Setting up IP Camera - need DNS - ideas?

I use open DNS. Put in these two ip addresses from open DNS in your routers software..

Scroll to bottom of page.

http://www.opendns.com/opendns-ip-addresses/

Did you check to see if your webcam manufacturer provides free DNS service? I use two different brands of webcams and both provide free DNS service. However, I don't bother using them, I use the IP address to access the webcams since my IP address stays the same for several months at a time.

I have both Panasonic and Foscam cameras . They offer free DNS (myfoscam.org and viewnetcam.com) . I used IP Cam Soft for Ipad to remotely view my cameras.

I use http://freedns.afraid.org/
It's free, a little more technical in nature though. No-ip is another one, but I grew to dislike their requirement of logging in to their website every so often.

I use No Ip and have not had to log in.....but I spent the $14.95 for the enhanced service......

I am sure there are services that make this really simple but here is what is going on in a nutshell:

You are assigned a IP address by your internet provider. For all intents and purposes it is the same as a physical mailing address. If you leave on vacation and want to send a post card to your house for some dumb reason then you know where to send it. Same deal with the internet. When you access information (such as RV.NET) the website needs to know where to send the information back to. Now imagine going on vacation and you want to send another post card back but you find out the post office changed your address while you were gone and better yet you have no idea what your own address is. Right, I can't imagine that happening either but that is what is going to happen when your internet provider changes your IP address.

Really, it might not change at all unless your internet connection is reset, you lose power or the dorks running things at the internet company just want to screw with you. Once your IP address is assigned (dynamically) it will most likely stay the same until one of the above happens.

Why you are going to want a dynamic DNS service is to update a simple name like www.loggenrockscamera.com to automatically keep the new records of your internet address so you can always be guaranteed to access your IP camera.

If you have a router at home to provide WiFi you will most likely need to setup some type of port forwarding. In that case I would follow the directions included with your camera or consider paying someone to set it up if your charting in unfamiliar territory.

Here's an explanation of DNS and why you (might) need it:

Everything on the Internet has an IP (internet protocol) address. For the most used version (version 4), the addresses are in dotted quad notation: aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd. So, for example, 173.66.22.134 is a valid IP address. This web server has an IP address, as does your home computer.

Obviously, it's much easier to get to this site by typing "www.rv.net" into your browser than "198.1.26.246" (www.rv.net's IP address), and so we need a directory of sorts to cross reference human-friendly "host names" into their corresponding IP addresses - which is what your computer actually uses to connect to the site. Enter the Domain Name System, or DNS.

DNS is essentially just one large directory of hostnames and IP addresses. When you type "www.rv.net" into your browser, your computer's operating system generates a DNS query, and asks for the IP address of www.rv.net. It gets the answer back (198.1.26.246, in this case) and opens a connection to that IP address.

So, if you have been following allong, to connect to your camera back home, you need to connect (ultimately) to your IP address. The problem, of course, is that first, you likely don't know it, and second, you probably won't remember it. You could, of course, write it down if you desired to, but many people opt to use DNS to maintain it. Since a home internet connection can change IP addresses periodically, a "dynamic DNS" service (one that updates the IP address frequently, as opposed to the non-changing "static" IP addresses that most web sites use) is convenient. You generally get to pick your own hostname (appended with the provider's domain name), so it can be easy to remember.

The most popular is probably http://dyn.com/dns/. It costs $25/year for the basic service.

I have a 8 camera Zmodo system with dvr they have their own DNS service and I have been using it for over a year with no problem and no charge.

Joe, and mrkojo, those were both great explanations of how things work in the ip world, but it still leaves me with a question.

So let's say I'm in a CG, and know my ip. I would like to check in to see one of my cameras back at the S&B. One or two of them maybe an IP camera, and then I may also have a multi-cam DVR. I enter my home ip address in the browser, and now what happens. How do I get to one camera vs another, in my home 'network' of cameras?

Bill S. wrote:
How do I get to one camera vs another, in my home 'network' of cameras?

I use two different software programs to monitor my cameras. On the windows server I use Blue Iris, on the Ubuntu server I use Zoneminder.

I use the Blue Iris for remote access and the Zoneminder to record and monitor all the cameras locally.

Blue Iris is around $50.