Cannot access security cameras when on home network

nat;networkingrouter

I have a home camera system with a DVR. I set up the port forwarding so I can connect and view my cameras remotely. Outside my network everything works fine, but if I try to view the cameras at home (on same network of DVR) it will not connect. Is there something I am missing on the router?

I’m aware setting up the local IP on my phone may work, but I rather not do this.

Best Answer

The reason you can't connect is because your phone is trying to connect to your router's public IP address, but since the request isn't coming from the Internet, your router is refusing the connection.

You have three options for solving this:

  1. Connect to the local IP address of the camera system. (This is what you've indicated you'd rather not do.)
  2. Configure your router for hairpin NAT if it supports this feature. How you do this depends on your router. Hairpin NAT tells your router to apply the port forward rules to requests sent to its WAN IP address even when the request originates on the LAN interface.
  3. Use a DNS record that returns your router's WAN IP when outside your LAN and the camera system's IP when you're inside the LAN. Create identical DNS records inside and outside your network, such as camera.example.com. Point the publicly-resolvable record to your router's WAN IP address. Point the identical record that's resolvable on your private LAN to your camera system. Configure your phone to connect to this DNS name. Note that this requires access to DNS hosting on the public Internet as well as the ability to configure DNS records on your local network. Therefore it's not the most simple solution.
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