VPN and push notifications

[Taichou]

Hello everyone,

I am completely new to the topic with ip cameras and network configuration. So please don`t burn me

I have ordered 2 dahua cameras I want to install at my home. I have a synology nas (218+) where i want to use the surveillance system to control the cameras. Otherwise I could use Dahua software, which would be a cloud solution (not a fan of that)?

What would you prefer (Blue Iris is not an option at this moment)?

Another question is about VPN and push notifications. How do you get push notifications in case of motion detection when using VPN? I want to have access to my cameras from my smartphone and likely use an app to monitor and get push notifications?

Hope someone will help

 

[TonyR]

Welcome to IPCamTalk!

I'm not sure how much time you have spent reading the documentation that is available for those 2 functions with your NAS, as there is a lot available, as noted below:

Download Center for DS218+ (Also look for "Packages", "VPN Server")

Surveillance Station User's Guide (Notice Chapter 7, "Notifications")

 

[aristobrat]

I started with Surveillance Station a few years back. It "worked" with basic features of my Dahua cameras, but motion detection was a big struggle because SS could not use the advanced motion detection features built into the Dahua cameras (called IVS). SS could only use basic motion detection which was either too sensitive (i.e. way too many false alerts) or not sensitive enough (i.e. no alerts when real motion happened). After reading a lot of threads here, I ended up switching to a Dahua NVR. That solved almost all of my motion detection wants, but it was a dead end when trying to integrate the cameras into my home automation system (i.e. if an outside camera detects motion after dark, turn on some outside lights for five minutes). Ultimately I landed on Blue Iris <something I *swore* I'd never do> and I absolutely love it.

If you don't have a PC you can use for either Blue Iris or Dahua's free PC-based NVR package (part of the SmartPSS download), it sounds like SS is your only option right now short of putting SD cards in the cameras and having them record locally. As for Dahua cloud recording options, I've only seen that possible if you use Dahua's consumer-based Imou smartphone app which is not a recommendation you're likely to get from most folks here. Their pro-grade iDMSS/gDMSS smartphone apps will probably be useful to you as another way to directly connect/manage the cameras from your phone/tablet.

For your VPN question, while I never tried that with the app you'll be using for SS, for the Dahua NVR it was as easy as configuring the app to always connect to the NVR using the NVR's local IP address (which was 192.168.1.x on my network). The notifications automatically made it to the app no matter where I was (at home or away from home). The app would only successfully connect back to the NVR if I had the VPN open.

 

[Taichou]

Welcome to IPCamTalk!

I'm not sure how much time you have spent reading the documentation that is available for those 2 functions with your NAS, as there is a lot available, as noted below:

Download Center for DS218+ (Also look for "Packages", "VPN Server")

Surveillance Station User's Guide (Notice Chapter 7, "Notifications")

Not much I have to confess. I have downloaded the guide, it will be my evening lesson

 

[Taichou]

@aristobrat: thank you.

At the moment the NAS is the only place I can record the camera streams. I have downloaded the dDMSS pro software from dahua on my smartphone. Can I use this software to configure and control the cameras, but recording on the nas?

The good thing with dahua software is, that I can integrate the cameras into my alarmsystem (Ajax alarmsystem). Ajax can get the streams from dahua and is than a part of my home alarm. But again we have the cloud recording.

So my situation: 2 dahua cameras arriving soon, NAS 218+ as harddisk

How would you setup the system?

 

[aristobrat]

gDMSS can be used to configure a few settings on the camera (as well as view live streams), but just a heads up that it can't do everything so you'll need to connect to the cameras with a full web browser (i.e. from a computer) to do the initial configuration. Since your cameras support multiple connections, there's no problem using this tool to manage/view the cameras at the same time your NAS is connected to the cameras to record the streams.

With what you have to work with, I'd set the cameras up in Surveillance Station on your NAS and see how it goes. Just know that if you're not satisfied with Surveillance Station on the NAS, there are other non-cloud options (like Blue Iris) available.

How are you going to power the cameras... PoE switch or PoE injectors? Which Dahua camera models are you getting?

 

[Taichou]

Non cloud means that I have to invest in a pc with harddisk and so on...I have already used my budget on cameras and ajax alarmsystem. The NAS i purchased last year for backup. But what I have read from here is that Blue Iris is much superior compared to other systems. Maybe in the near future i will switch to it.

At the moment I will stick with SS on the NAS and see if I can handle it.

I have a wifi access point powered with a poe injector. I thougth to purchase a 4-port poe switch, which I can use for cameras and access point. So I have than one option for one more camera. I have ordered following dahua cameras:
- ipc-hdw2231r-zs
- ipc-hdw5231r-ze

What do you think about the possibility to integrate the cameras into the alarmsystem (short description in the links below, will only take 1min)

How to connect a Dahua video recorder or camera to Ajax - Ajax Support

Connecting Dahua cameras to Ajax in 30 seconds

 

[aristobrat]

From the links, it looks like Ajax uses Dahua's P2P feature, so when you're doing the initial setup of the cameras (great models by the way) make sure you don't disable P2P. I think it asks you about it during the initial config. If not, it's accessible in the settings later.

 

[MakeItRain]

Push notifications work behind a VPN. A VPN does not block your camera from going out. That's the job of a firewall in a router. The VPN allows you (remotely) to establish a secure, encrypted connection to your home network, whereby, it masquerades your remote traffic as if you were at home (this is called NAT). Push notifications require outbound access from the camera to the main gateway of the ISP. You can restrict all outbound traffic to only just push notifications so nobody is maliciously stealing your feed.

 

[Taichou]

Push notifications work behind a VPN. A VPN does not block your camera from going out. That's the job of a firewall in a router. The VPN allows you (remotely) to establish a secure, encrypted connection to your home network, whereby, it masquerades your remote traffic as if you were at home (this is called NAT). Push notifications require outbound access from the camera to the main gateway of the ISP. You can restrict all outbound traffic to only just push notifications so nobody is maliciously stealing your feed.

Thanks for explanation. Restriction of outbound traffic is configured in the router correct?

I see I have to learn a lot of things , but thats great. My first setup will be suboptimal, but I will try to do the best. At the end I just want to have an alarmsystem with some cameras outside, so my family can be in comfort (although it is partwise a false security as we have many intruders in the neighborhood who are unconcerned about alarmsystems, lets see)

 

[Taichou]

Push notifications work behind a VPN. A VPN does not block your camera from going out. That's the job of a firewall in a router. The VPN allows you (remotely) to establish a secure, encrypted connection to your home network, whereby, it masquerades your remote traffic as if you were at home (this is called NAT). Push notifications require outbound access from the camera to the main gateway of the ISP. You can restrict all outbound traffic to only just push notifications so nobody is maliciously stealing your feed.

the question is if ajax system can capture the streams when I use Synology SS for control or I have to go through dahua cloud.
This here is from ajax website:

The video signal is transmitted as follows:

1. The stream from a video recorder (DVR) or a camera is sent to the Dahua cloud.
2. Using the manufacturer’s SDK, we transmit the video stream from the cloud directly to the Ajax applications.

 

[aristobrat]

These cameras can do multiple streams at the same time. Your SS pulling one stream that stays within your local network plus Ajax pulling a stream that goes through Dahua’s P2P cloud shouldn’t be a problem for these cameras. You can even connect from other devices like your phone and computer and the camera should keep up.

 

[thendawg]

I do my own image processing using tensorflow (machine learning) to detect people in the rtsp feeds realtime utilizing faster-rcnn - Ive found this to be the process with best balance of accuracy and resources required to maintain near realtime. Then serve the images from my web server and push notifications using the pushbullet service (it only pushes a link, which is https and uses basic auth)

Heres the issue, what Ive built at this point is pretty crude, so youll prob need to know a bit of python or at least html/php to tweak it to your application, but that should change soon, Ive decided to push forward with a few changes to make this more accessible

Another thing to consider, youd also need some hardware with a cuda capable GPU. So far Ive ran this on both Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 for extended periods of time without issue. Ive honestly made a lot of changes since the last github update, but Im going to go ahead and post the link here for anyone who wants to play around with it. I expect to publish another update in the coming couple of days.

thendawg/tfhumandetectionnotify

 

[Ollie]

Push notifications work behind a VPN. A VPN does not block your camera from going out. That's the job of a firewall in a router. The VPN allows you (remotely) to establish a secure, encrypted connection to your home network, whereby, it masquerades your remote traffic as if you were at home (this is called NAT). Push notifications require outbound access from the camera to the main gateway of the ISP. You can restrict all outbound traffic to only just push notifications so nobody is maliciously stealing your feed.

Hi, I have a VPN, but I enabled the push notifications on both the cameras and the NVR - Does it put my server and my devices on risk? - I believe I must enable these push notification in order to get them?
Thanks.