how are you updating camera firmware while using BI?

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disabling the camera in BI? stopping the BI server? pulling the camera and hooking it up direct?

I am asking because I tried to update a hikvision camera from Nellys and this is the second one that failed to update and I am trying to figure out the best procedure to use.
 

biggen

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I just perform the upgrade and let the camera reboot. All while still connected to BI. That's it!
 

IAmATeaf

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I RDP onto my bi server then from there using a browser I then logon to each cam in turn and upgrade. One I kick off an upgrade I then never ever touch that browser tab until the dam restarts.

Never ever touch BI, and wait for the cam to come back online.
 
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I have 2 cameras that have gotten so dark the night mode almost seems like it does not work at all and one 8mp cam that takes a long time going back into dark mode after a motion light goes off. I tried up dating the last one again and got this error

The type of upgrade file mismatches.
but it is the DAV file Nelly sent me

now I have 3 Dahua cameras that AI and on the Andy's page it is recommended to update them for a security flaw.
 

pozzello

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the security flaws of the cameras are only an issue if you let your cams reach the internet (cloud service) or have opened ports in your firewall for direct access to the cams from outside. If you are running BI, there's no reason for any of that to be enabled on the cams, so the security updates are irrelevant, just a CYA on the part of Dahua and its vendors...
 
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the security flaws of the cameras are only an issue if you let your cams reach the internet (cloud service) or have opened ports in your firewall for direct access to the cams from outside. If you are running BI, there's no reason for any of that to be enabled on the cams, so the security updates are irrelevant, just a CYA on the part of Dahua and its vendors...
I have one port open as I suffer from VPN insecurity
 

pozzello

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one port to your BI server, i'd guess. so the cams are not directly accessible, unless you have not properly disabled all their PnP & cloud functionalities...
 
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More than likely the caveat is, "if you have followed all the other guidance on these forums about dual-nic/VLAN configurations and "Don't get Hacked..." threads and "Don't forward ports..." threads then the need to update the firmware is driven more by features/problems than for security.

It just sometimes feels like people go their own way, and either don't know or ignore that guidance then wonder why their cameras got hacked. Even with the most current firmware, these are not high security devices.
 
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my problem is everytime I think I settle on a VPN an IT person will talk me out of it. latest thing is they are not secure or they are too slow
 
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Hmm, I run OpenVPN on both my pfSense router in Colorado and my Asus router in Illinois. These two sites have had a persistent VPN tunnel for over 3 years, because I have some cameras at that remote site to monitor it.
For work I connect using VPN from my home office, to a fortune 500 company, it's not uncommon for me to stay connected for more than a week, since the computer I use for work is dedicated.
My wife is connecting by VPN lately due to COVID so she can work from home during this time, but its a smaller family-owned company with small IT team.

I wouldn't think that a big corporation would be using VPN if there was a more secure option. For smaller companies and personal use, I believe your biggest risk is actually misconfiguration or using an broken cipher etc. The MOST BROKEN cipher on OpenVPN will still be more secure that port forward for these cameras.

I would agree VPN will be slower, I can speeds test over 800 Mbps on my home connection, and I get maybe 35Mb/s over VPN. However, I don't know how much of that is really just on the receiving end, since it takes more horsepower to go faster, and the company has many-thousands of VPN connections. When I had a 30/6 Mbit cable connection I'd get about 12Mbit over VPN. It might just be the resource demand is too high to go faster on one end or the other.
 

fenderman

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my problem is everytime I think I settle on a VPN an IT person will talk me out of it. latest thing is they are not secure or they are too slow
Nonsense. They need to be fired. You were only using the VPN to view your cameras it will not slow down your regular Internet traffic.
 

Millstone

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You can update whatever you want while BI is running. BI will have a mild panic attack and occasionally display rainbows and other shit, just make sure to restart the service at the end of it.
 

Kn10

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It depends on the method you use to prevent your cameras from accessing the internet (if at all).
If you just used a false gateway, you could probably just access their IP from any IP on your network.
If you use the dual-NIC method, you'll either have to use or remote into your BI machine, and use the browser on that to type in the camera IP.
If you use the VLAN method its the same thing, use or remote into the BI machine to access the cameras IP (Since other machines on the network probably cant access them by design).

I Remote Desktop into my BI machine, use a web browser on that and access my cams that way (as they are on a VLAN).

BlueIris will probably lose contact with the cam, so just reboot the cam from within BI after the update is done and it brings it back.
 

looney2ns

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my problem is everytime I think I settle on a VPN an IT person will talk me out of it. latest thing is they are not secure or they are too slow
What is there to settle? Buy an Asus router with Openvpn included in it. Set it up, and be done. Stop talking to the IT nitwits about it. They are probably referring to the wrong type of VPN for our situation.
How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk

This was written by a Network Engineer.
VPN Primer for Noobs | IP Cam Talk
 
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