HOWTO: Set Up External Access to Your Camera Using a Netgear DG834 Router
Setting up remote access to your IP Camera from anywhere on the Internet is one of the many benefits of IP Cameras, but sometimes this doesn’t go smoothly when you have to start fiddling with routing, firewalls and port numbers.
Luckily, we are on hand to provide information about how this is done on the majority of common routers we use today. Let’s start by looking at the Netgear DG834.
(This should also work on most models of Netgear router as their firmware is very similar across the range)
We have assumed the following:
- Camera’s IP address is static.
- Camera is on default IP address of: 192.168.0.90
- Subnet mask is standard class C: 255.255.255.0
- Default Gateway is default for a Netgear router: 192.168.0.1
- Camera has been placed on port 4440.
Step 1
Login to your router using the address 192.168.0.1. If you haven’t changed your login details (and you definitely should) the default username is ‘admin’ and default password is ‘password’.
Step 2
On the menu down the left click the link that says ’services’ you should be presented with the following options:
Step 3
Click the button to ‘Add Custom Service’ and you should be presented with a screen like:
Name: It doesn’t matter what you put here, it’s just helpful to put something memorable so that you can associate the rule with your IP camera in a moment.
Type: Select ‘TCP’ in the drop-down box.
Start Port: Enter the port number of your camera, in this case 4440.
Finish Port: Enter the port number of your camera again, 4440.
Click ‘apply’ to add the service. This should return you to the previous page and show your newly added service as shown below:
Step 4
Now we have to add a rule to the firewall using the newly created service. To do this click ‘Firewall Rules’ in the menu on the left. You will see a screen like this:
Step 5
Click the ‘add’ button under the ‘Inbound Services’ table to add an inbound service. (this means that the rule applies to any traffic coming into the router from the internet).
Step 6
You will see a screen like the image below:
Service: As shown above use the drop-down menu to select the service your created in the previous step. As you can see we called ours ‘IP Camera’.
Action: Select ‘ALLOW always’.
Send to LAN Server: input the local IP address of your camera in here. In this example we would enter 192.168.0.90.
WAN Users: Select ‘Any’ to allow access to your camera from anywhere on the internet.
Log: You can choose to log actions created by this rule or not. Beware that if you choose to log these actions and your camera is publicly available you may find the log rapidly filling up.
Click the ‘Apply’ button to save your rule. You will then be presented with an screen showing your firewall rule in place as below:
Step 7
That’s all there is to it. You router should now be configured so you can access your camera externally. You should try it from the internet to see if it works! Netgear routers do NOT support NAT Loopback. Put simply, this means that you cannot test your EXTERNAL or WAN address from a LOCAL computer. You must be on an external network for your external connection to work.
If you have any questions please leave your comments below or on our IP camera Forum.
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[…] HOWTO: Set Up External Access to Your Camera Using a Netgear Router […]
help have tried the above
i can see camera over lan but not on internet
any suggestions
Hi,
It sounds like your router is blocking the incoming requests to view the camera. Try adding the firewall rules as described in steps 2-6 and remember to point the inbound service to the local IP address of your camera.
Hi have done that can access camera settings but cannot view picture any ideas
If you can access your camera then it sounds like you have configured everything correctly. The reason you cannot view the actual image from the camera is probably unrelated and I would guess the browser you are using is missing the plug-in required to view the image such as Active-X, Java Applet or Flash etc.
Find out what plug-in your model of camera uses and install this on the remote computer to view the images.
working now many thanks
nig
Hi Greg,
I could really use some of your expertise. I’ve spent hours trying to view my camera over the internet, via a NetGear DG834 router.
I’ve set up the camera’s IP as static, configured the Service and Firewall Rules to allow access and conigured the IP and port (4440). I’ve even run a port scanner to check that the port is responding.
In short, I can view the camera on the LAN, but not the WAN - can you offer any advice?
Thanks,
Nik
When I go to my camera in IE, it simply times out.
Nik
Hi Nik,
My bet is that you have configured the router correctly and it is working fine.
NAT loopback can cause problems when trying to access your camera using your public IP address from the same local network the camera is on. Try accessing it from somewhere else on the Internet and you might find it’s fine.
This is fairly common for routers to block this kind of traffic and it’s normal to have to use a local IP address when on the local network and a public IP address from the Internet.
I have set up my IP camera as noted in the above. I can view and record on internal network but cannot view from the internet.
HELP!
Mike
We need more information Mike, such as which external address you are using etc. Try visiting our forums at http://forum.networkwebcams.com for help…
Hi Mike,
Can I set a random external port number and link that to the 4440 internal port?
Thanking you,
John
I don’t think the mapping of ports is possible in a Netgear router I’m afraid, so I would stick to simply using a non-standard port in the camera and port-forward the router for external access.
Hi i could do with some help regarding my camera i am using a belkin N1 Vision and cannot see my external IP in the settings tab on the camera and the router say the upnp port is 8080 should i use my ip address with 8080 at the end or do i need to set up another port to use as stated above?
Hope you can help
Jez
Use the following site to find relevant instructions on how to port-forward for your Belkin router: http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm
Hello I have just bought a wireless network camera Panasonic BL-C111 and using Negear DG834. I did follow the steps above. Everytihg went fine, but my router just does not recognise the camera at the “UPnP” section, however the router does recognise the the camera when i check the “attached device”. How can i solve this problem, because I cant forwarding port if the ADSL routed doesnt recognise the camera as UPnP device.
Thanks
UPnP is simply a tool to help the setup of port-forwarding rules automatically. If it’s not working you can add the rules yourself. The guide above shows you how. If your camera is on the default port 80 then substitute the port number 4440 above for 80. Also remember that with a netgear router you will not be able to test this from the same local network due to NAT loopback. You will have to test from another computer on the Internet.