Remote access to network via Internet

[rigsby]

Help I am quite experienced with computers, but not very clued up on the whole IP / web thing...I have just bought a Belkin Pre n Wirless Router/ADSL modem to create a home wireless network which is now up and runnning well. I have added a wirless camera to the network which has its own IP number and is accessed via the network and Internet Explorer? I want to be able to access the camera remotely via the internet which seems to be possible, but I'm not very experience with how it all works ...DHCP? DNS? PPPOE? IP? Dynamic IP? etc etc is there an idiots guide I can read to give me enough info to understand, but without going into mega detail?
Also can I connect to my home network via the internet?

[Splash]

with a Belkin router you're going to be limited to the joys of port forwarding (ie if the camera server runs on port 80 you would forward http://yourhomeip:80 [the default http port] to the LAN ip of the the camera - something like 192.168.1.10)

Actually, that's badly worded. Regardless of what router you use you'd need to do that. You could setup DynDNS or similar so you can use a hostname rather than an ip address (so you could browse to http://rigsbyathome.dyndns.org or similar, rather than an ip address. If you need any help with that give me a yell.

In terms of remote access to your network this is where having a cheaper router can be a pain - are you looking for remote desktop type access? If so you need to forward port 3389 on your router to the LAN ip of the machine you want to access, and enable remote connections. If you're doing this I strongly recommend that you have strong passwords enforced and force the changes regularly. I use a Draytek (yes, them again...) Vigor and VPN into it, then can use my machine pretty much as if it was on the LAN.

[b0redom]

Ok briefly how it works is - in the networking world, everything listens on a port. There are loads of standard ones, normal web (HTTP) is 80, secure web (HTTPS) is 443 etc.
http://www.hexus.net or whatever is really http://www.hexus.net:80

Your router will be configured to do by default is block all incoming traffic (from the Internet) to all ports. This means that if someone is scanning your IP address (unique identifier provided by your ISP) they won't be able to see any of your windows shares etc.

What you need to do in order to talk to your camera through your firewall is set up a rule. Look for something like port forwarding in your options. Assuming your camera is viewable on port 80 from your home network or http://my.camera.ip.number you need to set up a rule which says some incoming port maps to internal.ip.address:80

Eg.

8080 -> 192.168.0.73:80

You (along with the rest of the world) should then be able to see your camera from outside the network by connecting to your ip address (you should see this in the router config too) : 8080

So:

http://123.45.67.89:8080

Briefly:

IP address - a unique identifier to your network card in your computer - this is allocated by your ISP.

DHCP - there are many many more network capable devices than there are IP addresses, so rather than getting a STATIC IP address which never changes, most people get a 'lease' of an IP address. This is what DHCP does for you. Unless you are running a server (like your camera for example) then DHCP is easier to use than static IP addresses as it just works. It also makes configuration easier as it provides automatic discovery of....

DNS - This is a way of referencing IP addresses in more easily human readable format - so www.hexus.net maps to the IP number 84.12.5.240, although if you put either in the browser you'll see the same thing pop up.

NAT - So lets say you have 3 PCs and a camera on your network at home. Unless you pay them lots of money your ISP will only allocate you one single IP address. NAT (Name Address Translation) sits on your router and works out what is requesting what, so if you are reading email on one PC and your brother is playing BF2 on another, NAT ensures that he gets all the network traffic bound for him and you get all the traffic bound for you.

Hope that helps a bit.....

Tom

[rigsby]

Thanks for the info Splash. Actually connecting to the my network via the web was an aside, I'm really only worried about the camera. I had actually stumbled accross the Dyndns website and set up a hostname with a dummy IP address. I know the hostname points to the IP number, but its how the number is allocated that I dont understand...with dynamic allocation will it change? what assigns the number ..the camera, the router, god? with a fixed ip number are there any issues? What is a port? how might security work ie can anyone type in the IP number to a browser and see the camera?
Sorry I'm not totally thick..just never had any experience in this field and the camera manual is pants!

[b0redom]

Forgot to say above, your ISP will let you know if they have allocated you have a static IP or a dynamic IP. Generally no frills ones will always give you a dynamic one, and the more expensive ones will allow you to have a static one if you ask.

Just because it's dynamic, doesn't mean it will change all of the time, just that it could....

Tom

[rigsby]

Thanks Tom...I think I understand a bit more..
When I open the software that came with the camera I get a list of available cameras on my network. On selecting a camera in the list (only 1) it shows me the following details...
Name....IPCam
IP..........192.168.0.151
Netmask..255.255.255.0
Gateway..192.168.0.1
HTTP port1...80

Does it mean I need to forward 192.168.0.151 through my browser firewall and map incoming IPs to it???

[b0redom]

Yep exactly. You will need to set it to forward any port you choose, say 8080 for example to port 80 on 192.168.0.151.

As an aside, there are two networks which are not used on the Internet, and are preserved for private use:

10.x.x.x and 192.x.x.x

Hope that helps, any more questions come back to me....

Tom

[b0redom]

Oh, if you really do want to access your home PC from the Internet, take a look at TightVNC. It allows you to remote control your PC as if you were sat in front of it. Again, you will need to forward a port through your firewall (I think the default is 5901?).

It's not anywhere near fast enough for games, but if you just want to read email etc, that's your best bet.

Tom

[Splash]

yep - also if you can I would setup a DHCP reservation so that the camera always has that.

[rigsby]

Dohh..just when I thought I had it!! ....
How do I know what the incoming IP address will be? I could be connecting from anywhere..at work, internet cafe, someone elses home pc??
How do I stop anyone else seeing my camera?
Do I set the the port forwarding on my Belkin router?

Sorry if this is a bit painfull for you guys, but the penny is slowly dropping!

[b0redom]

If you can't say what the incoming IP address range will be, then you're scuppered - does the cam allow you set a username and password on it? If so, then that's probably the best.

It is possible to do some hairy encryption stuff, but to be honest, you really need to understand a bit more about networking first.

You could try checking this out, but if you've only got a cheapy router, it might not even support VPN...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN

Yes you set the port forwarding on the Belkin router.

No worries mate, we all started somewhere ;-)

Tom

[rigsby]

Hey my router isnt cheap..it cost £100 !!! ha ha. I think I have read something about VPN on the router...I take it it doenst stand for visible panty network??
The camera also has a password/username set up feature, but I wasnt sure what it was for, but now I do!!

[Splash]

the Belkins only support VPN pass-through, rather than having the router as an endpoint. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network.