Dual NIC setup on your Blue Iris Machine

Countless times I have made the mistake of plugging and logging into a new camera from the 192.168.1.x NIC#1, changed the IP to 10.x.x.x to match NIC#2 THEN forget to remove the camera and plug into NIC#2 and wonder why I cant login. Simple procedure but I goof up quite regularly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Arjun
^ Indeed!!! Someone else mentioned it as well. Do yourself a favor and do one camera at a time. Which is exactly what I'm doing.

One thing I do like with the Router/VLAN solution is having logs and seeing exactly what the cameras are trying to do and how often. Like who is trying to phone home and how often. Just my OCD and most wouldn't even care.

But for example, I have 2 Amcrest Wifi cameras that would do a DNS lookup every second (because they were blocked from the internet so it failed) and it was killing my stats since the AP thought it was retries. I had to put a loopback address in the DNS setting to stop it. Unfortunately, when the camera reboots (I have lots of power outages) it removes it reverts to the default DNS address for some reason.
 
Do you guys have the 2nd IP address, in the advanced setting, set up on the NIC like in the 1st post?

I’m a ditch digger and mine works like it should. Connect camera to 2nd isolated nic poe switch. Initialize cam with the 198.162.1.108 address and change the IP address, mine starts with 10.***. Once I do that all I need to do is enter the new IP address in IE and go from there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: looney2ns
AlwaysSomething said:
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.
Click to expand...

What did you assign the IP address of the 2nd NIC? If it wasn't 192.168.1.xxx then it wouldn't find the camera on the default IP address.

I suspect your main network was 192.168.1.xxx which is why the camera could be seen on your main switch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlwaysSomething
So my main is actually on a 10.* network and my original camera network is on a 172.* network so I can quick and easily differentiate them from Guest and IOT which are on the 192.168... I have lots of separate networks/VLANS so it helps to group them that way.

But you hit the nail on the head with the 2nd NIC because I used 192.168.123.* which means I would not have found the camera if it was using the default IP address. :facepalm: Sleep deprivation will do that to you. So that mystery is solved as well as a great tip for others. Thank you.:headbang:

The only remaining mystery is why after I set the static IP address of the camera to a 192.168.123.* address could I not find it on the 2nd NIC until after I rebooted the PC? I tried IE, pinging it, arp -a and not thing until I rebooted. Only happened to one camera so far so not sweating it. I'm assuming it was cached somewhere.

One final note others need to realize that the 192.168.1.108 is only for Dahua Cameras (and some clones like some Amcrest). For example, I think Hikvision default is 192.168.1.64. One can't assume that address will work for all cameras.

Since I only have a few cameras moved over I might go back and change it the network to 192.168.1.*.....

Thank you again for getting me past my brain fart.
 
Its so easy to manage these cameras on switches which support VLAN. Its only a matter of a few mins for the camera to initialize, put in the default IP address to the camera, set the camera's IP to static and change it to the specific VLAN
 
  • Like
Reactions: EMPIRETECANDY
I've been using VLANs for years and I absolutely agree it's much easier to manage. Personally, I like putting the static IP on the router versus the camera. Much easier to manage in one place, especially when adding a new camera or if you need to reset an existing camera for some reason. IMO

The only reason I switched was recently I had a few "no signal" on hardwired POE cameras (not WIFI). It was random and wasn't just affecting one camera. It was usually momentarily and only one camera at a time. The only thing I could think of was a saturated network at that given moment. It was cheaper to buy an extra NIC, an unmanaged switch, and do the dual NIC for now than to upgrade my network. Even if it wasn't a saturated network I like that it is reduce the traffic on my main network.

I'm not ruling out that it was a Windows issue because I just had a different issue this morning where 2 POE cameras dropped at the same time this morning. The difference now is it affected multiple cameras and was not momentarily. The reason I say it Windows is there were more than 2 cameras on the same switch and the only way to get the 2 cameras back was reboot Windows. I have a love/hate relationship with Windows. I love how easy it is but hate how much crap and bloat they add that you cannot just uninstall or not install in the first place.
 
silly question, but if I have 8 cameras, will I need more than an 8-port PoE switch? I am guessing the BI computer will need to plug into one of the LAN ports, and not the Uplink port?
 
If your POE switch has an uplink port, that can be used to go to the BI pc.
 
I have the exact same one as Heavyopp. I haven't had it long but it was cheap and it works great so far.

The only concern with the TP Link is the total power for the switch. It says Total power budget is 63 Watts. If you are using all 8 ports, that's just under 8 watts per port if divided equally. Depending on your cameras you many need more than 8 watts per port.

Look at your cameras power requirements first and add them up. Make sure the sum of the cameras isn't higher than the total budget of the switch. I looked at a lot of switches and decided against them because of this.

Also, if you ever decide to add an Access Point to the switch in the future they may consume even more power than the cameras.
 
As an Amazon Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
Was browsing the forum and found out this thread - and I had already done this on my BI test machine (which will become my main machine soon).

Cameras <-------- CCTV VLAN <-------- Ethernet Adapter 1 <- BI PC with DHCP -> Ethernet Adapter 2 ---------> Main VLAN --------> Internet

I have a small DHCP server running on BI PC handing out IPs (without gateway) to the cameras. I also block all outgoing traffic from the BI PC to the internet except for secure SMTP.
 
Hello, I wanted to install my Dahua cameras with their own switch connected to the windows pc with Blue Iris.

The thing is that I would also have to put the Dahua VTO there because from the VTH screens I need to be able to see the cameras.

What I don't know is how I could install FreePBX to receive the doorman calls on the mobile, given that FreePBX I have it in Proxmox on another PC, and it can't reach the vto that is off the network, behind Blue Iris.

I thought about installing a raspberry with freepbx and 2 NICs, just like we do with Blue Iris, and place it outside the LAN network, on the switch of the cameras

Any ideas?
 
Thanks for the helpful thread. here's a hypothetical, just to make sure I'm following the Dual-NIC implementation properly:

Let's say I have a PC , an unmanaged switch, and an IP camera. There is no router or other hardware in this simple example. I configure this simple "network" such that the (static) IP addresses for the PC and the cam are on the same subnet. Being unmanaged, the switch itself has no IP address.

How do the PC and the camera find each other and communicate?
 
You would use a port scanner on the PC to search the IP range of the camera that’s connected. Depending on which camera it could be setup as DHCP and take whatever IP the switch assigns it or if it’s setup as static right out of the box then you’d need to tell the computer what IP address range to look at to find the camera (and then change it to be on the subnet you want).
 
Sorry, I guess I could've made that clearer. In my example, the static IP addresses of the PC and camera are already set to be on the same subnet, and then both are connected to the UNmanaged switch. There's no router or DHCP server present.

Can the PC and camera communicate?
 
Yes they can

Even if there was a router and DHCP server present, they would not participate in communication anyway. You only need a router to route across networks, etc

Imagine you just mail something to your neighbor, and the mail man picks it up, reads its for 192.168.1.56 and just goes ahead and throws it in his mailbox without taking it to the post office. Your computer knows where to send it, because it does an ARP request and adds the MAC address of the camera (Or whatever) to the ARP table
 
  • Like
Reactions: samplenhold and NVR990
Thanks. So, just to make sure I’ve got it, please take a look at the network diagram below.

Please confirm that:
  • The BI PC can see all BLACK devices AND all RED devices
  • ONLY the BI PC can see the RED devices
  • The RED devices see ONLY the BI PC and each other.
  • They RED devices can’t “phone home”.
  • The BI PC can access the Internet
Any other issues/considerations with the network design?
THANKS!

Proposed Network.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom