I decided to the take the plunge and update the firmware. I've had nerve-racking experiences installing unofficial firmware on devices before, but this was the first time I had a similar feeling with "official" firmware.
The good news is that the camera still works and
most of my settings were retained. However, I noticed that the following settings were modified after the update.
- Video bitrate was increased to 1536 for the first stream.
- Keyframe interval was increased to 50 for both streams.
- Camera name was changed back to the default (i.e., “IP Camera").
- Audio input and output volumes were decreased.
- IP settings were changed from static to DHCP.
- RTSP permission check was removed.
- Name of the camera is now at bottom left of the screen, not the top left.
Strangely, you were able to obtain a newer firmware version than me. I'm currently on V9.1.4.1.25-20170706. I performed the update through the vipcam app. The time zone settings are finally sticking, which means I can locate older footage more easily in the vipcam app.
An update was released for the iOS vipcam app yesterday.
Do NOT install it! Audio works but no video is displayed (only a white screen), regardless of whether you are using the live view of going over older footage. Luckily, I was able to revert to the previous version.
E-mail is still working for me. One thing I noticed while checking whether any settings were modified is that there are two locations in the web interface where e-mail can be configured (i.e., under "Alarm > Alarm" and under "Advanced > Email settings"). E-mail can also be configured through the app. In my case, went to "Advanced > Email settings." Perhaps you could experiment with entering the info using different locations/methods. You might also check the system log to see if any useful errors are provided. I think the e-mail settings under "Alarm" and "Advanced" are connected anyway, so this info is probably of limited use to you.
As for port forwarding, I only advise forwarding ports to machines/services where patches can be obtained soon after exploits are discovered. For example, if there's a major exploit found in OpenSSH, it's pretty easy for me update it to a newer version or, if need be, compile a new version from source. That's not a luxury you have with IP cams.
As for the VPN, I think you might have the notion of running a VPN
server on your router confused with connecting your router to a commercial VPN as a
client. In the first scenario, you could access your network remotely (say from a phone) and then have access to all resources inside it (e.g., file shares, VNC servers). The benefit here is that no ports need to be publicly accessible other than OpenVPN — which is pretty secure. No machines connected to your network would need a VPN client, because they are already within the network. No third party would need to be involved, and thus no need for a "subscription."
In the second scenario, your router is connecting to a remote VPN server and routing all Internet traffic through that location. A commercial VPN provider is probably
NOT going to let you communicate with other clients connected to their servers, even if they are your own. So, if you are not connected to your network and want to access the camera from your phone, the only way to achieve this is through port forwarding on the provider's VPN server. That just brings you back to the same problem as before, and is pointless.
If you're looking into VPNs for the anonymization they provide, and if you want to be able to access other clients connected to the VPN, the best bet is to get a dedicated server or VPS in a privacy-friendly country and setup OpenVPN on it. An OpenVPN server can be configured so that traffic can be passed between connected clients, which is something commercial providers should disable for obvious reasons.
Anyway, VPN configuration is probably beyond the scope of this discussion.
EDIT: I just saw your most recent post. I didn't realize you were looking to run both a VPN server and client on the router.
Not having successive shots is so incredibly brain dead.
).
