Dual NIC setup on your Blue Iris Machine

@wittaj
I was able to have the POE switch directly connected to the Blue Iris machine and the wireless cameras to the main router (2 NICS). They are all segmented on different Networks. Besides security reasons..does having the 5MP POE cameras connected directly to the BI machine instead of going through the router first... does that help with the bandwidth?

I ask because if in the end, the main router will still be sending/broadcasting that signal/feed (wired/wireless) via wifi so the app can see it... does that really alleviate the main router from doing more or less work vs the POE switch connected to the main router, then from the main router to the blue iris machine?

I guess I am a bit confused about that. Sorry for the wrong terminology..just trying to understand the best path to set this up. I've had them both ways and I really don't see any difference, but would like to leave it setup the way it's supposed to work "better".
Can you shed some light on that?
 
Pastelaso said:
@wittaj
I was able to have the POE switch directly connected to the Blue Iris machine and the wireless cameras to the main router (2 NICS). They are all segmented on different Networks. Besides security reasons..does having the 5MP POE cameras connected directly to the BI machine instead of going through the router first... does that help with the bandwidth?

I ask because if in the end, the main router will still be sending/broadcasting that signal/feed (wired/wireless) via wifi so the app can see it... does that really alleviate the main router from doing more or less work vs the POE switch connected to the main router, then from the main router to the blue iris machine?

I guess I am a bit confused about that. Sorry for the wrong terminology..just trying to understand the best path to set this up. I've had them both ways and I really don't see any difference, but would like to leave it setup the way it's supposed to work "better".
Can you shed some light on that?
Click to expand...

Yes that will save bandwidth on thetherapy. Not having the actual camera go thru the router. Sending video feed from BI to the phone app via wifi is a lot less bandwidth requirements than the cameras, plus it is only going thru router when you are using the app.
 
wittaj said:
Sending video feed from BI to the phone app via wifi is a lot less bandwidth requirements than the cameras, plus it is only going thru router when you are using the app.
Click to expand...
But, wouldn't it be the same since once the video feed is sent by the main router, it includes both the POE cameras and the wireless ones on the same wireless signal?
What I mean is.. in the end, the router will have to carry all feed coming from different places because all feed/signals will gather up in one place in the final destination which is the main router, no?
 
Pastelaso said:
But, wouldn't it be the same since once the video feed is sent by the main router, it includes both the POE cameras and the wireless ones on the same wireless signal?
What I mean is.. in the end, the router will have to carry all feed coming from different places because all feed/signals will gather up in one place in the final destination which is the main router, no?
Click to expand...

No because the video from BI can be compressed and not as resource intensive as the raw video/data coming from the camera.

Most can watch the app from a mobile device with a low speed of 1mbps, but would choke if trying to watch it directly from the camera.

The router is only getting what the feed is from BI and not the feed directly from every camera.
 
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Sybertiger said:
LOL...some of y'all are really overthinking this dual NIC thing.

Your NICs are going to be assigned static IP addresss BY YOU! In the diagram below, if your home network router is 192.168.1.1 like most people then the home network is 192.168.1.X so make your main BI server NIC (red) have a fixed IP like 192.168.1.100. Then make your Camera side NIC (green) have a fixed address like 192.168.0.100. Only devices on the red side can talk directly to your BI server. Devices (IP cams) on the green side can only be accessed by your BI server and they all have IP addresses 192.168.0.X. If you stick your BI server in a closet without a keyboard, mouse, monitor then use TeamViewer or RDP from any computer on your red side network to pull up the desktop/screen of your Windows 10 BI server. If you are away from home on another network like a mobile phone network (cell tower), a friend's network or any WiFi network anywhere in the world connect to your home network first using VPN. Hopefully, you have a router with built-in VPN capability like OpenVPN...one reason I like ASUS routers. After connecting via VPN to your home network you can access your BI server with TeamViewer or RDP. If you want to access Blue Iris directly then use UI3 on a computer or any mobile device or use the BI app on a mobile phone. You'll turn-off VPN when you get back home. To access BI camera view using UI3 use a Chrome browser and use the address of your BI server. If your BI server (red side) has an IP address of 192.168.1.100 then in the browser you enter the address such as where 81 is the port number.


View attachment 55258


View attachment 55133
Click to expand...
Sybertiger, Following your above example, can the red and green be VLAN ,running on the same lan. My cameras are distributed around with house monitoring, TiVo units, MOAC, so I have to share the “wire” . BI machine would have two ports, red and green number, plugged into the same switch( managed).
Router to internet would be red. So green cameras couldn’t get to internet???
Thanks, Rob
 
HHSquared said:
Can anybody give some guidance on setting this up on Windows 11?
Click to expand...

The process is basically the same regardless of OS.

Install the 2nd card and then go into the network settings and change the IP address to whatever you want it to be.
 
wittaj said:
The process is basically the same regardless of OS.

Install the 2nd card and then go into the network settings and change the IP address to whatever you want it to be.
Click to expand...

yea I tried to, it was just a bit confusing for me. I was trying to do it with the screenshots but Windows 11 is very different.
 
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wittaj said:
The process is basically the same regardless of OS.

Install the 2nd card and then go into the network settings and change the IP address to whatever you want it to be.
Click to expand...

I think I got it setup correctly, but I'm struggling to find my cameras on the network (empiretech). Do you (or anybody else who reads this) know of a way to "Test" that it was done correctly? (Blue Iris does not see anything when I try to add the camera)
 
It is best to draw out a network diagram as that usually shows the issue.

What are the IP addresses of your NIC with internet and NIC without internet, along with the IP address of each camera?

You can list the private LAN IP addresses as it does not tell anyone anything - they are the same as everyone else. The IP address of your service provider for your WAN is what you don't provide...Everything on the inside past the modem is fine to put out. Everything on the inside, the local will fall under these ranges and you are not telling anyone anything about how to hack your system because these ranges are reserved for the "home side" of the service so every home internally will be within this same range):

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

And it is usually a number typo someone has with their IP address that causes troubleshooting to take longer because someone doesn't show the IP address and that extra 1 sticks out like a sore thumb to someone helping troubleshoot.


And then how are you trying to add the cameras to BI?

The best way is to type in the IP address of the camera, then the username and password AND THEN the Find/Inspect button.

Too many times hitting just the find/inspect button first won't find the cameras.

Then if it doesn't find the camera, post screenshots of the pop up message that appears when you hit find/inspect.
 
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wittaj said:
It is best to draw out a network diagram as that usually shows the issue.

What are the IP addresses of your NIC with internet and NIC without internet, along with the IP address of each camera?

You can list the private LAN IP addresses as it does not tell anyone anything - they are the same as everyone else. The IP address of your service provider for your WAN is what you don't provide...Everything on the inside past the modem is fine to put out. Everything on the inside, the local will fall under these ranges and you are not telling anyone anything about how to hack your system because these ranges are reserved for the "home side" of the service so every home internally will be within this same range):

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

And it is usually a number typo someone has with their IP address that causes troubleshooting to take longer because someone doesn't show the IP address and that extra 1 sticks out like a sore thumb to someone helping troubleshoot.


And then how are you trying to add the cameras to BI?

The best way is to type in the IP address of the camera, then the username and password AND THEN the Find/Inspect button.

Too many times hitting just the find/inspect button first won't find the cameras.

Then if it doesn't find the camera, post screenshots of the pop up message that appears when you hit find/inspect.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this, it shares a good way to approach it.
I've drawn it all out and here is where I've landed.

  • Internet NIC (connected to my main network is 192.168.7.150
  • Local/POE NIC (connected to POE switch) manually set to 10.11.12.1 (subnet set to 255.255.255.0) with DHCP for DNS Server assignment.

I'm at a point now where I'm running Advanced Port Scanner just to find which IP addresses were assigned to the cameras. The port scanner auto scanned both networks but It's not seeing any cameras anywhere.

What step did I miss here?
 
As a side note. You should go into the individual camera settings and YOU set a static IP address.
 
You do not want your system assigning IP addresses to the cameras. That is how you wake up one day and all the cameras are mixed up as a reboot or something could cause the cameras to get assigned different IP addresses.

Now later versions of BI attempted to fix that by tying MAC addresses to an individual camera instead of relying on IP address, but folks have seen issues with that as well.

You should go into each camera and assign them a STATIC IP address.

Now that you have gone the DHCP route, who knows what their IP address are.

Short of being able to figure it out and go into a camera and give it a static address, your best bet may be to tackle each camera separately.

So take one camera and factory reset it.

The default IP address of a Dahua OEM camera is 192.168.1.108, which isn't one of your NIC subnets. (Same process for whatever cameras you have and the default address).

Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

1693519003560.png



Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it your country and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home or for something to get screwed up.

And do this for each camera and manually give it a static IP address that is on the 10.11.12.xxx subnet
 
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If you had acccess to the cameras on the main network then you could move the POE switch back to that NIC, login to each of the cameras via web interface and assign each one a different fixed IP within the 10.11.12.xxx range. Then when you move the POE switch back to the 10.11.12.xx NIC, they should be discoverable.
Try only 1 at first. When you assign it a static IP it will not be visible untill you move it to the new 10.11.12. NIC
 
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I followed the instructions on this thread and could never get to the Dahua or Amcrest cameras using 192.168.1.108 using the 2nd NIC and Switch. FYI - Amcrest uses same default IP (for the cameras I have anyway).

My goal was to remove the traffic from the main network (where I had them segregated via a VLAN). I even tried bringing the cameras back to my main switch and doing a reset to factory default. Still didn't work. I double checked everything. I even removed the 2nd NIC and started from scratch. Switch is unmanaged and worked on my main network so wasn't the switch. I don't know why but I could never find the cameras as everyone else did. I spent almost my whole weekend banging my head. :banghead:

I finally gave up and brought the cameras back to my main switch, set the static IP in cameras there, and then moved them over to the 2nd NIC/switch where they worked fine. I don't get it. :banghead:

I read at least one other person had to do that as well so don't feel so bad, you are not alone. I don't like it because I have to do that for every I move over and every new camera I get in the future (made a note to myself). I'm also not sure how I'll like the NTP configurations, etc but I'll see. Only moving a few for now to test it out.
 
I'm setting up a system for my daughter's house, so this is my first time working with dual LAN cards. I've got to say, I followed the instructions at the start of this thread and it all just worked. I can throw a brand new camera on the switch, initialise it, change the IP and more or less instantly, I'm returned to the login page but under the new IP address.
 
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I agree, I think it should work smoothly as well. Mine just wouldn't work and felt some of the frustration others had.

In fact, I went to move another camera last night and it didn't work. I was like WTF!!! Here we go again. Before I pulled my hair out I figured maybe Windows is caching the old address somewhere (even though I did an arp -a and it didn't show it). I figured I'd reboot and see anyway. I rebooted my BI PC (and nothing else) and now it worked.

I say 99% of the time the error is PEBCAK but not always. :)

One of these days I'll get BI moved to my newer PC and hopefully leave the demons behind. LOL
 
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