IP Address Reservation or "How To Keep Your Cameras & NVR At The Same IP Addresses Forever"

https://youtu.be/IjB7QpJpzXQ

In this "How To" video, we show you how to add IP addresses for Doss cameras and NVRs into your modem/router's "Address Reservation" table.

Main points:

• Every modem & router is different, but they should all have some version of address reservation.
• The point of adding your devices to these lists is so that your modem/router never assigns the device's IP addresses to anything else.
• This should mean that power outages or other issues never affect the IP addresses, so your mobile app viewing and local recordings are back as soon as the power resumes.
• Generally, you'll need to know the MAC address and IP address for each device you want to add. Your modem/router may have a search tool to make this easier.
• Keep in mind that if you get a new modem, it may have a new internal IP address range, so you may need to either adjust the modem's range to match the existing CCTV devices, or modify each camera and NVR to suit the new modem/router.

 Symptoms:

• “It was working fine, now I can’t view the cameras.”
• “We had a power outage, now nothing’s working. Yes, the NVR is on, and I can see the menus, but the cameras are gone.”

Why is this important?

There are only so many internal IP addresses that your modem/router can assign to things on your network. Most routers do this via DHCP, and the "D" stands for "Dynamic". So, when a new device connects to the network (either hard-wired or via WiFi), it requests any IP address that the router wants to give it. The router looks at its DHCP table of available addresses, compares that with the ones it has already given out, and then gives the new device an IP address. 

That's fantastic for a phone, tablet, laptop, or any device that comes and goes. They don't really care where in the IP address range they go, so long as they can connect. 

However, there are some devices that work better if they have an IP address that stays the same, no matter what. In our case, we're talking about CCTV cameras and recorders, but it can also be true for multi-zone audio devices (like MusicCast and HEOS).

When you set up an NVR, and add the cameras, those are added via their IP addresses. If those addresses change every time the power goes out, or the NVR changes address, then none of those things will find each other anymore. It's like going to visit your friend in their office, knowing the floor & office number they were in, then finding out they were moved somewhere else in the building. 

However, you can stop your modem/router from changing the IP addresses for your devices. In its simplest form, you need to either use addresses for your devices that are outside of the DHCP range, or reserve specific addresses within the DHCP range for your devices.

If your modem (192.168.1.1) has a DHCP range of 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.100, then you could put your NVR at 192.168.1.101, and the cameras at 192.168.1.102, 192.168.1.103, 192.168.1.104, and 192.168.1.105.

Otherwise, head into the address reservation section of your router's settings (normally in the "Advanced" section, under "LAN", but it varies for each modem/router). Usually, you'll have either way of selecting the currently connected devices, or searching for them via MAC address (that's a 12-digit hexadecimal number, unique to each device with network/WiFi capability, looks something like 04:CF:7D:88:03:AB). Then you choose an IP address, and assign that MAC address/device to that IP address.

The other way to do this is if you can't log into the modem/router to check the DHCP table, or reserve IP addresses, maybe at your client's home or business. You know that the modem/router is at 192.168.1.1, but you can't be sure which DHCP addresses it has to assign. If you want to guess, then look at the IP address your computer/phone is assigned. Chances are that if your phone is at 192.168.1.13, then the modem is assigning from 192.168.1.2 and upwards. If you were at 192.168.1.114, then it's probably going from 192.168.1.100 and up from there. On a normal home network, there won't likely be devices in the upper reaches of that range.

So, if you manually assign your devices to addresses at the upper end of the possible IP address range, you should be safe ("should" being the operative word there!). For example, if the modem is 192.168.1.1, your laptop was at 192.168.1.21, then putting your NVR at 192.168.1.80 and your cameras at 192.168.1.81, 192.168.1.82, 192.168.1.83 and 192.168.1.84 should be fine. I'd normally ping those addresses before assuming anything, but if you don't have your laptop there, you should be able to tell pretty quickly whether it's working or not!

In your device's network settings, make sure they have the right gateway (that's the modem/router's IP address: 192.168.1.1 in this example), and then use the IP address you've reserved for them.