IP Discovery and Connectivity

Purpose

This application note describes how a user can configure the Ethernet camera for LAN connectivity.

Before installing the camera onto a network you should have:

  1. Ethernet Camera
  2. Power supplied to the interface connector.
  3. Ethernet connection to the LAN or directly to your computer using a crossover cable.

IP Addresses

The Ethernet camera has two IP addresses. The first one is configurable to a static or dynamic interface. The second one is a link-local IP address that has been implemented for situations in which a network administrator or DHCP server is unavailable.

IP Address #1 Configuration Static/Dynamic
  Default Dynamic
  DHCP Fallback 192.168.1.222

IP Address #2 Configuration Derived from MAC
  Default Enabled
Table 1 – IP Address Properties

The link-local IP address of the camera is derived from the cameras MAC address. It is located within the 169.254.93.0 address block which has been reserved by the IETF for link-local addresses. The camera can be configured to disable the link-local IP address.

To determine the link-local address of your camera, use the following equation:

link\_local = 169.254.(93+MAC_{byte\_5}).(0+MAC_{byte\_6})
Figure 1 – Formula Used to Determine the Link-Local IP Address

An example of this would be a camera with MAC address 00:0B:E2:0B:01:6D. The cameras link-local IP address would then be 169.254.94.109.

Installation Checklist

  1. After applying power to the camera, check that the green LED turns on. This verifies a valid Ethernet connection is working with the camera. Also check that the orange LED has turned off to indicate that the camera has finished its boot cycle.
  2. If using DHCP, ensure that the Ethernet cable is connected before powering-on the camera.
  3. Place the camera on the same physical subnet as the computer being used for installation. After the camera is configured, it may be placed behind a gateway or router.

Discovery

The Ethernet camera supports mDNS-SD. This allows the camera's IP address and description to be identified through a multicast DNS message. An application called CameraBrowser that uses mDNS-SD to find cameras is included on the install CD included with Ethernet cameras. Please contact Customer Support (support@lumenera.com) to request a copy.

mDNS-SD is included in Mac OS X.2 and later. A plugin for Microsoft Internet Explorer is available on the Apple web site at http://developer.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous/. This plugin is also included on the install CD.

Another method of discovering the camera on a LAN is to set the host computer’s IP address to within the link-local address space. With this setting, the computer should be able to connect to the camera directly using the camera’s link-local IP address.

Connecting to the Ethernet Camera

The Ethernet camera contains an intuitive web-browser interface that allows the user to configure the image and network settings of the camera. The software API documentation is also located on the camera through the web-browser. The camera can also be accessed through a telnet client.

Troubleshooting

CameraBrowser or Rendezvous cannot find the Ethernet camera.

These applications send a link-local multicast message to identify the Ethernet cameras on your network. If there is a managed switch, router, gateway, or firewall configured to block link-local multicast messages then the application will not find the Ethernet camera.

CameraBrowser or Rendezvous identifies the Ethernet camera and its associated IP address however the computer cannot connect to the camera.

The most likely cause of this problem is that your computer thinks that the IP addresses are external addresses accessible via a gateway rather than local addresses.

The latest versions of Mac OS and Windows route the 169.254.X.X addresses locally. If your computer does not, you can add a route to do so, or you can temporarily change your computer's IP address so that it can access the camera's DHCP fallback address or link-local IP address.

There is no DHCP server running on the network. How do I initially connect to the Ethernet camera if the default settings use DHCP?

The DHCP fallback IP address is available on the camera if there is no DHCP server present. Add an IP address or route to your network connection that is compatible to the DHCP fallback (192.168.1.222) or the link-local (169.254.X.X) IP address. If you are using the latest versions of Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X, the link-local route is installed by default.

If there is a router or gateway between the camera and your computer, the DHCP fallback route must be used instead of the link-local route.

Example IP addresses with associated netmask.

How do I securely access the camera over the Internet?

The camera, as shipped, does not have the security required to directly place it onto the Internet and therefore should be placed behind a firewall.

Port 8080 is configured on the camera as a web-server that does not allow administrative privileges. Make this port available externally from the network to allow access to the camera over the Internet. An example of the HTTP connection would be http://ip_address:8080.

Administrative access to the camera can be accomplished using a secure shell tunnel. To access the camera externally, a computer on the camera’s network needs to run SSHD. SSHD will listen for incoming SSH requests and facilitate an SSH connection.

An example camera connection command using SSH is ssh -L 8000:camera_ip:80 sshd_computer where camera_ip is the camera IP address and sshd_computer is the name of the computer running SSHD. Once an SSH connection is established, a web-browser can be pointed to http://localhost:8000/.