Local Acces to View Camera Feed

[Trabel]

I have an MS120 and a few Meraki cameras connected to it. I want to have users access the local camera feeds without using the cloud portal. I do see in the Meraki documentation that Local access is possible when you add a static route to the cameras on the PC you wish to view them on. I have done that but I still can't web to either camera.

Is there another way?

Below is the article from the Meraki Website

Local Access

If the client has an IP route to the private IP address of the camera, a secure connection will be established between the two. This occurs when the client is either on the LAN, over site-to-site VPN or client VPN. In the LAN scenario, no WAN bandwidth is used for the video streaming. Direct streaming is indicated by a green check mark in the bottom left corner of the video stream.

[jdsilva]

Hi @Trabel ,

No, you cannot access the camera directly to view video. The local access that you've found reference to still requires you to log into the Dashboard and access the video, it simply means that the video stream is not proxied though the cloud like it would be if you were offsite. 

[Trabel]

Thank you. That makes more sense. So I should still be allowed to view stored footage on the camera that way without the cloud proxy?

[jdsilva]

The Dashboard and the cloud proxy are not the same thing. The only way to see what is on the camera is using the dashboard. When you start to stream footage, be it historical or live, then the video stream will go through a cloud proxy if you are not on the same local network as the camera, or it will stream direct to you if you are on the local network. Whether you're using the cloud proxy or direct does not change the fact that you have to use the Dashboard to get the stream in the first place. 

[Trabel]

Ok, the streaming directly to your workstation while on the local network... is this irregardless of the static route on the PC? Are those really needed?

I'm also having issues with the cameras showing historical footage. It's not consistent.

[Trabel]

[BlakeRichardson]

@Trabel the only way to initiate viewing footage on an MV is via the dashboard, if the camera is on a local network the dashboard and camera will negosiate a direct connection so that the impact on youe WAN isn't as high.

Your last screenshot looks normal, usally there is a slight delay in footage that is only a few minutes behind realtime being available, I assume this is video that is still being processed. 

[Trabel]

Got it, What if the footage gap was growing?

I've also noticed when I cycle the port on the Switch, the two cameras swap status. Is this normal?

[jdsilva]

The way this works is that the camera records, processes, and stores all video directly on the camera. For the video that's been processed and stored metadata is uploaded to the Dashboard, and that is what is represented by the green line. Where's there's a green line there is metadata for video on the camera. If there's an increasing gap then there may be a connectivity problem preventing the camera from uploading the meta data, or some other issue. 

Why your cameras flip like that is beyond me. Never seen that before. 

[BrechtSchamp]

Regarding the colors of the bars. Hover over the orange/yellow part of the bar with your mouse cursor, I think it'll tell you why it's orange/yellow.

[Trabel]

It says the same for both... yet they both are able to connect to the cloud without issue.

Gateway warning (bad connectivity to Dashboard, possible firewall or NAT issue) (starting Mar 2 10:51)

[BlakeRichardson]

@Trabel What type of internet connection do you have?  The network error you are seeing is the reason your footage bar looks the way it does. 

[Trabel]

The Meraki connected to our private network and passes through our security appliances to get to the internet. I have rules in place to allow the Meraki network to go out to the required Meraki IP addresses... Both show allow actions for all camera's and the Meraki switch going out.

[BrechtSchamp]

How about the return traffic, is your firewall stateful?

Try opening up the firewall completely for the MV's addresses, in both directions. If that fixes it at least you know the issue lies with the firewall. You can then figure out what exactly you were blocking that caused this.

The Help > Firewall Info menu in your dashboard should help, it'll specify the exact rules needed for your network:

[Trabel]

Thank you and yes, I've gone through all of that. The Cameras are free to talk to Meraki through the firewall. I see no block actions in the event log. Why is it that the cameras would be switching status?

I disabled the port for the camera that was in a connected state. Then the other went from alerting to connected. When I re-enabled the port for the disabled camera, they switched alert statuses again. Why would it do that? Also when it does this, the camera that's alerting a bad connection is not showing any historical recording.