What is the correct url language when you're trying to access

[Baitball Blogger]

your IP Address remotely through a WAN? I think I also have to add a port number, though i haven't had much success.

There is also a control port and a data port. How do I combine the two?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. generally your pcs are behind your router on a nat and not accessible.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. That would reassure me if that were the case.

[steve2470]

3. what programs are you using ?

I would think the Support section would have the answer.

See this for an example:

http://support.citrixonline.com/GoToMyPC/all_files/GTC110001

[Baitball Blogger]

4. I'm trying to access a security camera without relying on a dns.

I know how to do it on the LAN. I just don't know how to do it through WAN. My iphone is clever enough to figure it out, but I don't know how to do it with my PC.

[steve2470]

5. so you're away from home, trying to access your...

security camera at home via your desktop PC ? Did I get that correct ?

[sir pball]

6. You need to connect to the IP of the internet-facing router on a port that's forwarded to the target

If your phone can magically do it without you having configured anything, or knowing what's going on, that's a massive security breach and you need to 1. get access to the router and close the port and 2. either inhale all the documentation or call tech support and get it set up properly (at least router in stealth mode with a password on the camera and ideally MAC whitelisting. Whether you can do that or not depends on the specific hardware)

[Baitball Blogger]

8. It's an I-phone and the kids progammed it for me.

But, yeah, to connect to a wireless, any wireless, you just need to see the address and know the password.

[sir pball]

9. That's going the opposite way you want to, and is much easier by design

Connecting to "wireless", a router from the inside/LAN, is that easy - just have the SSID and password.

I'm assuming you're trying to connect to this security camera, which is on a wireless network, from a physically different location though (e.g. camera is at home and you're at Starbucks). Yes?

[Baitball Blogger]

11. I'm sorry, yes, your understanding is correct.

I just download the DVR's software for the I-Phone and plug in the necessary numbers.

The only thing I don't understand is DNS. That thing will follow you into the apocalypse! I still don't understand how I can change my router password and it can still find me. I also don't like my particular DNS because it only has one passwords, but offers 31 host connections. Maybe I don't understand the concept too well, but I would like a password for every host connections.

[steve2470]

13. maybe your Iphone is saving the address and password ?

Can you find out if somehow the phone is saving that data ? DNS servers won't do it.

[Baitball Blogger]

14. The problem is not with the I Phone. They are sticklish when

it comes to codes. I'm talking about what happens on my laptops.

DNS will find your IPAddress for you, then you assign a host name. The password you use is the exact same one that allows you to go into the DNS website. You don't even have to enter the router password.

My DVR software is then loaded onto a PC. If you connect the DNS software to the DVR software, all you have to input is the name of the DNS website, the DNS password and the DNS host name. You completely go around the router security system.

I don't like it so I stopped using it.

[steve2470]

15. ok I'm very confused

Last edited Tue Feb 4, 2014, 06:07 PM - Edit history (1)

DNS will find your IPAddress for you, then you assign a host name.

When you say DNS, do you mean a DNS server ? Confused.

eta: Never mind, I see you've been helped.

[sir pball]

16. Well, here's what you have to do to connect to the camera manually. But DNS passwords?

To access the security camera from the Internet, you just need to know the router's Internet IP address, what ports your camera software is listening on, and set up port forwarding. Forwarding is literally that - when the router receives an incoming request to the Internet/WAN IP on a specified port, it simply forwards that request to a specified internal/LAN address on a given port, which can be the same or different. Say the camera listens on port 3278, you forward that port to the camera's internal IP of 192.168.1.103 and then connect to the router's WAN IP on that port, 68.175.110.128:3278. You can mix up the external port if you want; that can be a good security measure given that a lot of malware will target known but obscure ports that may be opened by things like camera software. It's a product-specific process, but it's not terribly hard. Guides for most any router should show up in a quick search.

It can also be grossly unsafe since you're no longer in stealth mode, but that's another long explanation that I'll spare you unless you're interested. I'd recommend having the kids sit down and show you the whole process in great detail. The whole magical iPhone is making me very uneasy, TBH...opening up a router to the Net shouldn't ever be done automatically.

I'm thoroughly confused by what you're asking re. DNS though..."it doesn't work that way" is the best I can come up with for now. Passwords and host connections don't really have anything to do with it...here's the wiki, that might help, or at least clear things up so I can understand what you're asking.

[Baitball Blogger]

19. Thank you so much for the information!

This would explain one of the mysteries:

"You can mix up the external port if you want; that can be a good security measure given that a lot of malware will target known but obscure ports that may be opened by things like camera software"

And I understand the port forwarding. Right now I have my router on port lights off, but can still access a secondary DVR through the LAN. What seems to make sense is that I have to set up a port forwarding number for that secondary address if I want to access it through the WAN.

I'll read your wiki reference for more info.

Thanks!

[ManiacJoe]

7. Generally you are looking for something like this:

http://nnnnn:x/....
where nnnnn is the IP address with the dots and x is the port, assuming an HTTP protocol.

One catch is that the IP address needs to be an external address not an internal one.

[sir pball]

10. Port forwarding

Not entirely trivial, but nothing any half-competent user shouldn't be able to do.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. I know how to set port forwarding through the router

and in the target device.

What I don't understand is how I can't bring it up using the WAN IPAddress:port number format. I can do it using the LAN:port number, but that was after playing with Direct X, as the instructions suggested.

[sir pball]

17. That's a little odd but still solvable

It sounds like the camera software is doing some behind-the-scenes network trickery, I'd guess it's doing things on other ports that aren't specified in the documentation. At that point, what I'd do is connect to the camera on the LAN with Wireshark (a packet sniffer) running so I could see exactly what was going on behind the scenes.

And then very possibly forget about connecting from the Net, because this is all making my skin crawl a little with the insecurity.

You said a while ago you thought you'd been hacked - did this begin after installing the camera software?

[Baitball Blogger]

18. Hard to pinpoint when the hacking began.

It's just that one day last week everything slowed down. By the process of elimination I changed passwords. There was a small improvement. But when I went to the DVR and changed the password it improved remarkably. (I had confirmed the password worked after I changed it). But when I came back an hour later, the PW did not work. I was locked out. When I asked my service provider to change my IP Address everything came back up to normal.

And then yesterday, I was locked out of my laptop. I took it to the shop and they said that my harddrive had failed too. I don't think the hackers got into the harddrive to destroy it, but I do think the laptop couldn't handle the preventative measures that you have to go through when these things happen. Like making backups that might take longer than usual.

Could be that I got hacked into my laptop and they found the PW & port number into my DVR through my multi-site DVR software. Could be that my multi-site DVR software has a backdoor that I don't know of.

[sir pball]

20. It sounds like an open-router problem.

Assuming you're taking appropriate security measures with your computers and they weren't the initially infected systems, the only practical way the blackhats would have been able to access your DVR would be if your router had been made visible to the Internet-at-large, which is also how you're getting access to the camera. Your kids, or the camera software, has by necessity turned off stealth mode and opened some ports somewhere, which is appallingly insecure if you don't know the exact whats and whys of all of it.

What camera are you using if I may ask? I'll see what I can dig up on it when I get home tonight.

[Baitball Blogger]

21. Port lights are now off on the router.

I'm not sure what you mean by stealth mode. My network site is visible for anyone who does a search. How do I put that on stealth mode?

[sir pball]

22. Stealth mode is somewhere in the settings; it's usually enabled by default

Stealth mode means the router doesn't respond to any external queries, portscans, pings, or any other contact that hasn't been initiated by a device on the LAN - its internet IP is a black hole. Unfortunately, it can obviously be a problem if you want to accept incoming connections so it's usually disabled when port forwarding is active.

It's not inherently insecure, but when you don't know all the details of how the network is set up it can be a serious problem since your router can be pinged and scanned and generally molested.

[Baitball Blogger]

23. Can that alone cause a slow down?

On a netgear I once had, it had the added feature of a log and I discovered that someone was sending unsolicited packets. I think netgear referred to it as smurfing?

That would have had the effect of slowing down my system, but back then I didn't have much internet demands so I hardly noticed.

[sir pball]

24. No.

Smurfing, that brings back memories of IRC bots in the 90s...eggdrops too.The joy of abusing a T3 when 95% of the world was on dialup! Anyway, I'm rambling.

Stealth mode won't affect your connection speed at all. Slowdowns have a cause, whether it's a misbehaving app or a malicious spam bot; like you experienced, it's usually something nasty to saturate a modern connection. A noticeable drag plus a letter from your ISP pretty much screams "botnet" - I suspect your DVR is the source, Google &quot DVR model) malware" as a start. And, like I said, talk to the kids about the camera...anything that automatically penetrates your single biggest line of defense needs to be treated as radioactive.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. Thank you so much,

You gave me a lot to work with.

[sir pball]

26. My pleasure...it's an odd hobby of mine

Hope it all works out!