hello. I have been trying to get BI to work on my iPhone for a few weeks now and cannot seem to get it to work. I have set up port forwarding (I believe) and it reflects the port I set up on the software on my pc and on the iPhone but still does not work. I believe it has to do with the port I am using but every time I use port checker, every port I use say it is not open. I've tried all of the ports in the 80's and even tried 8081-8090. Not sure how to find an open port. Please help.
Cannot get BI to work on my iPhone when not connected to my wifi.
- Thread starter Jerremy
- Start date
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
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you dont "find" an open port, you have to properly setup port forwarding on your router.
also note that port forwarding is not secure. See the vpn guide for noobs thread.
You will not be able to port forward easily if you are on satellite /lte or similar.
thank you for your prompt reply fenderman. ok do I have to pay for a vpn or is it free? I am assisting a customer in setting this up and want to find the most cost effective way to get it working for him. he has 4 cameras now and wants to purchase at least 2 more if I can get BI to work on his iPhone.
VPNs are free if you have the right router. If they don't have a static IP address, you'll want to use dynamic DNS to map a non-changing domain name to their changing IP address.
Probably not. Most consumer stuff doesn't. I know there's an Asus that supports OpenVPN but I haven't used it. The OpenVPN client is free for your PC or mobile device.
ok is there a way to get it to work on his dlink router? I know that port forwarding isn't secure but he said he wasn't concerned with that and just wants it to work.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
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yes, but as previously mentioned, you should probably not be in the business of installing cameras if you dont know how to do this. In most states you need to be licensed.
So he is not concerned if his network is hacked and personal info stolen?
You'd just forward port 81 to whatever IP address the BI PC is using. Make sure it is using a static IP address on the LAN or else the forwarding will fail the next time you reboot. Then point the app to the WAN IP address with :81 appended.
Another option is something called ngrok.com which BI links to from their site. They have a free version but really costs $5/mo to be useful. It proxys the web server and allows access without port forwarding. I'm playing with it now and it does work.
ok that may be the best option but i'd really like to get the port forwarding done correctly and working. is there a way I can confirm that I've set up the static ip address correctly and then the port forwarding correctly?
You'll need to look at the router's DHCP server and give the BI PC an address outside of that range. I like to set my DHCP servers to handle addresses starting at 100 (for example 192.168.1.100) and reserve everything below that for static addresses. Another option is to set a DHCP reservation for the BI PC.
ok so when I go into the dhcp reservation section of my dlink router it asks for the computer name, ip address and mac address so is there where I enter the ip address of the pc I want BI to be able to access or do I need to enter something else?
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
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you need to stop and get someone who knows what he is doing before you expose your "customer's" entire network to the internet.