isolated Camera LAN w/ BI

[Left Coast Geek]

so I want to move my cameras to a separate network by adding a 2nd NIC to my BI Windows 10 PC and connecting my PoE switches to that.

I'm assuming I'll need to provide DHCP service on that network so the cameras can autoconfigure their network settings... Whats the best way of doing that? I don't think I want to use Win10's built in 'internet connection sharing' because I don't want the BI host to be acting as a NAT router and allowing the camera's internet access...

 

[wittaj]

The best way to do it is to go into each camera GUI and set it to a static address that is the same IP address range you put on the 2nd NIC.

BI and DHCP on cameras mean you could log in one day and find that a reboot and the cameras were assigned different IP addresses than what BI is looking for...

 

[Left Coast Geek]

I set my lease times on my DHCP Servers to at least a couple days, and then everything important gets a DHCP Reservation, which is equivalent to static while keeping all the config in one place.

further thinking while sitting on the 'throne', I realized I just need a DHCP Relay, as the DHCP server on my main router supports relay servers.

(retired computer engineer with extensive network, storage, video(non survellaince), & graphics experience)

 

[TechieTech]

Set static IPs on all the cameras. You can preconfigure them individually with 12v and a patch cable to a computer one at a time without dealing with a switch.

 

[TonyR]

+1^^ on the suggestions for static IPs for the cams and in the same subnet as the 2nd NIC for the BI server which is also static
Go from cams to POE switch to BI server 2nd NIC, don't go thru router (no routing needed, DHCP not needed).


EDIT: I meant to credit @samplenhold for the excellent image above; he provided several back in June here ==>> Available network topology options

 

[Flintstone61]

I would configure Static. After a power loss, BI came back up and 12 of 14 cams came up. But the 2 i didnt correctly set to Static, were lost in Wonderland while i hunted them down.

 

[Left Coast Geek]

heh, cowboy networking, all absolute addresses. sigh. thats what we were doing 15-20 years ago with industrial stuff. I like using DNS and DHCP on my networks, makes it much easier to manage. Ah well, first I'm going to have to run another cable before I can do this, because one of the PoE switches is at the other end of the house, and the two ends are only linked by a single ethernet with dumb switches at both ends, so no VLANs.


(my son in Kyrgyzstan a couple weeks ago, on a 2 month geology trip, heading a team looking for rupture and mapping the faults. the horse was for fun, he was living in a UAZ-452 'buhanka' 4x4 camper van)

 

[Flintstone61]

If i had 15 cameras on dhcp i’d have scrambled eggs in BI.
when cam 3 shows up as cam 8 and cam 8 is now cam 15 things get scrambled. Then the recordings folders start posting the wrong images into them from the dhcp reassigned cams.
I need to capture events in a timely manner, I cannot afford any extra BI time
at my job. So i just has to be rock solid as possible.
on my Poe NVR i leave the cams DHCP,

 

[Flintstone61]

You should probably use the DaHua or Amcrest NVR. No need for any extra Nic’s or other hardware. The machine assigns 10.x.x.x addresses to the cams. and its default external IP out of the box is 192.168.1.108

 

[Left Coast Geek]

You should probably use the DaHua or Amcrest NVR. No need for any extra Nic’s or other hardware. The machine assigns 10.x.x.x addresses to the cams. and its default external IP out of the box is 192.168.1.108

um, thats not what I'm going for. but thats ok, i get it, the consensus is the camera network should be static IP, manually tracked with a spreadsheet and/or notebook.

 

[TonyR]

um, thats not what I'm going for. but thats ok, i get it, the consensus is the camera network should be static IP, manually tracked with a spreadsheet and/or notebook.

Or....
In BI, I name my cams like "Porch 206", Sunroom 212", RearNE 201" and the like. The 3 digit number is the IP, as in 192.168.1.201, no spreadsheet required.
I use static IP's outside the router's DHCP pool; in other words I use .200 to .254, the DHCP pool is .50 to .99

At a glance I know the cam's IP.

And good ol' BI makes it easy, since the LAN IP shown on the "camera settings" => " Video" tab is hot-linked with the cam's IP, just click on it to open the cam's webGUI for configuration.

 

[mikeynags]

I do something very similar to what @TonyR does - but yes all the cams are statically configured. Not too too bad unless you are running a ton of them in which case it does make for a bit of work if you need to make a change. If you absolutely wanted to go down the DHCP route, you could put a pihole on you camera network and setup DHCP services on that.

 

[looney2ns]

Engineers like to OVER engineer most everything it seems.