Some questions after reading Cliff Notes

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fred583

Young grasshopper
Dec 26, 2020
38
13
Charlotte, NC
Hi, I am new here. Currently, my home has a non-IP DVR with only two cameras. I want to go to an 8 channel NVR PoE and start with 4 new IP cameras. For remote access I plan to setup VPN on my Asus RT-AC68U and put a VPN client on my laptop that I RV travel with. I want to use a different vendor as mine only has the usual rebranded units and convinced me to do port forwarding involving a DNS they had. Several years ago that led to my cable company shutting me down as the DVR had been hacked and was spraying their network with bad stuff. I had to buy a newer DRV from them to fix that. Thanks to what I have learned here, I have just turned off port forwarding on the router.

I have greatly enjoyed the Cliff Notes and the other knowledge that is available here. I had a couple of questions:

1. Computer/BI Option: This seems really popular here. I am an IP cam noob so my ideas need checking. My DVR is in a small non-obvious crouch-in space that needs a screw gun to access. To do any work on the DVR other than the browser interface I have to move it out of the area to a table with a keyboard, and monitor. My impression of the computer/BI alternative is that it would need too much babysitting for that location. I also have gotten the feeling that a NVR removes the IP vulnerabilities of the cameras whereas a computer would not?

2. Cloud Storage: The consensus here is that Cloud storage should be avoided. Are there any minimal Cloud services that would make sense even if you had a fully functioning self-contained local setup? I travel about six months a year. If I VPN tunnel in to get a security update, my connection could fail because of several reasons. There could be a normal power outage, a normal internet outage, a power outage caused by intruders, NVR died, NVR stolen, house burned down, etc. In such disconcerting situations it would be nice to have a Cloud feature to show prior outage video to insure no one came though the gated driveway. I would be able to forward any video of suspects to my sheriff.

thanks very much for any ideas,
fred
 
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1) If the NVR has POE ports, one per camera, then the cameras are removed from the internet. If BI uses two NIC cards with a separate network and POE switch for the cameras this will accomplish the same thing. MY BI machine is headless and sets in a closet, I login to it for another computer on my network.

2) for the amount of reasonable data you need for surveillance, cloud service is not recommended. Spend the money on a good UPS. I have realtime backup storage for my BI system in my fireproof gun safe. A lot of US ISP providers will cut you off for that amount of outbound data to the cloud. Most of the time storing only motion detection, you will miss the real action.
 
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I too travel in my RV for about 5 months out of the year, except for 2020! That is actually why I got into IP cams in the first place. I had an incident while I was a away and no idea until after I got home and then no idea as to when. No penetration of the home, but damage to the outside.

I check my cams twice a day when I am on the road - morning and evening. I use Blue Iris and do not have any cloud storage. I do have SD cards in each cam that record on motion as a backup incase of the issues you stated. Of course if the house burns down, all bets are off and it really does not matter. Every piece of equipment for my IP cams are on UPSes. The majority of the system will still record to my BI system and I will still have internet access for about 40 minutes. After that certain cams will have about 10 more minutes of power.
 
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Thank you all for the input.

I see now that Cloud should be avoided. I had not given much thought to the increase in traffic it would cause.

I was unfamiliar with headless setups, I will read some more on that here and elsewhere.

If I do go the NVR route, is there a way to better isolate it? For example, could it be setup to only be accessed by the VPN server on the Asus router? Perhaps two routers would be needed? I would still need to access it from the local network when at home. Can you have a VPN tunnel client inside the local network served by the router running the VPN server?
 
You only need one router. You set up OpenVPN on the asus router , connect the output of the router directly to NVR or to a switch. Connect the Asus router to the modem. There is no advantage to running two routers.
The VPN needs access to the internet IP address of your location, this would not normally be available to the second router
 
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