Blue Iris

First the preliminaries.
Just upgraded my pc (Blue Iris machine) to an ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WiFi D4 LGA1700. Installed windows 11 on m.2 NVME ssd. No problems. My home network is set up with a 10Gps network. Problem: windows 11 has no drivers for my Intel x520 NIC. And, I am unable to clone my old pc ssd to the new machine.
So, I decide to add a second m.2 NVME ssd , install w10 and have a dual boot system. (could only accomplish this by enabling CSM, which was disabled by default). Can now use the x520 nic when booting into w10 and I could clone my old ssd to soon to be w10 NVME
Fast forward, got everything working, most importantly: Blue Iris.
Main network ip is 192.168.x.x. (x520 nic) All cameras on a second network with intel port on motherboard with ip of 10.10.x.x…no internet access. And, I set up the wireless on the new motherboard on the w10 side as well as the w11 side.
Now the new issue:
I set the w10 to the first boot device and boot into w10. I start up blue iris. I check my phone (wireless off) and I get remote access…all good.
Note: I use Zero Tier for remote access and set up with 172.25.xx.xx ip. in lieu of a vpn. Set up as per:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmqrK2Fomqw

.
In Blue Iris>settings>web server>local, internal (lan) access: dropdown shows ONLY the 192.168.xx.xx ip address, neither the 10.10.x.x nor 172.25.xx.x (Zero tier) ip’s show up. YET……I AM GETTING REMOTE ACCESS.
Can someone please explain why/how this is possible?
Fast forward, I tried disabling wifi on the w10 drive. I did a network reset. Neither worked. Still able to access remotely even though the dropdown had only the 192.168.x.x ip address.
What did work….I re-cloned my old hard drive to this drive and did not add any of the wifi drivers/setup etc. Now in the drop down I get the 3 network ip to choose from …ie: 172.26.xx.xx (zerotier).
What actually was going on and , if I did not re-clone, were my cameras indeed exposed to the internet if I continued to use the 192.168.x.x in the dropdown in Blue Iris ?

update: as of 15 minutes ago. the drop down in blue iris will now , again, only show the 192.168.x.x ip......does anyone have any ideas ??? Is this a secure way to run Blue Iris ?

This is the first I've heard of ZeroTier so I can't help, but I'll be watching that video again. Might be a game changer. Pretty good write up of the background, but the strategy is over my head.

What stuck out to me though, was

I am unable to clone my old pc ssd to the new machine.

By what means are you cloning or attempting to clone the drive? I've migrated drives back and forth with Macrium Reflect countless times without incident so I'm just curious...

I actually use Macrium Reflect to clone. It is a carbon copy of the drive. I use this for backing up. Take the cloned drive and stick it in the safe. Never liked doing a "backup" as I would have to rely on the specific backup program to regenerate the files. e.g. rather than have a backup file, I have a backup hard drive (ssd etc). Maybe not the most efficient method, but I have done it this way for years. Used to use Acronis. For straight files I use Allway sync and Resync. And , BTW, Zero Tier works like a champ. I just came acrosss the aforementioned glitch while setting up my updated
blue Iris pc. Still trying to figure out if this "glitch" keeps everything secure. Other than the ip thingy.....everthing works perfectly with remote viewing of my cameras.

(nodding) I hear ya. I too migrated from Acronis. I rarely clone as I rely mostly on backup images - full and incremental for disaster recovery. Since MR has a free version, the issue of relying on imaging software doesn't hinder my recovery strategy - in fact, I can revert to various points in time in a heartbeat. I created a VM from one of my drive images using viBoot so I can run programs I use rarely. With a rescue partition, and removable rescue media, I don't worry about drive failures - I've got a lot of redundancy. Another thing I might add, is that with File and Folder backups in MR to schedule a backup of everything in the c:\blueiris folder - alerts, storage, etc... every night at 11 pm. If I screw the database in BI, I can easily restore. That's come in handy more than once, I'll tell ya. In addition to your cloning operations, backup images might be worth looking into.

As I looked into your question about WAN/LAN access and adapters, the issue of what you expect versus what you see is not clear to me. And if I were a betting man, I'd wager that this isn't the ideal forum for figuring it out. Maybe contact Cajoling, or check into ZT forums and the like. That said, as far as I can tell, if you've added the appropriate client (joined) and bound it to the adapter IP assigned by ZT, it will still look like a local IP - whatever IP you use 10.xxx or 172.xxx for the NIC, doesn't matter because the IP address will be assigned to the pool created by ZT.

For example, if 172.25.xx.xx joins, it's IP is assigned based on the ZT pool, and if that pool is 198.xxx, that's where the adapter's new IP will come from. Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at - post some images of what's going on and that will help. But as I see it...

For all of you wondering, I have solved the problem. It was necessary to completely uninstall and reinstall and reactivate Blue Iris, as the cloning mucked things up. As far as the Zero Tier setup....It was set up properly and so were my devices. Seems my pc networks basically became corrupted in some fashion or, perhaps, a double installation of blue Iris without having first de-activating the program. Thanks for the feedback

There is a very good tutorial on setting up ZeroTier with Blue Iris on Youtube. Just search for 'Zerotier Blue Iris'.

Note that each time your desktop connects, the ZeroTier address may change.
But, you can use the NoIP DUC dfor a free domain name & the DUV keeps the ip address updated whenever it changes.