Remote Cameras On Starlink

[Craig In Montana]

I am new here and lots of good stuff but yet to find a thread relating to what I want to do. I have 2 IP cameras on my network here in Montana. The provider is Starlink and I have a Netgear router attached handling the router functions. My Blue Iris server is in SC and currently has a few cameras attached to it. I would like to attached these two Montana cams to the server back in SC to keep everthing on one screen.

Problem is Starlink does not have a public IP I can a access. It's not as easy as opening the ports and using No-IP to keep track of the public IP. I've read a lot about this but no direct answer. And things on the web can get a little stale with advances in technology. So what's the best way to get this two cameras connected to my server back in SC ?

Thanks in advance !

Craig

 

[DigitalPackrat]

I have a similar setup to what you described. Off grid vacation house with a few cameras and a local BI system recording at full resolution and a site-to-site VPN over Starlink where a lower resolution substream of the vacation house cameras is recorded on my local BI system. You don't necessarily have to have two BI systems recording but it was the best solution when I started with a unreliable, slow wireless connection prior to Starlink.

I am using OpenVPN for the site-to-site tunnel. My primary BI system has a dynamic public IP on a major cable provider and I use a dynamic DNS. The dynamic DNS gives you a domain like yourSChome.com and resolves that to your dynamic public IP address at your SC house. Your MT house would then have a OpenVPN client in the router connecting via Starlink and its NAT connection and point at yourSChome.com. The easy way is if your routers on both ends have routers that support a NAT friendly VPN tunnel like OpenVPN. One thing to watch out for is the subnets at both houses need to be different, ie. if SC is 192.168.0.0 then make MT 192.168.1.0 or similar so the internal IP addresses do not overlap.

With that setup, your SC BI system would be able to connect to a camera in MT over the VPN. From there you can play with using substreams for the cameras to reduce bandwidth usage.

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Zerotier. It's free and easy to use. Lots of people here are using it. I have used it on my Starlink connection for a couple of years now. There are several setup tutorial videos online with step by step instructions.

 

[Craig In Montana]

Zerotier. It's free and easy to use. Lots of people here are using it. I have used it on my Starlink connection for a couple of years now. There are several setup tutorial videos online with step by step instructions.

Thank you for you response jessie. I have looked and have yet to find a setup tutorial for what I'm wanting to do. Please understand that I am not trying to access Blue Iris server that is on Starlink, I am trying to add cameras to Blue Iris that are remote and on Startlink. I have in installed Zerotier and my two computers now share files but I'm not sure how to setup BI to connect to the two remote cameras that are on Starlink. Do I have to open ports on my router ? A link to the tutorial would be helpful.

Craig

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Thank you for you response jessie. I have looked and have yet to find a setup tutorial for what I'm wanting to do. Please understand that I am not trying to access Blue Iris server that is on Starlink, I am trying to add cameras to Blue Iris that are remote and on Startlink. I have in installed Zerotier and my two computers now share files but I'm not sure how to setup BI to connect to the two remote cameras that are on Starlink. Do I have to open ports on my router ? A link to the tutorial would be helpful.

Craig

This is basically how I have mine set up too. You will not be able to access your full LAN as you would with a traditional VPN, but you will be able to access your Blue Iris webserver. In order for this to be possible, you will need to go into your webserver settings in BI and set your WAN ip address to the IP you assigned to the BI cpu in Zerotier. Your BI LAN address will remain as whatever your BI machine is already set to. Then download the zerotier app to the mobile device or whatever you are using to remote view, and configure it in the app to be on the same zerotier virtual network. Turn the switch on in the app and you should be able to connect.

You don't need to port forward/open anything in your firewall, as the BI cpu on the Starlink side is initiating the connection out to the zerotier server, so the server does not need to create an inbound connection to your LAN.

I'll try to find the video I used a couple of years ago. I think it was from Crosstalk Solutions.

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Looks like the video I used has been since removed....

Blue Iris remote access wish-list

Just going to toss this out. I have several BI5 servers scattered around different construction sites. It's occasionally hard, and in one case impossible to get DDNS or Static IP services from some rural ISPs. I'm also beta testing Starlink, which at this time has no Static or DDNS...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[TonyR]

Looks like the video I used has been since removed....

Blue Iris remote access wish-list

Just going to toss this out. I have several BI5 servers scattered around different construction sites. It's occasionally hard, and in one case impossible to get DDNS or Static IP services from some rural ISPs. I'm also beta testing Starlink, which at this time has no Static or DDNS...

ipcamtalk.com

Would this one attached help?

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Would this one attached help?

Yes! I remember that video. It's the one I used. @TonyR to the rescue

 

[TonyR]

Yes! I remember that video. It's the one I used. @TonyR to the rescue

Actually, it was @Alaska Country that posted it Sept. 2022 so I just downloaded it since it was missing from YT.

 

[Craig In Montana]

This is basically how I have mine set up too. You will not be able to access your full LAN as you would with a traditional VPN, but you will be able to access your Blue Iris webserver. In order for this to be possible, you will need to go into your webserver settings in BI and set your WAN ip address to the IP you assigned to the BI cpu in Zerotier. Your BI LAN address will remain as whatever your BI machine is already set to. Then download the zerotier app to the mobile device or whatever you are using to remote view, and configure it in the app to be on the same zerotier virtual network. Turn the switch on in the app and you should be able to connect.

You don't need to port forward/open anything in your firewall, as the BI cpu on the Starlink side is initiating the connection out to the zerotier server, so the server does not need to create an inbound connection to your LAN.

I'll try to find the video I used a couple of years ago. I think it was from Crosstalk Solutions.

Hi Jessie,

I think I explained it wrong or something. You said "BI cpu on the Starlink side is initiating the connection ". I have no BI on the Starlink side. Right now my BI is in SC on DSL. The cameras are in MT on lan that has a computer and Starlink for internet but no BI. Are you saying I need BI on both ends ? I just want to put this two camera that are on a LAN with Starlink in the BI system in SC to keep it all on one box.

Craig

 

[Craig In Montana]

Actually, it was @Alaska Country that posted it Sept. 2022 so I just downloaded it since it was missing from YT.

Hi Tony,

I think I got crossed up and posted in the wrong thread. Sorry. This was supposed to be my response.

Maybe I am confused but I don't think I need to mess with the BI server. I just want to setup a new camera in BI and have it pull from cameras that are remote and on a Starlink LAN.

Craig

 

[Craig In Montana]

I have a similar setup to what you described. Off grid vacation house with a few cameras and a local BI system recording at full resolution and a site-to-site VPN over Starlink where a lower resolution substream of the vacation house cameras is recorded on my local BI system. You don't necessarily have to have two BI systems recording but it was the best solution when I started with a unreliable, slow wireless connection prior to Starlink.

I am using OpenVPN for the site-to-site tunnel. My primary BI system has a dynamic public IP on a major cable provider and I use a dynamic DNS. The dynamic DNS gives you a domain like yourSChome.com and resolves that to your dynamic public IP address at your SC house. Your MT house would then have a OpenVPN client in the router connecting via Starlink and its NAT connection and point at yourSChome.com. The easy way is if your routers on both ends have routers that support a NAT friendly VPN tunnel like OpenVPN. One thing to watch out for is the subnets at both houses need to be different, ie. if SC is 192.168.0.0 then make MT 192.168.1.0 or similar so the internal IP addresses do not overlap.

With that setup, your SC BI system would be able to connect to a camera in MT over the VPN. From there you can play with using substreams for the cameras to reduce bandwidth usage.

Ok, That makes sense. Right now I have overlapping IP addresses on my two LAN's. Even though I have ZeroTier up and running I would think it would be the same. Is there a specific reason I should swith to OpenVPN ?

Craig

 

[TonyR]

I think I got crossed up and posted in the wrong thread. Sorry. This was supposed to be my response.

I think it was I (and not @Jessie.slimer ) that jumped the gun and didn't read thoroughly !

 

[Craig In Montana]

I have a similar setup to what you described. Off grid vacation house with a few cameras and a local BI system recording at full resolution and a site-to-site VPN over Starlink where a lower resolution substream of the vacation house cameras is recorded on my local BI system. You don't necessarily have to have two BI systems recording but it was the best solution when I started with a unreliable, slow wireless connection prior to Starlink.

I am using OpenVPN for the site-to-site tunnel. My primary BI system has a dynamic public IP on a major cable provider and I use a dynamic DNS. The dynamic DNS gives you a domain like yourSChome.com and resolves that to your dynamic public IP address at your SC house. Your MT house would then have a OpenVPN client in the router connecting via Starlink and its NAT connection and point at yourSChome.com. The easy way is if your routers on both ends have routers that support a NAT friendly VPN tunnel like OpenVPN. One thing to watch out for is the subnets at both houses need to be different, ie. if SC is 192.168.0.0 then make MT 192.168.1.0 or similar so the internal IP addresses do not overlap.

With that setup, your SC BI system would be able to connect to a camera in MT over the VPN. From there you can play with using substreams for the cameras to reduce bandwidth usage.

I have reassighned the MT home to 192.168.2.xx and SC is at 192.168.1.xx. Both computers are interconnected and I can see files on each from the opposite location. I am unable to ping devices from the opposite computer. I am running ZeroTier that I thought would allow this to work. I see you have a VPN router. Maybe that is the route I need to go. Any thoughts ?

Craig

 

[DigitalPackrat]

Ok, That makes sense. Right now I have overlapping IP addresses on my two LAN's. Even though I have ZeroTier up and running I would think it would be the same. Is there a specific reason I should swith to OpenVPN ?

Craig

I am not familiar with ZeroTier, OpenVPN is one of many options but is vary good about working with dynamic addresses and behind CGNAT like starlink. The main thing is you need to be able to bridge your two networks which is what a VPN does. The starlink side will need to initiate the connection since it is not a public IP. Once the VPN is initiated, the networks are connected and your BI server on 192.168.1.x can add a camera on 192.168.2.x. The router will direct traffic so it knows that the 192.168.2.x network is routed through the vpn connection.

Having a dedicated router with the VPN capability makes things much easier but there are workarounds. For instance in my setup the remote house on starlink has everything going through one mini PC running windows 11 connected to starlink by WIFI. That windows 11 computer has the hyper-v role installed and a pfsense router virtualized on it. The pfsense router uses the WIFI as a shared connection for its WAN side and a wired port dedicated for the LAN side where the cameras are. My primary house with a BI server has the cameras at the remote house added to it as if they were local. The connection would be BI server 192.168.1.11 tries to connect to camera 192.168.2.22. 192.168.2.x is not its local subnet so the request goes to the local gateway or router at 192.168.1.1. Router knows route to 192.168.2.x is through the VPN connection and routes the traffic to the VPN tunnel which has its own subnet 192.168.3.x, traffic arrives at the other end of the vpn tunnel which is the 192.168.2.1 router. The 192.168.2.1 router sends the traffic request to 192.168.2.22 camera. 192.168.2.22 camera replies to the 192.168.2.1 router using the gateway address in the camera and back through the vpn tunnel to the BI server.

With that setup, you are able to ping devices between both houses, use file sharing, remote desktop, cameras and almost anything as if the networks are connected together. If you are familiar with the tracert command, the above setup from the BI server to the camera would show 192.168.1.1 (local gateway/router) to 192.168.3.1 (VPN tunnel) to 192.168.2.22 (remote camera)

 

[Jessie.slimer]

Hi Jessie,

I think I explained it wrong or something. You said "BI cpu on the Starlink side is initiating the connection ". I have no BI on the Starlink side. Right now my BI is in SC on DSL. The cameras are in MT on lan that has a computer and Starlink for internet but no BI. Are you saying I need BI on both ends ? I just want to put this two camera that are on a LAN with Starlink in the BI system in SC to keep it all on one box.

Craig

Looks like I read it too fast, I thought all cams were on one physical network with BI.

In theory, it should still work how you need it, but maybe not at full quality streams. You are going to be at the mercy of your internet speeds. You will be downloading 2 main streams and possibly 2 substreams ovee the internet on the BI side with dsl. Depending on bitrate and your dsl speed, it may not be possible. The starlink upload speed may not be enough either.

Once everything is on zerotier, you would just need to put the camera's zerotier ip address in BI under the video tab, since it should be on the same virtual network.

 

[Jessie.slimer]

If recording is important to you, you might be better off running 2 seperate instances of Blue Iris. It will be more reliable. If you record the cameras locally, you eliminate the risk of missed recordings if either internet connection goes down.

It will be clunky going between 2 servers to view live video, but recordings are likely to be a problem with the occasional Starlink dropouts.

 

[duplo]

Both OpenVPN and Zerotier have horrible speed compared to wireguard in my testing.

If you are able to have one site with real ip and portforwarding option better use wireguard on that site and connect remote site as client.

If you have changing IP than could be problematic because wireguard is unable to use dynamic IPs on server site. On IP change client need to restart the tunnel. It doesnt recognize it automatically.

 

[Craig In Montana]

I have a similar setup to what you described. Off grid vacation house with a few cameras and a local BI system recording at full resolution and a site-to-site VPN over Starlink where a lower resolution substream of the vacation house cameras is recorded on my local BI system. You don't necessarily have to have two BI systems recording but it was the best solution when I started with a unreliable, slow wireless connection prior to Starlink.

I am using OpenVPN for the site-to-site tunnel. My primary BI system has a dynamic public IP on a major cable provider and I use a dynamic DNS. The dynamic DNS gives you a domain like yourSChome.com and resolves that to your dynamic public IP address at your SC house. Your MT house would then have a OpenVPN client in the router connecting via Starlink and its NAT connection and point at yourSChome.com. The easy way is if your routers on both ends have routers that support a NAT friendly VPN tunnel like OpenVPN. One thing to watch out for is the subnets at both houses need to be different, ie. if SC is 192.168.0.0 then make MT 192.168.1.0 or similar so the internal IP addresses do not overlap.

With that setup, your SC BI system would be able to connect to a camera in MT over the VPN. From there you can play with using substreams for the cameras to reduce bandwidth usage.

I am curious if you are using an external router with Starlink that allows you to open ports. As we know Starlink does not support port forwarding.

Craig

 

[DigitalPackrat]

I am curious if you are using an external router with Starlink that allows you to open ports. As we know Starlink does not support port forwarding.

Craig

There are no ports open on the Starlink side. The device on the Starlink side initiates the connection to a host on a more normal connection that has ports open. If both sides are Starlink or have similar CGNAT connections then you would need a third party with a open connection, perhaps a VPS to handle the VPN.