Did I setup my cam correctly?

[vagrant]

Hi guys, I'm new to security cams and networking and want to start off by thanking everyone on this site for the useful information. I just bought a IPC-HDW5231R-ZE and want to make sure I have the basic software/networking setup correctly.

Current setup: Camera > connected to POE switch > connected to router
-recording locally to mircoSD card (saving money for NVR or NAS)
-Smart PSS installed on my PC
-gDMSS Plus & OpenVPN installed on my phone
-Router is a Netgear router: I registered for a DDNS hostname and turned on the VPN service

I can view my camera on my phone via gDMSS as long as I'm connected to OpenVPN. Push notifications work for motion detection even when I'm not connected to OpenVPN (can someone explain how I can receive push notifications even though I'm not connected).

Is there anything else I need to do? I haven't changed/configured any numbers or ports, etc. I still need to find time to play around with the settings on the camera as well.

 

[awsum140]

Disable things like PnP in the camera. The idea being to stop the camera from "phoning home" so any communication to the internet, other than through the VPN, should be shut down.

 

[vagrant]

Disable things like PnP in the camera. The idea being to stop the camera from "phoning home" so any communication to the internet, other than through the VPN, should be shut down.

Thanks

Network > UPnP (unchecked)
Network > Access Platform > P2P (unchecked)