BI-5 Remote Management? Anyone using it?

[TJH]

Has anyone played with this? Even after reading the release notes I am not sure I fully understand it.
I have BI at 3 locations... Home (Main Location), Office, and Cabin.
Does the new remote management option allow me to view the cameras running on the machines at the remote locations on the Blue Iris running on my Home (Main location) machine without port forwarding all the remote cameras to my main machine?
Or does it just let me control the settings and play back video clips?
Or does it just change my local view to be whatever is on the remote server?

It may be obvious that I haven't not upgraded my remote locations to BI5 yet. Perhaps when i am able to do that my questions will be easily answered. But I thought I would ask here first since I have not been able to update yet.

 

[Tinman]

Just played a little with it tonight on my lan. It basically is just like a Remote Desktop connection or teamviewer experience. You will have total control of the remote BI machine. They have to be running BI5 in service mode. You only need the web server port forwarded, not all the cameras.

 

[TJH]

Thanks for the reply! So it swaps out the view to whatever is on the remote machine?
No way to use the remote management to add the remote machines cameras to the local machine, like a separate group or something? That would be ideal.

I am currently attempting to update my main machine remotely so I will be able to play with it eventually tonight I hope. I cant believe there isn't more chatter about this feature. It seems fantastic to me.

 

[Tinman]

Thanks for the reply! So it swaps out the view to whatever is on the remote machine?
No way to use the remote management to add the remote machines cameras to the local machine, like a separate group or something? That would be ideal.

I am currently attempting to update my main machine remotely so I will be able to play with it eventually tonight I hope. I cant believe there isn't more chatter about this feature. It seems fantastic to me.

Yes it is exactly as if you were on the remote system, my only concern is speed of it over wan, on the lan it is very responsive. About adding cameras to local , I haven't played with it that much.

 

[TJH]

I should be able to give the WAN speed requirements a real test because my cabin has a terrible 1up 5 down connection. I have been able to stream a single camera to BI4 with no issues though.
I remoted in to my main machine and updated it to BI5 with no issues at all. Unfortunately when I try to add the remote server to that main machine I get some funky ghosting and overlay issues and cant type in the name or IP address needed. Probably something to do with Team Viewer.
I also wonder if the main machine needs the port forwarding like the remote machines do? I hate to port forward anything there. The office BI is on a stand alone machine connected to its own static IP address with its own router so I don't worry about it much.
I did read through the new help specifically about the remote management and it has some neat security features but I didn't see anything about using remote management to add cameras through that feature. If you figure out that it's possible please post back.

 

[tofu]

Worked once to pull some footage of someone who backed into my car, but now it just constantly crashes. Served its purpose i guess

 

[Tinman]

My brother and I played a few hours today with "remote management" and found these issues:

1. The user must also have administrator box checked in user settings or we would get the error: trouble connecting: could not fetch settings

2. when going into the motion sensor configuration and click on a zone, the screen is blank.

3. we could not get the "disconnect" button to work in the "blue iris status\remote section

Otherwise it was very responsive as far as settings changing etc. The viewing of clips was a little slow to load, but once it was it played ok. I sent these to BI support.

 

[nibblerrick]

I think the motion sensor configuration may be a bug that could be ironed out in the future.
What I didn't really get is if there is an option to use the remote console without an extra license, sind when I am remote connected it says activated and I can click "connect at startup" but when running BI it runs in demo first and won't connect. Or have I overseen something?

 

[fenderman]

I think the motion sensor configuration may be a bug that could be ironed out in the future.
What I didn't really get is if there is an option to use the remote console without an extra license, sind when I am remote connected it says activated and I can click "connect at startup" but when running BI it runs in demo first and won't connect. Or have I overseen something?

You will need a second license. Otherwise simply use the webserver.

 

[nibblerrick]

Okay, thanks. I had hopes just for remote management it would work without. Maybe in the future.
Webserver & Remotedesktop are of course good options to use, but I like the idea of a managementconsole I could just install and connect directly to licensed servers.
So, back to all the other features in BI I don't know enough yet :-D

 

[TJH]

My brother and I played a few hours today with "remote management" and found these issues:

1. The user must also have administrator box checked in user settings or we would get the error: trouble connecting: could not fetch settings

2. when going into the motion sensor configuration and click on a zone, the screen is blank.

3. we could not get the "disconnect" button to work in the "blue iris status\remote section

Otherwise it was very responsive as far as settings changing etc. The viewing of clips was a little slow to load, but once it was it played ok. I sent these to BI support.

1. Which box are you referring to? I am having trouble getting it to work at all remotely.
2. Couldn't get that far
3. Noticed the same issue.

 

[Tinman]

Go into the settings/ user section and make sure the user who is connecting has administrator box checked as well as remote management.

 

[TJH]

Go into the settings/ user section and make sure the user who is connecting has administrator box checked as well as remote management.

Sweet! That was it!
That is pretty slick. It pulls up the entire program on my home machine just like it was running locally.
It appears you cant watch a local camera and a remote camera at the same time? However, it really is just like changing to a separate group of cameras so its pretty quick to view the remote cameras.
Just to add some more info for anyone searching:
My local machine is running 10 Pro
The remote machine is running 7 Pro. BI-5 is running as a service. Static IP and port 81 forwarded. I had previously set up web viewing so I just left everything the same.

Now to figure out why my cabin machine won't work when I port forward myself but will work when I turn on "allow UPnP" and let the wizard do it.

 

[Tinman]

Sweet! That was it!
That is pretty slick. It pulls up the entire program on my home machine just like it was running locally.
It appears you cant watch a local camera and a remote camera at the same time? However, it really is just like changing to a separate group of cameras so its pretty quick to view the remote cameras.
Just to add some more info for anyone searching:
My local machine is running 10 Pro
The remote machine is running 7 Pro. BI-5 is running as a service. Static IP and port 81 forwarded. I had previously set up web viewing so I just left everything the same.

Now to figure out why my cabin machine won't work when I port forward myself but will work when I turn on "allow UPnP" and let the wizard do it.

5.0.0.54 has fixed some of the zone edit screens, you can see them and draw, but it is not saving them right as far as Zone A-B-C etc. For example: if you draw a rectangle on Zone A and the click the hot zone....it makes the ones you made in A turn into red ?? I have reported this issue as well. BUT yes it works pretty cool...one click and you are on another system !

 

[TL1096r]

Okay, thanks. I had hopes just for remote management it would work without. Maybe in the future.
Webserver & Remotedesktop are of course good options to use, but I like the idea of a managementconsole I could just install and connect directly to licensed servers.
So, back to all the other features in BI I don't know enough yet :-D

So you need another BI5 & key running to connect to another bi5 machine with remote management? Would remote desktop in a LAN be better in this case then?

Is it a bad idea to use windows remote desktop to just view the full BI console for long periods of times or is it just to change settings?

 

[TJH]

To use the remote management part the other server needs to be running BI-5 as well. So yes, you would need to upgrade both machines to use the feature.
However if the other server is on your LAN and only running BI-4 and you only want to view it just set it up to use the web server. That what I do locally and it works well.

 

[looney2ns]

Sweet! That was it!
That is pretty slick. It pulls up the entire program on my home machine just like it was running locally.
It appears you cant watch a local camera and a remote camera at the same time? However, it really is just like changing to a separate group of cameras so its pretty quick to view the remote cameras.
Just to add some more info for anyone searching:
My local machine is running 10 Pro
The remote machine is running 7 Pro. BI-5 is running as a service. Static IP and port 81 forwarded. I had previously set up web viewing so I just left everything the same.

Now to figure out why my cabin machine won't work when I port forward myself but will work when I turn on "allow UPnP" and let the wizard do it.

Don't forward ports....ever. Turn OFF UPnP everywhere you find it.
Read this: How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk

 

[bbakels]

can somebody shed some light on the license needed for the remoteview client? is a LT license sufficient or should it be another full BI license, and what are the costs?

 

[Tinman]

can somebody shed some light on the license needed for the remoteview client? is a LT license sufficient or should it be another full BI license, and what are the costs?

Yes, you need a B5 license on each end to run remote management. As far as LT vs FULL would depend on how many cameras you have at each location. I would email support and ask them for a discounted second full license, they use to do this in the past, not positive about that anymore. I don't recommend anyone buying a LT version....ONE camera LOL

 

[Jan Werbinski]

I tried remote management to BI running on i3-8100 with 500MP/s. It's very efficient for CPU. Remote management add average 15% CPU instead of 35% when running local interface. Playing clips is even better. Locally my CPU hits the 100%.

BI server CPU i3-8100 with 500MP/s, H.264 and hardware acceleration, continous recording.
Only service 35%
Local interface 70-80%
Local interface playing clips 100%
Remote management 50%
Remote playing clips 40%

I bought second licence and it's definitely worth it.