Hikvision NVR and Virtual Host

[Samee]

i have a ds-7608 Ni e2/8p nvr and have upgraded the firmware to the latest and noticed there is a virtual host option. i have enabled it and can access the cameras individually. the recorder sends the emails of any movement by default which is not a problem. the only issue is the quality of the images are not great and also sometimes 2 images will be the exact same (known via the time stamp).

i have a firewall router and have analysed the logs and it seems the cameras are trying to get out to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 but are being denied.

so i am thinking if the cameras are trying to talk outside the network. could it be possible to get the cameras to email me of movement instead?

 

[Silas]

Hmm, I would assume no as from your details there is a lack of routing. Isn't there a setting to alter the quality of the jpeg?

 

[Samee]

i have checked and cannot see any. at another location i have 2 cameras connected straight into my lan switch and the images are crystal clear

 

[alastairstevenson]

i have a firewall router and have analysed the logs and it seems the cameras are trying to get out to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 but are being denied.

Presumably you know there are just the Google DNS servers?
You should probably change the camera DNS settings to be your LAN router/gateway if you want the DNS to queries to stay local.

i have 2 cameras connected straight into my lan switch and the images are crystal clear

The cameras send a full resolution image - the NVR does not, it's a reduced resolution image.

 

[Samee]

yes i am aware its google DNS servers, i have changed the address to the Local router gateway address for the DNS server section.

so is anyone aware if the cameras are able to send images instead of the NVR?

i have played around with some settings but to no avail.

 

[alastairstevenson]

so is anyone aware if the cameras are able to send images instead of the NVR?

This works OK if you set the NVR PoE-connected cameras default gateway to the NVR PoE interface (usually 192.168.254.1) instead of the LAN gateway value (often 192.168.1.1) that the NVR Plug&Play configuration sets it to automatically.

 

[Samee]

my nvrs ip address is 192.168.3.2 the cameras have ip addresses from 192.168.10.11 to 192.168.10.15 (only have 5 connected) its gateway is 192.168.10.1

its already pointing to 192.168.10.1 which is the poe gateway.

i am missing something?

 

[alastairstevenson]

From your IP address details, I'd have expected the cameras to be able to communicate outside the NVR PoE network segment.

it seems the cameras are trying to get out to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 but are being denied.

And you have shown that they are.
If you use the Test button for the email configuration, do you also see router/firewall log events showing the cameras trying to access the configured SMTP server IP addresses? They will only be able to do this after they have accessed a DNS server to get the name lookup to IP address response.

 

[Samee]

ok seems to be some confusion. after enabling virtual host this is what the router logs picked up. i manually allowed a single ip camera say 192.168.10.11 to destination 8.8.8.8 and that removed it from the router logs. i allowed the 8.8.4.4 as well same result. after doing a test for the email it failed. i then changed the gateway of the camera through the virtual host option to 192.168.3.1 network gateway address still failed.

i then changed it to 192.168.254.1 nothing appeared in the router logs and it still failes to send the email from the nvr, NTP test also fails.

 

[alastairstevenson]

i then changed it to 192.168.254.1 nothing appeared in the router logs and it still failes to send the email from the nvr, NTP test also fails.

That's the original default value for the NVR PoE interface IP address, it looks like yours has been changed from that.

As an experiment, you could try adding a static route to your LAN gateway/router to specify where to send packets for the NVR PoE-connected cameras.
Something like "for network 192.168.10.0/24 (ie subnet mask 255.255.255.0) route packets via 192.168.3.2 (ie the NVR LAN interface IP address)"

 

[Samee]

thanks @alastairstevenson i created a static route on my router and it can send me emails with the images. the only other alteration i had to do was create a firewall rule to allow the cameras external access.

the image quality is way much better. also what i noticed (a long time ago and still does not seem to have been resolved by hikvision) is that when a movement event is detected and it sends emails with attachments, some images will be the same. e.g the first 2 images will be the exact same. it would be nice if they fixed it

anyways thanks for the help once again

 

[alastairstevenson]

anyways thanks for the help once again

No problem, glad to be able to do so.