Setting up IP cameras

[newalarm]

So finally got some IP cameras, Hikvisions, and want to be able to access them through ekPro. But having trouble setting up. First, is there a write up, or help section for how to do this? I went on the ekpro site, but remember a section that had more articles on how to set up ekpro, but can't seem to find it anymore.
 
Issue I am having is that it asks for an IP and port. Is this the IP of my router, to access the home network? Then, i would need to add the camera IP, but there did not seem to be a location for that.

 

[newalarm]

I found the help section on the website. I had not seen that little menu on right. Could not anything on the cameras though.

 

[pete_c]

Issue I am having is that it asks for an IP and port. Is this the IP of my router, to access the home network?
 
This is what you configure on your firewall and allow access to from the internet. 
 
Consider the following
blue = inside home network
red = internet
 
Blue network ==> IP Camera (IP and ports) ==> Blue side of firewall approved inside IP and port ==> firewall ==> Red side of firewall approved IP and port. 
 
You have only one interface or IP on the internet (red side).  Viewing one camera on the blue side is a one to one configuration on the firewall.
 
Viewing one NVR management interface is a bit easier to configure.  Best even is just a VPN tunnel from whatever device on the red side to the blue side of your home network.  Then you can see everything inside; whatever it is.
 
This becomes a PITA with every camera you add where as using one NVR to many cameras provides the most flexibility relating to remote Internet connectivity. 

 

[newalarm]

So basically wait till by NVR is set up...

 

[pete_c]

No.
 
Play with it to get familiar with your firewall for one camera.  You will do the same stuff for the NVR (ZM).
 
Your home firewall protects your home network from the internet.
 
You want to become familiar with the way that it does this.
 
Your combo box is a router and a firewall.  The router pieces are easy.  It is one internet address to many of your home addresses using NAT (network address translation).
 
The firewall pieces get granular.  The firewall pieces can be IP to IP port to port granular or not. 
 
Look at this drawing.  Your home network switches (well except for your new Cisco switch) talk #2 and your router talks #2 and #3.
 

 
You cannot break anything.  Go slow with the internet rules. 
 
It is only a machine (tool). 
 
Baby steps.

 

[pete_c]

Googling Hikvisions configuration for a firewall you would configure:
 
TCP ports 80,554,8000
UDP ports 80,554,8000
 
Inside the Blue piece of your firewall it would be the IP of the HikVision camera plus the TCP/UDP ports above.
On the Red piece (outside pieces) of the firewall you would allow any IP or one internet address to access the above mentioned TCP/UPD ports.
 
If you want to test and then shut off the test configure the Hikvision IP camera in a DMZ.
 
Two cameras you can change the ports utilized via the firewall so you have two setups.
 
Camera 1 you would open up the above TCP/UDP ports
Camera 2 you would configure it as in camera 1 on the blue side and change the ports on the red side to say:
 
TCP ports 81,555,8001
UDP ports 81,555,8001
 
Such that you would have 6 TCP/UDP ports.  Note it becomes a bit of a hassle to do more ports later on; hence the use of an NVR management configuration through the firewall.  Another way to do this is to configure a reverse proxy with Apache2 and access the cams via the reverse proxy.  Here I have a mini Grandstream server that is an encoder and decoder.  I can see all of the IP cameras on it and configure the firewall for just access to this box.