Setting up an IP Camera

[Daywalker1983]

So, I'm trying to set up the camera so that I can watch it's feed from the internet.

Do I need DDNS for that?

I know I have to forward a port, and the camera works fine in my LAN.

The adress is something like xxx.yyy.zzz.106:port

What do I forward where?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Use your IP address instead. Something like 172.16.0.32:8080. DDNS is only needed if you want to use a website name, for example www.daywalker1983.ca:8080, but I'm pretty sure most of them will cost you money.

If your IP is static, it's easy. If it's dynamic (i.e. assigned by your provider and can change), chances are, you'll lose your feed every time the address changes, though in practice this doesn't happen very often (i.e. my parents' cable internet IP hasn't changed in years even though it's technically dynamic). However, if it has to be reliable (i.e. always on, no matter what), you're going to have to splurge on a static IP address from your provider or a DDNS service, but I'm not a fan of the latter.

Edit: didn't quite read the question. Your router (I'm assuming you're using one) has a thing called port forwarding. It basically maps an external port (one you connect to from the Internet), to an internal one (assigned to the camera itself). If your camera is connected directly to the network, you need to set up port forwarding to the camera. If it's connected to a computer, you need to set up forwarding to a specific port on your computer. Your router may or may not have port forwarding to begin with (you may want to check that).

Here's how you do it. Assuming, on the internet you want to connect to 172.16.0.32:8080. 172.... is your IP, and 8080 is the port (don't use port 8080!, just an example). Assuming your camera is connected directly to the network, with an address of 192.168.0.100, you would go into your router settings and do this:

Name: camera
IP Address: 192.168.0.100
Public port: 8080
Private port: ### (check the manual for your specific camera, it should tell you which port to use).
Protocol: you want to use both TCP and UDP. You may have to create two entries in your router settings, one for TCP and one for UDP.

tl;dr version: this page (http://www.cctvcamerapros.com/D-Link-Port-Forwarding-s/286.htm) shows port forwarding on a D-Link router in the context of CCTV cameras, and may be what you're looking for.

[Daywalker1983]

Thanks for the help so far...

I was thwarted by my router, though. I set up port forwarding to the changing IP. I figured that should make it possible to test the Cam as long as the IP is valid.

It didn't work. I tried a few things, amongst them a portscanner. Turns out my router accepted the forward, but just didn't do it. Seems to be a bug, I'm not he only one to complain.

I ordered a new one and will test again.