yes that would work once you have the cameras IP addresses all configured to the same sub-net as the BI PC NIC 2.

i just mean my BI PC NIC1 is wired to the router with rj45, everything else runs on wifi. and the POE switch is connected to the BI PC through NIC2.

 

[Echo22]

So it looks like you have changed the IPV4 addresses since your post #25? Where you stated that the addresses were in the 10.122.15.xxx ranges?

Yeah i switched the NIC1 back to its default, and NIC2 to what i believe is the initial subnet the cams use. l am still not able to discover any cams with the Dahua IP config tool when searching 192.168.2.x

 

[SouthernYankee]

I do not use DHCP of any of my PC, rokus, cameras, routers, chromecasts. If there is a power failure , it will take you forever to get it back up as all the address will change, unless hard configured in the router.

in my nomenclature NIC 1 (192.168.1.192) connects to the home network, the Router. NIC 2 (192.168.2.22) connects to the cameras.

Please describe in detail how the hardware is configured for the NIC 2 camera network.

If the cameras are configured to use DHCP, they will not work on NIC 2, as there is no DHCP servers on NIC 2.
If the cameras are using DHCP put them on the NIC 1 network, change there address to a static 192.168.2.x , then put the cameras back on the nic 2 network.

 

[samplenhold]

l am still not able to discover any cams with the Dahua IP config tool when searching 192.168.2.x

Like I stated before, Dahua cams are factory set at 192.168.1.108 for their IP address. If you connect it on 192.168.2.xxx it will not be found.

 

[Echo22]

Well I certainly appreciate all of the assistance and you guys bearing with me. I am pretty sure I have a bad cable, got a cam to show up for a second while applying pressure to the cable. I’m going to throw together a couple new cables and see what I get. When the camera showed i also had my switch moved to my main NIC and left NIC2 unplugged.

 

[SouthernYankee]

for testing always used premade store purchased cables. I try to avoid home made cables, they have a lot of problems.

 

[samplenhold]

Another thing, until you have the default IP address changed to a static IP address on the proper sub-net, only connect one cam at a time. If you connect two (or more) of the cams that have a default address of 192.168.1.108 none of them will be accessible as there is an IP address conflict. All cams and any other equipment on the LAN have to have unique IP addresses.

 

[Echo22]

for testing always used premade store purchased cables. I try to avoid home made cables, they have a lot of problems.

View attachment 64680

View attachment 64681

It was actually a store bought cable that was the issue ironically. It’s an old one that was laying around though and I dropped my switch the other day and caught it by the cable, think that may have done it in.