Avermedia EH1004 nano network setup - DNS values

[davox 0]

I've setup my EH1004 nano for remote access. I had to setup the following:

1) IP

2) Mask

3) Gateway

4) DNS

 

I'm OK with the first 3 items.

IP address is the IP address of the DVR (I have a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.10 set up).

Mask is set to 255.255.255.0

Gateway is set to the IP address of my router (192.168.0.1 in my case).

 

My remote access works fine. I've had it running at a location (about 70 miles) away and I can access the DVR, view recorded footage etc. Works great.

 

The only issue I have is with the DNS value. I don't understand what this parameter does. I've tried a couple of different values and yet remote access seems to work with any value.

 

Can anyone shed any light on what value DNS should be set to ? Does anyone know what it's used for (e-mail possibly) ?

 

Thanks

[tomcctv 190]

DNS value. is the name you give to the avers Dns service. just a service to use if you dont have a static ip

[davox 0]

Thanks for the reply Tom.

 

I have a dynamic IP address but I'm using 'dyndns' to provide me with effectively a static address. This side of thing is handled by my netgear router which is compatible with 'dyndns'.

 

So are you saying that the DNS setting on the DVR does something equivalent to the 'dyndns' service ?

 

If so, I guess I can put any value in and it will have no effect.

[tomcctv 190]

Thanks for the reply Tom.

 

I have a dynamic IP address but I'm using 'dyndns' to provide me with effectively a static address. This side of thing is handled by my netgear router which is compatible with 'dyndns'.

 

So are you saying that the DNS setting on the DVR does something equivalent to the 'dyndns' service ?

 

If so, I guess I can put any value in and it will have no effect.

 

 

 

its just a service like dyndns. for aver units only.

[davox 0]

Tom, thats great, thanks so much for the quick replies.

 

The reason I ask is that I've been having a bit of trouble with email alerts and was wondering whether DNS had anything to do with it. I had email working a couple of weeks ago but now it doesn't work.

 

When I was on site 2 weeks ago, I tested the e-mail by telling it to send an e-mail when video loss was detected. I ended up geting lots of e-mails (20 or so) because a camera was disconnected. I then told it only to send me an e-mail only when it did a reboot (I have it configued to reboot every week - this works since I can see it in the event log). But I don't get an e-mail alert !

 

When I failed to get a weekly alert I configured the DVR again to send e-mail on video loss (I did this remotely using 'remote setup') but I still don't get any emails !!

 

So, it looks as though e-mail is now broken. I'm wondering if my ISP has somehow now blocked emails because I sent quite a few (with snapshot attachment) in just a few minutes.

 

Any ideas on this ?

[bpzle 0]

What email service were you using originally that worked?

 

Dns is the server used for domain name lookup. Example: yahoo.com = 123.456.789.012.

 

If you don't have the correct dns server, the dvr has no way of looking up ddns servers or email, or any other domain/ service.

[davox 0]

Thanks for the reply bpzle.

 

I hope that I'm all sorted now. I've had e-mail with snapshot now working since Friday evening. I hope that it's still working now.

 

You are right about DNS. I think there has been a bit of confusion between DNS and DDNS in this thread.

 

I now have the EH1004 DNS set to point to the router (192.168.0.1). The router has 2 DNS settings (primary and secondary DNS) which must be provided by my ISP (BT).

 

I'm now using a Gmail account since I know another user (Andy747) has used this successfully. For Gmail, the server is smtp.gmail.com. I think that the DNS must resolve this name to an IP address. Is this correct ?

 

I did think about replacing the DNS value that I now have with the value 8.8.8.8 which is the IP address of the Google public DNS server. Since I'm using Google Gmail, I though that this should also work. Anyway, seems to work with the router IP, so will leave it.

 

When I had e-mail working previously, I was using a '123 reg' account with DNS set to the primary address identified by my router although at the time I didn't really understand the significance of the DNS setting.

[nDAlk90 0]

How do you like this unit? Any screenshots you can post? Video's?

 

Thanks.

[groovyman 0]

xellbuy - I have a dozen of the Aver Nano units out in the field. I have the EH1004, EH1008 and one EH1116 that I installed just a couple weeks ago. I've been meaning to write a personal review of this product line in an effort to give something back to the forum. Your question provided me with some motivation and hopefully I'll have something later today or tomorrow.

 

For screenshots and videos, you can find them on Youtube. Do a search for Aver Nano. Most of the videos are produced and uploaded by Aver themselves and they do a good job of showing the hardware and software aspects of the unit.

 

I happen to like this product line, although there is one major con (in my opinion) - the inability to control some features and settings remotely, such as user accounts, masking (for motion detection) and others which I'll get to later. It hasn't stopped me from purchasing these units though (obviously).