Home Networking / Router / & WiFi Gateway Help

[greenparrot81]

I am a volunteer for a church and we have just puchased Comcast Business. We also just installed 4 IP camera that are hard wired to a switch. The Comcast router is providing internal IP's for the camera, 10.0.0.31-10.0.0.34. I have one public address available 23.xx.xx.xx available. I would like to use this public IP to access all 4 cameras. Would I use port numbers to do that (Port Forwarding)? Can someone assit in setting this up , or is this not doable on the Comcast provided router?

Thanks in advance

Still checking the rest of the forum

[kevj]

Yes, this would be accomplished using port forwarding. You should use a different external port for each camera, but it is not necessary to change the internal port the cams are listening on, as the each have unique tcp 'sockets' (address/port combination).
For detailed information on how to configure port forwarding, you should refer to your router documentation, as each mmake/model is different.

[greenparrot81]

Thanks for information.

I did setup the port forwarding but I had to put individual port #'s of for different cameras. How do i point those 4 ip's to the 1 external IP.

Under 1-1 NAT. I can only enter my external IP and can on;y point that to 1 internal IP?

Thanks

GreenParrot81

[Murphy]

You can only access one camera at a time unless you use multiple copies of your browser.  

Connect to the external ip address with a colon and the desired camera's port number after the colon.

If the camera port number is 12345 then

x.x.x.x:12345

[kevj]

What is the make and model of router? If it is supplied by Comcast as part of their Business Internet package, and there are no options to specify ports when port forwarding, you may need to contact the Business Class group for support, or to find out you options.

The port forwarding setup should look something like this (of course the port numbers are made up seeing as I have no idea what ports your cameras use, or what you want to use externally):

	Internal IP	 Internal Port	External Port
Cam1	10.0.0.31	 15000		15000
Cam2	10.0.0.32	 15000		15001
Cam3	10.0.0.33	 15000		15002
Cam4	10.0.0.34	 15000		15003

Now, as Murphy says, when you want to connect to the cameras from a browser from outside your network (if they are available via an web interface) you need to put the full URI for the camera in your browser address bar.

For example, to connect to Camera1 you would enter http://<your external ip>:15000

To connect to Cam2 you would enter http://<your external ip>:15001, etc...

Similarly, if you are connecting to the cameras from outside your network using a smartphone app of some kind you would have to provide the app with the external ports for each camera.

Note also that if you try to connect to the cameras exteral address/port combination from INSIDE your network, and it does not work, this may be because of your router. Some do not allow connections to NAT'd resources from local LAN machines. It is always best to test port forwarding from an external source address.

You don't need to 'point' the 4 internal address for the cameras to anything really...port forwarding is the opposite of that, in that it tells the router to direct traffic coming from the internet to a certain external ip/port combination to a corresponding internal ip/port. The router takes care of the return traffic automatically.

[greenparrot81]

Ok, the router is SMCD3G-CCR

I have associated the following:

           Interanl IP    Int, Port   Ext Port

Cam1 10.0.0.31        554       9095

Cam2 10.0.0.32        554       9096

Cam3 10.0.0.33        554       9097

Cam4 10.0.0.34        554       9098

The IP Cameras use Http Port 80 and  RTSP Port 554.

As mentioned I have one external IP (we have 5 total) 23.xx.xx.xx that i want to use for the cameras. Under the NAT 1-to-1, I have associated 10.0.0.31 to the external ip address. So in a web browser I don't even put a port #, and I connect to the 1st camera (I can't to any of the others).  If I remove that, I cannot ping or connect to the external IP or the 1st camera.

Thanks

GreenParrot81

[kevj]

Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with the NAT 1-to-1 setting you mention. I assume it is in the Comcast gateway.

A little research however, pointed me to this discussion:

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?257056-Setting-up-static-IPs-using-a-Comcast-Business-Ga...

It may be that you want to use your own additional router to perform the port forwarding, and place it (logically) inside the Comcast gateway. My presumption was that the port forwarding on the Comcast gateway worked much the same as port forwarding on residential routers, which may not be the case.

You could also try posting here http://forums.businesshelp.comcast.com which is a board dedicated to business class help. There may be some users much more familiar with the way things should be set up in the business class world there.

[greenparrot81]

Thanks for your help.

I did call Comcast Business Class Tech Support and the person on the other end was wondering why I wasn't using a DVR. Then he suggested that I put a FW in between the moden and the internal network, becuase the SMC doesn't support what I want to do....I am surprised that they have never run into this!!

[Barmar]

I don't think a FW will help.

When you only have one public IP, the only way of distinguishing connections is by the port.

When you use a web browser, you can put a port number after the server name/IP to change the HTTP port that's used. But you also need to change the RTSP port, and it doesn't sound like there's a way to tell the browser to use a different RTSP port for each camera. So you may be out of luck with only one IP.

[greenparrot81]

I made another call to Comcast tech support and they stated that the modem was in bridged mode and that I needed a router behind the modem.  If that is true, how would I assoicate the one external IP address to 4 internal IP addresses ? Can any one assist?

[Murphy]

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greenparrot81 wrote:

I made another call to Comcast tech support and they stated that the modem was in bridged mode and that I needed a router behind the modem.  If that is true, how would I assoicate the one external IP address to 4 internal IP addresses ? Can any one assist?

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That's what a router does.