Blue Iris - How to set up LAN Access for other devices on your Network - Tutorial

CCTVCam

Known around here
Joined
Sep 25, 2017
Messages
2,660
Reaction score
3,480
This is just a bit of a give back to the community in the form of a tutorial.

This should be a simple feature to set up, but it can sometimes be surprisingly problematic as it only takes the slightest setting in the router or BI to upset the proverbial apple cart and result in a timeout to a login request

1. Enter you router and click the Network Map tab or menu

2. Examine the network and find your BI PC's IP address

3. Check your BI PC is on the same network address range as your other devices ie if they are on 192.168.55.xx your BI PC should also be on 192.168.55.xx (where xx is a number unique to each device)

4. If your BI PC is on another network address range ie in the above example 192.168.75.xx, you probably haven't set up the public side (non camera LAN Adapter if using dual LAN adaptors) of your Blue Iris PC with DCHP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) enabled. If this is the case, you will need to go into the network settings for this adapter and enable DCHP so it is assigned an address in the same range.

5. Presuming your BI PC has an address in the same range as your other LAN devices, or if it did not, you have now enabled DCHP on the public LAN side of the BI server and it now has a DCHP address in the same range, you can now go about setting up access.

6. In Blue Iris, click the "system" (cog) symbol in the very top left hand window

7. Go to the Web Server Tab

8. Click the "Advanced Button" in the bottom right hand corner of the Window and under "Authentification - require from" change this to Non-LAN only (this will give you an automatic login from any device on your LAN (Local Area Network). If you don't want this eg you have users on the LAN you don't want to access the CCTV interface from, you can leave this set to "All". (Quick note here, you can restrict admin functions elsewhere so the person accessing can only view cameras and not alter settings). Click OK.

9. Under the "Users" tab, check to see if "Anonymous" user has appeared. This is the user access now set up for every device on your LAN if you chose Non-LAN only for authentification. This will automatically login in any device on your LAN that enters the BI PC web address. If you chose to restrict access to "All", you will need to create a new user here by clicking the Add button and configuring a username and password. This will then become the username and password device users on your LAN will have to enter in order to login to Blue Iris after typing the BI web address in their devices web browser. Obviously, selecting Authentification for All in the above step is more secure. However, if your Network is properly secured, it shouldn't pose a security issue and on some devices eg tv's, having a login required may cause difficulties and make it slow to enter the BI web server page due to the restricted ability of TV's etc when it comes to entering usernames and passwords ie many tv's require you to use the tv remote to select letters on a virtual keyboard which is a slow process and time maybe vital when you hear a noise whilst viewing your tv thereby favouring automated login.

10. Whichever way to choose to create a User account, either automatically with an anonymous account as a result of requiring authentication for non LAN only, or manually if you choose to restrict authentification to all, you should select the user account you have created and click the edit button (pencil and notepad) at the bottom of the page and go into the account settings and restrict the remote account as you require. I would suggest here not giving the remote account Administration privileges and restricting access to either the viewing of the timeline or timeline + clips. Click OK when finished.

11. Not sure if this step is 100% necessary, although some discourse suggest it may be....

12. Go into the Web Server tab. Follow the instructions for setting up a web server clicking next at the bottom of every page when you've finished (NOTE: DO NOT GO THROUGH THE WHOLE WIZARD - READ THE FOLLOWING FOR WHEN TO STOP). On the page where it says " The software runs a web server on your network by listening to a specific port", you will see the instruction at the bottom of your page to "Click 92.168.xx.xx to open the web server in your browser". Click this to test your web server works. If it does, continue until you get to the port forwarding page. All the pages up to this point should have green ticks on them to confirm that they are set up properly. At the port forwarding page, press cancel as you don't want to set up port forwarding for internal access (you want to set up VPN access for external but that's beyond this here). Click cancel.

You should now be able to go to your device and open it's browser, type in type in the BI web browser's LAN address as shown on the web server tab in system settings (1st page before entering the wizard) and enter it eg. 192.168.xx.xx:81. (The port will be 81 unles you customsed it and i's important to enter this and the colon).

Your devices browser should now open the BI web servers web page. If Authentification was configured to non-LAN Only, you're browser should go straight into the Camera viewing page with such interface access restrictions as you set up in the User account. If Authentification was configured to All, you will go to a login page where you will have to enter your username and password after which you should go the camera viewing page.

Handy tip: Bookmark the CCTV Viewing Page in your TV or devices book marks so you can click on it quickly. This will let you view it quickly without needing to type in the web address every time. Combined with Non-LAN only authentification, this will give you near instant access.
 
Top