Blue Iris

OK here's the situation.... I run a cat boarding facility. We board the cats in individual rooms with IP cameras that allow customers to view live video of their cats while they are on vacation. We have over 25 Foscam cameras. Fortunately, very few of the cameras are being accessed at any given time, so even though we have slow DSL upload speed or customers never complain about slow frame rates. Our current method of providing customers remote access to their cat's cameras is as follows.....

When a customer drops off their cat(s), we install IPcameraviewer Lite (free app) on their phone. We then configure the app with a DDNS address and Port Number. Each camera has its own port number allowing each customer to view their cat's camera. Port Forwarding Rules in our DSL modem/router facilitate the remote access. The problem is that a recent DSL firmware update limited the number of port forwarding rules it would allow to 16. So I need a new solution if I am to continue to use all 25 IP cameras. It was suggested to me that BI would be a good solution.

My understanding is that all 25 of my cameras would route through the BI server which would then use a single port number for remote access. I was told BI would also eliminate the need for the DDNS server I currently use. Assuming this is accurate, I'm still left with several questions and I'm hoping the experts here might be able to advise me.

1. Is there client software required or is it simply web browser access?
2. If client software is required, is it free?
3. Can each client be restricted to seeing only a specific camera?
4. Can cameras be controlled (PTZ) from the client (Foscam cameras)?
5. Can the clients be restricted from using Higher level BI functions (e.g. setting alerts, recording, etc.)?
6. Their website says software is licensed per PC. This is confusing. If I load the software on one PC, can the other PCs in the facility view the cameras (ala remote access) of must I buy software for each office PC?
7. Given that BI will only be used for viewing the cameras - no monitoring/alerts/recording - and only a few cameras would be viewed at any given time, could I install BI on an office PC or must I use a dedicated server?
8. Is BI overkill? Since I would only use it for viewing cameras, is there a more suitable solution you would recommend?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can offer.
Mike

I'd keep the DDNS in case the external IP changes. To access the individual cameras with IP CamViewer you'd access one port and use individual short camera names as the unique identifier. You could also give the users unique credentials and revoke them when the cat's go home. There is a web browser access portal but I haven't played around with trying to limit which cameras an ID has access to view from that. There is also client software $10 per platform apple or Android per family account, again I haven't played with limiting views there. PTZ is available depending on the cameras, I have Dahua and they work from either BI software, web interface, or IP Camviewer. Credentials in BI can restrict users but not if you want them to have PTZ control as I think that requires Admin rights at least I remember it requiring that in v4. The BI Server is licensed for around $60 per server and you would likely only need on server. BI takes some resources when streaming that many cameras so it will need to be a good newer processor but since you aren't recording it should require less than I'm used to, but I run my server on a workstation not a server class box since the Intel video card in the desktop helps keep the processor utilization down. I can't think of another cheaper way to restrict access to a single camera of 25 without the 25 open ports. Does the icensing of IP Cam Viewer allow you to install it like that for business use, a lot of "free" software is only free for personal use?

I've not said it before, but I don't think BI5 is the answer for you. It gives the clients a lot of control. You may be better off looking for a different router, so you can carry on as before.

I'm in the UK, and I have a Virgin modem/router in modem only mode, connected to an Asus router running Merlin firmware. I'm not saying to buy this combination, but there may be a different router you can use.

There are a couple of issues that should be addressed:

• Having your cameras directly exposed to the internet is a TERRIBLE security risk. They are notoriously easy to hack and could expose your internal network to bad actors.

• Using a single secure system to filter all of your request is a much better idea.

• BI is OK and can meet most of your needs.

• Alternatively, You could also install a very simple yet secure (I can show you how) reverse proxy Nginx instance as a VM on one of your machines that can accept all incoming requests and route to each camera as needed. You could have a URL like cat.com/cam1 or cat.com/cam2 etc which each get routed to the proper camera. Each URL can have a predefined set of user/pw credentials or you can create a new one for each client.