New member - BI user wanting to add off-site cameras

Behr

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Hello all.

I have been a frequent lurker on the ipcamtalk forum in the past, having been a BI user for around 4 years or so. I have managed to research, set up and maintain my own 12 camera home system on Blue Iris using information I have found here and on the BI website and have never had to ask for external assistance - until now.

My home system consists of 12 Hikvision 4MP PoE cameras all hard wired and networked to a HP EliteDesk G2 with i5-6500 CPU @3.20GHz with 16GB Ram and on board graphics. It is running Windows 10 Pro with 2 6TB WD Pulple HDD which are continuously recording and manage around a week of storage comfortably. The CPU typically runs between 15-20%. I have a wall mounted monitor displaying all 12 camera sub streams permanently in my home office and don't run any alerts or routines. It is a nice system and works at fairly low resources and has proven to be reliable and relatively power efficient in my view.

The challenge I have now is that I have just bought a new garage building a few miles from home. I would like to be able to add four cameras to this garage - two inside, two outside - and have them display and record at home just in the same way as my home cameras. Now I am sure this is possible but I don't have much of a clue where to start.

Both properties have high speed fibre but do not currently have static IP's. Although I believe I can pay for this to be added as a feature. The garage currently has no hardware other than a fibre router.

So do I build another BI system at my garage or do I go for something else and port the cameras? Really, I don't know the best way to do this. I have no need to be able to view the cameras at the garage itself, so perhaps I just need four cameras and a POE switch? The only things I'd like would be able to go for night-time colour cameras (if they are any good?), and perhaps run a motion alert on the internal cameras.

I'd really like to keep this in the BI ecosystem and avoid going for any of the big brand apps or do Alexa/Homekit stuff. Thank you in advance for any and all help.

Behr.
 

TonyR

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Sounds like a nice setup at home. I think I'd install another BI server, maybe slightly less 'powerful', at the garage since you're speaking of only 4 cams.

Have 2 NIC's (Ethernet ports) in the server, NIC #1 for the BI server on one subnet (ex., 192.168.1.XXX) and NIC #2 for the cams on a different subnet (ex., 192.168.2.XXX).
The POE switch for the cams goes directly to NIC #2 and NIC #1 goes to your garage router (image of network schema at bottom).

Use a DDNS service to resolve the issue with your dynamic (not static) WAN IP. Most newer routers can be configured to log in to the DDNS and update the hostname with your current WAN IP. If the router cannot do it, then most DDNS services offer a free client program to install on the BI server which performs the same function: insures that the hostname's WAN IP is updated back at the DDNS server.

I use no-ip.com, there are many to choose from, perhaps someone can recommend a free one. Even IPCamTalk offers a DDNS service to it's users, I'm not sure if it's free, though.

Network Topology 2NICs.JPG

EDIT 10/29 0738 CT: IMO, another good reason for 2 BI servers is in case either Internet service is down, each server is up and running, recording as so configured, the video from the cams at the garage are not lost just because they cannot connect in order to stream to a non-local server across town.
 
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biggen

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I have three BI installations: My house, my business, my fathers. Each has its own BI server. I then have my three routers at each location setup as PtP VPNS with each other so I have access to all three properties from any location. Makes it easy to view footage or watch live cameras. You don’t need static IPs. You can use DDNS to resolve changing IP addresses at your routers WAN port.
 

tech_junkie

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Since you have fiber in both locations you can set up a vpn bridge. Then add your cameras from the other location.

Otherwise if you starting with nothing I would recommend an Ubiquity Uisp Wireless IP trunk. Furthest one I have set up is 4 miles.
 

pete_c

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What are your fiber speeds (up and down) to the Internet? Here in the US you typically get an asymmetrical internet connection residential fast down and slow uploading). For business you can purchase symmetrical internet connections (Gb +).

Here near in the US I have configured two homes with PFSense firewalls and included VPN servers.

Infrastructure in two homes is ==> A la carte

Coaxial Modem (Gb +) ==> PFSense Firewall ( with ISP failover to 4g/5g) ==> L2/L3 + L2 + L2+ POE managed switches ==> Ruckus WAPs

I have cameras in both homes and using Zoneminder (years) and BI these days. I prefer not to leave a VPN tunnel open between the two homes and just use OpenVPN clients to access either home via the Internet. Very easy to configure these days on Windows, iOS, Android, Linux et al.

Recommending that you install autonomous servers at each location.

Many years ago configured co locations for a gas and oil company (Chicago Bridge and Iron now owned by Howard Huges Corporation) there in London across the street from Paddington station using fiber for DR locations. I was impressed with the distribution of fiber in London. (over 10 years ago).

Here is a speed test from a peer there in Manchester from 7 years ago.

4154856820.png

Please do same test at your two locations and post them here.
 
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