[GTALUG] Security cams question

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: James Knott via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| The cameras work fine with Linux, you can use any browser to access
| them.

I would assume that you are talking about cameras that talk IP.  Often
WiFi or wired with Power over Ethernet.  The wires are usually the
hard part of installation.

There are non-IP cameras, I think.

| Incidentally, security cameras are normally used with a DVR and
| those DVRs usually run Linux.

Yeah, but I think that they are also usually closed source.  Even for
the GPLed parts.  And we know how much of a pain it is to deal with
closed source drivers.

======================================

Change of topic: my security camera problems.

I have a system, installed, that I leave off because of fan noise.  If
the software/hardware were documented, I'd migrate it to a quiet box.

- six IP PoE cameras

- the "NVR" box is hard to move because it has 6 PoE lines coming in.

- I don't trust the cameras so I don't want them on my LAN (and they
  are not)

- I don't trust the NVR so I don't want it on my LAN (it isn't).

One direction I could go:

- I could disect the NVR box and see if a quieter fan would work.  But
  I still would not trust it on my LAN.

Another direction, replacing the NVR:

- I have a spare quiet small PC with two ethernet interfaces
  (one for the camera LAN, one for the house LAN).  I use boxes like that 
  as my network gateways: Zotac ZBoxes.

- I have an unallocated PoE switch that I could use (not quite good
  enough since only 4 ports of the 8 are PoE).

I have not grappled with this problem because I've always got more 
rewarding things to work on.