Hitting cameras web pages with a laptop in an NVR with POE

Shockwave199

Shockwave199

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Mar 13, 2014
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[TD]I figured I'd make a new post for this. It's nothing particulalry new and I certainly didn't invent this wheel! But I was taught how to do it and I want to pass it on to other people who have NVR's with built in POE. There IS a way to hit the cameras web pages directly, right through the NVR, with a laptop or netbook- or even a desktop if that's handy as well. You may never need to do this if you like what you see by default from your cameras. But if you ever need to get into their web service pages directly, this is a cool and easy way to do it.

Do this-

- Plug all cameras into the NVR POE ports and get them live, so they are assigned IP addresses by the NVR

- Write all those addresses down, probably found in a remote device menu in the NVR

- Preferably use a laptop or netbook and do this;

- Go to your local area connection page

- Click on properties

- Double click on internet protocol [TCP/IP]

- Change 'obtain an IP address automatically' to 'use the following IP address'

- Put the subnet in for your cameras. Example, if they're all 192.168.1.125 through like 192.168.1.130, plug in something not taken by any of the cameras, such as 192.168.1.5

- Click in the subnet mask and it should automatically dump in 255.0.0.0. I actually put in 255.255.255.0 and it worked as well. But it'll auto dump in 255.0.0.0 and you should be fine with that.

- Click OK

- If you haven't set your IE activeX for the laptop yet, now's the time to do it per your manufactures instructions

- Plug the laptop into an open POE port on the NVR

- Open an IE browser and type in any cameras address that you wrote down earlier, making sure that camera is plugged into the NVR as well

- You should hit the cameras web page. Do the same for all of them- browse to their addresses.

- Tweak anything you need right in the camera! Bonus- you see the live feed change per your tweaks on your laptop AND on the monitor hooked up to the NVR!

- After all is done, unplug the laptop go back into the local area connection properties/internet protocal [TCP/IP] and check off 'obtain an address automatically' again.

Done!

Very slick indeed for POE NVR'S.
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I joined just to say thanks for this info. It was driving me nuts not being able to use all the settings on the cams hooked directly to the NVR. Most of our cams are routed through the network, so I knew the settings were there, just couldn't find an easy way to access them. Much easier to take a laptop to the NVR than to reroute cam cables to router, then back to NVR again. This was so easy, even a caveman could do it.
 
Hi there...

Here is my setup:

Hikvision NVR (DS-7632N-E2/8P) - a PoE NVR with 8 ports
Hikvision IP camera (DS-2CD2032-1)

After setting up the NVR and camera I realized that I had very little control over the camera in terms of setting things like WDR, Digital Noise Reduction...etc. So I was directed to this thread as a means of accessing the camera's interface that was connected to the PoE NVR. I followed the instructions and I was successful in accessing the camera and changing the various parameters.

However, I was also testing the capabilities of the NVR and connected cameras to recover from a power outage, and this is where things started falling apart. From my limited testing, when I pulled the plug on the NVR (literally) to simulate a power outage the system would reboot and start up from where it stopped as I thought it should... but only if I had not made any changes to the camera using the procedures explained in this thread! If do make changes to the camera, by accessing it directly, then the NVR cannot seem to find the camera upon a reboot from my simulated power outage!

Interestingly, I can still access the camera's configuration screens on my laptop but the NVR doesn't seem to see the camera (except that it shows that the camera is still drawing power from the PoE port.

The only way I have found so far to get around this is to reset the camera (small button on the back of the camera) which resets the camera to factory settings.

This is an issue for me because of the numerous real power outages in the area that I want to use the NVR/cameras. This holds true for either not having the system properly reset, if I have modified the camera's setting by connecting to the camera's interface directly, or having to accept that I will only be able to change the few camera's settings that are available through the NVR's menu system.

Does anyone else have experience with this?
 
GMD99 said:
Hi there...
Does anyone else have experience with this?
Click to expand...

It could be that the NVR is (incorrectly?) resetting the default gateway on your IPC if you're using plug-n-play mode.

Credit to ??? from this very forum (I can't find the page in my history :[ )
In a nutshell:
All the IP cams need to be manually configured with static addresses (they are on their own subnet anyway, and unless you have hundreds of them it's not that big a deal)
So, go through this method listed in the OP to initially configure your cams
1. Make the HTTP port not 80 (it's uncertain why, but the NVR seems to filter/hog packets on this port for its own GUI)
[Optional: While you're at it, if your exposing your IPC to the LAN, probably best to have non-default passwords]

2. Set each IPC to it's own static IP (uncheck DHCP), eg. 192.168.254.x. Don't use .254.1 because this is the NVR; don't use 0 or 255 either because they're reserved in TCP/IP. If you're not prompted to, reboot the cameras.

3. Manually configure each IPC on the NVR (same management port - 8000), don't forget to change the user/passwords too if necessary.

4. Set up a static route on your router - this is gonna vary depending on brand
Destination address is 192.168.254.0 (the default address/range for the POE ports)
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Gateway - enter the IP address of your NVR as it appears on the LAN (the same address you use to connect via the web GUI). It's worth assigning the NVR a static address, or even better a "static" address (one that is reserved so that the DHCP server on the router always gives the NVR the same IP, but via DHCP so that everything plays nicely). If the NVR's address changes because of DHCP, then your static route will stop working.

5. The 'hard' part: Use a telnet program (or the built in windows one) and connect to the NVR's IP address (port 23) e.g. 192.168.0.100
Username: root
Password: <your admin password> (you won't see your typing, that's normal)
Type this command exactly as it appears: echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward (press enter) - this setting won't persist after a reboot, but all your other settings will

6. Disconnect from the POE port and try accessing the cameras via LAN/wireless in your laptop
 
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Maaaaaaaaate,
You are a bloody legend and I could pull you a nice cold draught homebrew beer right now. Fabulous my friend and a life saver. I was so over trying to do this on my very limited pooter experience. LEGEND:very_drunk::very_drunk:
 
Thanks Shockwave!
To access my POE IP camera's web page (for fine tuning), I was removing the camera from its location and was connecting it with a 12v adapter into the same switch my PC is on.
What a pain that was!
I'm a newbie to the IP camera / NVR world. Setting up a system is a lot more complicated than I thought!
You made it much easier!:)
 
Why do all the NVRs require a plug-in? And why are all the NVR plug-ins dependent on obsolete versions of one specific web browser? Clearly I'm annoyed but I also really am curious. I don't need plug-ins to do much more sophisticated tasks, and yet every NVR seems to need one.
 
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Actually there is an easy way to login your IP Cameras through web browsers.
Login to NVR with web browsers first.
Then, go to Advance Settings of Network Settings page
There is a option(Virtual Host). Please Enable this function.
When you go back to Camera Management, you will see there is a link on each row for you to access your cameras on web browsers directly.
 
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TedWu said:
Actually there is an easy way to login your IP Cameras through web browsers.
Login to NVR with web browsers first.
Then, go to Advance Settings of Network Settings page
There is a option(Virtual Host). Please Enable this function.
When you go back to Camera Management, you will see there is a link on each row for you to access your cameras on web browsers directly.
Click to expand...

Not all NVRs or firmwares have Virtual Host option.
 
TedWu said:
Actually there is an easy way to login your IP Cameras through web browsers.
Login to NVR with web browsers first.
Then, go to Advance Settings of Network Settings page
There is a option(Virtual Host). Please Enable this function.
When you go back to Camera Management, you will see there is a link on each row for you to access your cameras on web browsers directly.
Click to expand...

Thanks champ, works perfectly with my 7604NI-4P (3.3.4) and 2335-i cams.
 
TedWu said:
Actually there is an easy way to login your IP Cameras through web browsers.
Login to NVR with web browsers first.
Then, go to Advance Settings of Network Settings page
There is a option(Virtual Host). Please Enable this function.
When you go back to Camera Management, you will see there is a link on each row for you to access your cameras on web browsers directly.
Click to expand...

THANK YOU! Worked like a charm on my 7608NI-E2-8P! This is probably the most useful setting in the whole NVR.
 
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TedWu said:
Actually there is an easy way to login your IP Cameras through web browsers.
Login to NVR with web browsers first.
Then, go to Advance Settings of Network Settings page
There is a option(Virtual Host). Please Enable this function.
When you go back to Camera Management, you will see there is a link on each row for you to access your cameras on web browsers directly.
Click to expand...

Is this on a dahua NVR as there is no tab like that on network settings
Dahua.png

I still cant access the the cameras directly.Done exactly per the OP's instruction
once ip adress is changed on my PC I can ping the switch but not the cameras
 
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