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which router can do port forwarding to at least 50 iP address?

Recently working on a house having at 50 iP cameras, each iP camera has it own iP Address, what kind of router can do port forwarding to 50 iP address? Any suggestiong? brand and model?

Thanks,
Yanbin

Comments

  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    I would take another approach to this. I'd use a camera management system and just port forward the manager.
  • yanbinyanbin Posts: 86
    they don't have a camera management system, each camera works individually.
  • jjamesjjames Posts: 2,908
    I'd look into the Netgear FVS338, my personal favorite.

    Is VPN an option?
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    jjames wrote: »
    I'd look into the Netgear FVS338, my personal favorite.

    Is VPN an option?
    I would 2nd the the vote for a VPN. The Cisco/Linksys RV082 has a client software that can run on any PC or you can set up gateway to gateway if accessing from another home. I haven't forwarded a port in years. If anything I leave a back door to the router so I can access the router remotely should I need remotely set up forwarding, so far I haven't.
  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    jjames wrote: »
    I'd look into the Netgear FVS338, my personal favorite.
    It this model one where you have to subscribe to a premium service in order to get updates?
  • jjamesjjames Posts: 2,908
    It this model one where you have to subscribe to a premium service in order to get updates?
    No - but you do need to buy the VPN clients from them. I instead use Shrew Soft VPN with it, and it works just fine. I've not heard of a Netgear router where you have to pay for the updates, but I could be wrong.
  • yanbinyanbin Posts: 86
    jjames wrote: »
    I'd look into the Netgear FVS338, my personal favorite.

    Is VPN an option?

    VPN is not an option, I only need to forward different ports to different IP cameras, most likely 30 cameras plus AMX,lutron etc..
  • the8thstthe8thst Posts: 470
    How is the throughput on the 338?

    I used to have a 318 at my house and it was limiting my download speeds to around 6mbs. I swapped it for a different firewall and my speeds jumped to 31mbs.

    My personal favorite little firewall is a Sonicwall TZ200. It comes bundled with VPN licenses for use with their amazingly simple Global VPN Client Software. You only have to pay subscription services for the extra software (content filtering, gateway anti-virus, etc).

    For ease of use I would highly recommend they look into an NVR to centralize camera storage or camera management software so they do not have to deal with a list of 50 IP address and camera locations.
  • jjamesjjames Posts: 2,908
    the8thst wrote: »
    How is the throughput on the 338?

    I used to have a 318 at my house and it was limiting my download speeds to around 6mbs. I swapped it for a different firewall and my speeds jumped to 31mbs.
    Geez - what do you have? T1? Personal access to the government's super-speed-information-highway? 31MB down?

    Anyway - I've not seen any problems with the throughput.
  • the8thstthe8thst Posts: 470
    jjames wrote: »
    Geez - what do you have? T1? Personal access to the government's super-speed-information-highway? 31MB down?

    Anyway - I've not seen any problems with the throughput.

    I actually do have a T1 at the office and I am counting down the hours until we can get rid of it. T1's are great for voip, but have been slow for broadband for years. 1.5Mbs up and down is not fast anymore.

    I should also clarify that I get 31Mbs, not 31MBs down. There is a big difference between megabits and megabytes. :)
  • ryanwwryanww Posts: 196
    Take a look at PFSense. Its a pretty robust platform that would allow you VPN or port forwarding. Its free, works well, and installable on pretty much any PC or embedded board like an ALIX board.

    www.pfsense.org
  • a_riot42a_riot42 Posts: 1,624
    yanbin wrote: »
    VPN is not an option, I only need to forward different ports to different IP cameras, most likely 30 cameras plus AMX,lutron etc..

    All but the cheapest routers can likely do port forwarding for many IPs. I don't understand why you need port forwarding to begin with though. If the cameras are inside the router's subnet or at least can be routed, why would you need to port forward them?
    Paul
  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    This smacks of 'just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD.'

    Lower end routers can have a lot of ports open but begin to bog down quite a bit as you actually startnto use them. Not to mention even a few IP cameras streaming to the outside world can bring a WAN connection to its knees.

    We have one client who's a bot compulsive and has over 40 cameras on his 7 properties all over the east coast. We made a custom web page for him to monitor all of them at one on a grid looking interface. When he runs it his Internet can bog down to a crawl and that's at 50m down. Granted a lot of it is the browser but the result is still the same.

    After he fired his IT guy (who was the person who hatched the insane idea) the new guy put in a camera DVR software server and it works like a champ from anywhere and onlynrequires one open port.

    Another thing too, if you use and open port then VPN is by default an option. It too communicates on a port. VPN clients are freely available on every computer or mobile device I can think of. ( if not already built in)

    I really beleive the VPN is the best choice if you're not using a DVR/Cam server option. Opening multiple ports is clunky and a security risk.

    But, I know how it is... Some folks gotta learn by trying it themselves...
  • pdabrowskipdabrowski Posts: 184
    I too agree that VPN is probably the best way, but if that's not an option you should consider using a streaming server to concentate all of the cameras to a single stream. Many (10+) port forwards is technically possible but it comes down to the actual hardware performance of the router.

    To try and get all of the cams down to a single stream, I have tried the software from Cisco for their IP cameras and found it worked with other makes before the trial expired: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6ysymm2 When I enabled the basic version the config for the non-cisco makes stopped working - you might be able to purchase a licence, plus this app provides PC based DVR for the IP cameras.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    a_riot42 wrote: »
    All but the cheapest routers can likely do port forwarding for many IPs. I don't understand why you need port forwarding to begin with though. If the cameras are inside the router's subnet or at least can be routed, why would you need to port forward them?
    Paul

    Most are limited to a dozen or so.

    I think the bandwidth requirements of that many cameras is going to bring that network to it's knees in any case. You really need to consider management software at the least. I'm assuming these are IP cameras; Quadrox make s a decent IP camera DVR that can stream them all in one connection, as does Axis.
  • the8thstthe8thst Posts: 470
    Bosch also has some nice NVR and software solutions that work with a wide variety of cameras
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