Dual NIC setup on your Blue Iris Machine

TL1096r

TL1096r

IPCT Contributor
Jan 28, 2017
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In making your system more secure this is a great option to eliminate your cameras calling home / connecting to the internet

This is a great place to start to setup a bit more secure network and learn more about IP/Subnets etc. before adding dual NICs:
Router Security - Subnets and IP addresses

You will need:
-2 NIC
-Blue Iris on a suitable computer - choose here:
Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk
-POE switch

This setup is easy to setup once you know what you are doing.

Connect your POE into the second NIC on your computer.

Then go to:
-Control Panel:
->Network and sharing center -> Normally on left side menu you want to click 'change adapter settings'

RIGHT click on the NIC where the POE switch is connected:
->click properties

It will look like this on Windows 10:
KQbBGTM.png



->double click on the "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" or click 'Properties' box AFTER you highlight "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)"

It will look like this:

TQU8tsL.png


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After double clicking "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)":
Click the "Use the following IP address"

-enter the IP you want to use for your cams. Choose one that will not conflict with anything else like
"192.168.55.10"

Now you can make the cam IPs 192.168.55.xxx - the only number you cannot use is .10. Example of 4 cams would be:
"192.168.55.20"
"192.168.55.21"
"192.168.55.22"
"192.168.55.23"

Default gateway will be blank.

It will look like this:
2fKLb9A.png


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My cameras are Dahua and I was able to access them through IE.

Follow steps below to get this to work so you can simply type 192.168.1.108 in IE.

-Add a similar IP to Dahua so it can log into IE. For example: '192.168.1.55' (you can use any number between 1-254 and not only .55 - just do not use .108 so it doesn't conflict with the Dahua IP).

It will look like this:
aq9WbFl.png

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Now you are set - plug in each Dahua IP Cam and type 192.168.1.108 into IE - setup the password and change the IP to "192.168.55.20 / .21 / .22 / .23" and so on.

After you setup your password you will see the Dahua GUI - go to:
'settings' tab -> then go to Network -> TCP/IP

The gateway will be 'made-up' so it cannot connect to the internet on your Dahua. Please make sure your Default Gateway is the same IP as your cameras but use .254 so it doesn't conflict with any future cameras you will add.

It will look like this:

rkd6FnV.png


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Auto-detect in your cams on Blue Iris by using the 192.168.55.20/21/22 IP

This at first looks more intimidating than it is. Being a newbie and never seeing or knowing how this worked it was a bit confusing. Member @Mr_D remote connected and set this up in 5 minutes so I would like to give a thank you to his patience in helping me with this setup!

I hope this little DIY helps other newbies looking for a more security. I hope to get vlans, pfsense, vpn through router setup and I will try my best to explain my setup with steps in the future.

Setup will look like this:
zCHixQN.png


-----For Wireless Cam Dual NIC setup-----

@SouthernYankee Quick Guide to Dual NIC with a wireless camera / Doorbell Camera.
Using a second NIC with a wireless camera is straight forward.
1) Get an access point, wire it to the switch that is on the second NIC, give it an IP address that is in the second NIC sub net range.
2) Set the access point to have a different SSID then your home WiFi, make sure that it is on a different channel than your home WiFi.
3) Configure the wireless camera to have an IP address in the second NIC sub net range.
4) Configure the wireless camera to have the same SSID and channel as the access point.

More detailed info - I will try to take screenshots and add as much detail as possible from all the info I gathered from: southern/bp2008/catcam. Great minds here allowing me to get this small write-up together to give more detail.

Plug the new wifi (access point) into the switch that is connected to the 2nd NIC:
-> Turn off DHCP server
-> Change LAN address
-> Configure the wireless camera to have an IP address in the second NIC sub net range.
-> Unique SSID that is different than main router
-> Set WPA2 Password
-> Choose Channel 1, 6 or 11. Make sure it is a different channel than your main router. If all 3 are already in use, pick whichever is furthest away or used the least.
-> Turn off 40MHz mode. Only use 20MHz mode
-> Configure the wireless camera to have an IP address in the second NIC sub net range.

-----For Wireless Cam Dual NIC setup-----

There is a lot of questions after setting up a dual NIC - please refer to this thread to see more setup info on VPNs:

Newbie Starter Guide to IP Cam System – VPN setup – Computer Hardware – Blue Iris – Dahua Cameras

This is an intermediate / newbie guide for people just starting out looking for a surveillance setup. I know this setup might not be for everyone and there are many options. You can find a lot of this information in the Wiki: IP Cam Talk Wiki | IP Cam Talk A great place to start in the Wiki...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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Nice write up. Good screen shots. Well done. I have been using dual NIC for over a year. It is a simple security measure.
Maybe add the write up to the wiki, if it is not already there.
 
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This is very much appreciated. I was actually looking thru post trying to figure how to do this and trying to search google for a write up! Awesome!


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Mike46052 said:
This is very much appreciated. I was actually looking thru post trying to figure how to do this and trying to search google for a write up! Awesome!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I am happy you found this useful.

I hope to share more in the future.

SouthernYankee said:
Nice write up. Good screen shots. Well done. I have been using dual NIC for over a year. It is a simple security measure.
Maybe add the write up to the wiki, if it is not already there.
Click to expand...

It means a lot coming from a Pro-IPCT Member so I appreciate it.
 
Cupofschmoe said:
I honestly, think this an easier alternative for those who are not network savvy like myself.
I've been trying to wrapmy head around subnetting and vlan's but dual NICs just seem easier to comprehend ATM.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I appreciate it. This is better than nothing.

@catcamstaris very good at creating a more secure setup and when I have time I will be trying some of his suggestions and sharing them.
 
To use wireless on a second NIC setup

Using a second NIC with a wireless camera is straight forward.
1) Get an access point, wire it to the switch that is on the second NIC, give it an IP address that is in the second nic sub net range.
2) set the access point to have a different SSID then your home wifi, make sure that it is on a different channel than your than your home wifi.
3) configure the wireless camera to have an IP address in the second nic sub net range.
4) configure the wireless camera to have the same SSID and channel as the access point.

Note: I do not recommend wireless for security cameras, it is generally a bad idea
 
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Thank you for this detailed post. I was trying to do the same thing but IP work is fairly difficult for me to wrap my head around the thoery side. This worked like a charm and now my router is not handling all that data traffic and is now direct to my blue iris PC.
 
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I added a $14.00 PCIe x1 nic card for the second network. Very easy to set up on a PC. Nothing special about the card.
 
Great write-up. Been using the dual NIC implementation for quite a while now with homes and small businesses whose network hardware isn't capable of creating non-routed VLANs. Another nice feature to have on your BI computer in this scenario is an NTP server so all the camera dates/times remain accurate. You can enable the NTP server in Windows but it takes a bit of poking around. Instead, I use software called Net Time over at timesycntool dot-com. It's free and open source. I set the software up to run as a service on the BI computer and it serves date and time info to the non-internet connected cameras. Use your BI computer's camera NIC IP as the NTP server IP in your camera's config. Especially handy if your cameras don't easily support daylight savings time - some of the cheaper IP cameras miss a few of the DST settings.
 
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CH Consulting said:
Great write-up. Been using the dual NIC implementation for quite a while now with homes and small businesses whose network hardware isn't capable of creating non-routed VLANs. Another nice feature to have on your BI computer in this scenario is an NTP server so all the camera dates/times remain accurate. You can enable the NTP server in Windows but it takes a bit of poking around. Instead, I use software called Net Time over at timesycntool dot-com. It's free and open source. I set the software up to run as a service on the BI computer and it serves date and time info to the non-internet connected cameras. Use your BI computer's camera NIC IP as the NTP server IP in your camera's config. Especially handy if your cameras don't easily support daylight savings time - some of the cheaper IP cameras miss a few of the DST settings.
Click to expand...

Thank You! Yes, I also made a NTP write-up here:

Setting up NetTime Time Sync Tool on Windows 10

This is a great way to sync all your cameras. If cameras are not synced correctly they could be thrown out as evidence. This will not adjust for Daylight Savings - you must enter DST Start and End time in your Camera. I want to thank @mikeynags for all the information to get this up and running...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
Why would someone want to go through the hassle and expense (NIC card, switch, ?) to do this? If someone is able to see my cameras, then I have bigger problems because they have already penetrated my firewall. What am I missing?:idk:
 
As second nic is $15.00 . The problem is not someone contacting the cameras. It is the cameras calling home after it has collected you network data. It also keeps your camera traffic off of your home network.
 
Thanks!
Once I put my cameras on their own network, behind my Blue Iris PC, I won't be able to log into the cameras from any other computer on my network, right? I'll have log into them using the Blue Iris PC. Not that it's a big deal, or that I do that often. I thought I read where there was a way to log into them from other PCs (not on that network), but maybe not. I've been reading so much lately I can't keep track of it all. :)
 
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