<SOLVED> Notification for whenever a home router is switched off - is there an easy method?

[stephenc]

and that will be the main problem.
no one wants to be watched by a stranger beeing in a rent home on holiday !

just think about... your children are playing in yard/pool maybe naked and beeing watched by a creepy landlord ? hell no !

apartment complexes are different. there is a good reason to have a surveillance system 24/7 .... but houses with own yard ?? but sure, depends on where these cameras are mounted and what they record... i would turn them off anyway.. too creepy for me.

OK, I didn't really want to get dragged into this but I've attached the screen captures to demonstrate what I'm referring to.

"user8963", I'm not sure what you look at in your spare time but that's not for me. As I said, the cameras are positioned at the front entrance.

These are city centre properties and certainly don't have a pool nor are there cameras at the rear which would be unthinkable, unless it's something you're into yourself.

 

[TonyR]

Unfortunately, there is a cost with ipct Uptime Watchdog once you get past the 1st monitor whereas Uptimerobot will monitor up to 50 free of charge.

Glad you found what you needed for free.

I'm considering placing a post on ipcamtalk (if permissible) looking for such a person.

Maybe you can find someone to do that for free as well....but you should not expect much.

BTW, for $5 a month you can help defray the cost of this site and also monitor a lot more servers at no additional cost by becoming a IPCT+ member or make a one-time donation.
I probably lose that much in my sofa and in parking lots every month.

 

[user8963]

I probably lose that much in my sofa

i can clean your sofa for free... i take all dirt with me with no additional costs

 

[fergenheimer]

Stephenc, I have an angelcam.com raspberry pi device installed and when angelcam looses contact with my camera, they email me. You can also monitor with angelcam but I seldom do. My previous isp would police my "excessive" unlimited use and block my attempts to monitor my cameras. I was able to get around them for a little while with angelcam. If you already have a raspberry pi, you can load their image and register that device with no cost. I get an email when it looses contact and another when it comes back. Also my synology nas on site will do the same. On the router level, my cambnium routers would do the same. I think my asus router with merlin firmware will also do that. In those cases, I think these are a function of the ddns account. I think you mentioned no-ip which might have the same function.

 

[biggen]

You don't even need a paid for service. A simple script can be written to ping your router every X minutes (or whatever internal device you want if port forwarding). If it fails more than X times, send you a text message. You could probably google a simple script like this that someone else has written and run it from an RPi.

As mentioned it is pretty poor security however if the router is just sitting on a table next to a phone. That should be moved to an area that is under lock and key that guests can not access.

 

[stephenc]

Stephenc, I have an angelcam.com raspberry pi device installed and when angelcam looses contact with my camera, they email me. You can also monitor with angelcam but I seldom do. My previous isp would police my "excessive" unlimited use and block my attempts to monitor my cameras. I was able to get around them for a little while with angelcam. If you already have a raspberry pi, you can load their image and register that device with no cost. I get an email when it looses contact and another when it comes back. Also my synology nas on site will do the same. On the router level, my cambnium routers would do the same. I think my asus router with merlin firmware will also do that. In those cases, I think these are a function of the ddns account. I think you mentioned no-ip which might have the same function.

Thanks fergenheimer, I'm not into the programming side and am happy I've found a solution in Uptimerobot however I'm interested in your synology setup. I'm assuming it's remote to the camera, is that the case please? I'm trying to work out the logistics of having a remote NAS at my home or perhaps a small NVR at each property which I can access using a VPN if I can ever get to grips with setting it up. I've just taken up a Windscribe VPN annual subscription and need to figure out how to create a tunnel between my home PC and either the IP Cams or an NVR or NAS at the properties. Perhaps you could private message me with any thoughts please.

 

[TonyR]

For me, IPCT's server monitoring for a small fee (or similar that are free for one server) works because:

1. I am notified if the remote site's server itself is down for ANY reason including if its connected Internet is down
2. It does not require me to have a computer connected to the Internet anywhere and running a program or script to ping the remote server

Of course, YMMV...but that's why this arrangement works for me. I also have "Enhanced Dynamic DNS" and 25 hostnames at No-IP.com which can also provide server monitoring but I like supporting IPCT, as they have contributed a lot to my success and abilities so I try to give back not only with my experiences but monetarily by becoming a IPCT+ member.

 

[mikeynags]

You don't even need a paid for service. A simple script can be written to ping your router every X minutes (or whatever internal device you want if port forwarding). If it fails more than X times, send you a text message. You could probably google a simple script like this that someone else has written and run it from an RPi.

As mentioned it is pretty poor security however if the router is just sitting on a table next to a phone. That should be moved to an area that is under lock and key that guests can not access.

How would this work if the router was down? He would need an "out of band" connection to the Internet to send the alert message.

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

How would this work if the router was down? He would need an "out of band" connection to the Internet to send the alert message.

@biggen is replying in the context of what OP explained in the thread: OP is looking to monitor several routers at remote sites. The proposed script would run from OP's home machine, and text when something was down.

 

[pete_c]

Best to lock up the router in a closet and put it on a UPS with the only way to power it down would be at the fuse panel.

You can utilize No-IP dot com for free. For a small monthly fee you can take full advantage of No-IP dot com and use their advanced monitoring. Here only have two homes using no-ip dot com. Personally here just have it texting me should a router get disconnected except for one home with a failover LTE modem.

The LTE modem is a combo router / WLAN / Switch / Firewall with multiple NIC ports and 2 RJ11 telephone ports. I use the telephone as a back up to the regular phone lines in current home. Works great.

Last year we rented a beach house by a large lake. There were cameras everywhere and the house was media and lighting and thermostat automated via Control4.

Driveway cameras, walk from garage to house cameras, wrap around deck cameras and lake view cameras.

The wiring closet was a closet in the kitchen with no lock on it. There was a DVR in place and off. First thing I did is directly plug in to the router / switch / firewall and scan the network to see if I saw the wired cameras on line and saw none. None of the catXX cables where labeled going to the from the kitchen closet patch panel to the router switch. So the owners of said house had disconnected all of the cameras which was good for me.

 

[pete_c]

I'm trying to work out the logistics of having a remote NAS at my home

Best to use a NVR in the cloud and it appears now that most smart combo IP cameras do this by default.

 

[pete_c]

Here put all telco in a lockable media panel except for wireless antennas.

A few years back while working for an airline we custom built LAN/WAN in a can for small reservation offices and little ticket kiosks like ATM machines in hotels or large public parking spots et al.

UPS, Power, managed switch, router, et all all in a nice looking small media panel.

 

[biggen]

How would this work if the router was down? He would need an "out of band" connection to the Internet to send the alert message.

It's an outside monitor. So if the cameras are at site A then you install the ping script at site B. Then you just ping the gateway from B to A. If A doesn't respond X amount of times within X minutes, consider it down and fire a text message notifying you.

Now if the internet fails at B, then you'd get a false positive of course because B now can't talk to A so the simple script would consider A down. It has no way of knowing its a connection problem at B.

 

[looney2ns]

I think most of the reply's have simply led to confusion for the OP. Most replies are way too technical for the average person.
1-First the OP needs to secure the router in such a way that a tenant can NOT disconnect it, disable it, unplug it, etc. This alone will solve 95% of any issue's.
2-If he wants to record video for the building, then install an inexpensive NVR in the same place as the secured router.
3-Then if he needs to review video, it can be accomplished by simply remotely connecting to the NVR at each location and view/review video.
4-Power all related equipment from a good battery backup UPS, this negates any power blips or short term power outages.

The OP is going to have to get his hands dirty, read, study and either perform some of this, or hire it done.

Over engineering not required.

 

[stephenc]

I think most of the reply's have simply led to confusion for the OP. Most replies are way too technical for the average person.
1-First the OP needs to secure the router in such a way that a tenant can NOT disconnect it, disable it, unplug it, etc. This alone will solve 95% of any issue's.
2-If he wants to record video for the building, then install an inexpensive NVR in the same place as the secured router.
3-Then if he needs to review video, it can be accomplished by simply remotely connecting to the NVR at each location and view/review video.
4-Power all related equipment from a good battery backup UPS, this negates any power blips or short term power outages.

The OP is going to have to get his hands dirty, read, study and either perform some of this, or hire it done.

Over engineering not required.

Agreed