The ULTRA tank monitor extravaganza!

[stugray]

I have to travel away from my system for more than I am comfortable with.

I installed a Neptune Sys Aquacontroller 3 Pro ( accessible via Enet ). Ph, ORP, water level limit switches, WOF sensor...

Three WVC54 Linksys wireless cameras.

And some serious Failure Controlling features for me to walk away...

AND I have configured my WAN ( Qwest.com router ) to let me view things remotely.

If you are trying to do similar things I have some trials&tribulations we could share.... Port forwarding & remote desktop, etc...


Stu

 

[therealfatman]

I have a friend who is installing a cheap security camera system up to the web. He is planning on 6 to 8 cameras. Just a cheap Walmart Sam's Club unit. I like remote monitoring but I am not hot on remote controlling.

 

[theatrus]

If I had video, I'd constantly be checking it and never relaxing wherever I was. So I just ignore the tank while gone.

Not that I've had mini-disasters because of it. One time the ATO float switch (now long banished and replaced with several optical sensors) failed, basically drying a section of the sump out. I learned that

a) Tank circulation from powerheads is essential
b) PanWorld pumps seem to not mind running semi-dry for several days at a time (there was some water in the plumbing still as the pump is the lowest point in the system)
c) CO2 reactors without input water pressure turn into mush quickly.
d) Fuges without circulation turn funky

But, no losses. I've been lucky like that before

 

[AcroSteve]

I tried stuff like that once, but I have TineWarner, and ran into some problems

 

[gilweb]

Great thread Stu. I have the RKE and I am waiting for the ethernet module to come out so I can start playing. Everyone needs to keep in mind that most ISP's that provide internet service to homeowners typically block common ports to prevent people from running servers accessible VIA the internet. Usually only ports 80 (web) and 25 (mail) are blocked but a quick Google search will tell you what ports your ISP blocks if any.

I have FIOS and they block both 80 and 25 incoming. There are ways around this like changing the port the server (or device) accepts traffic on.

If you do change the port you have to make sure you reference what port you are looking to connect on when you go to make the connections.

For example if you change your web server port from 80 to 8080 to get around the blocked port you would need to now use:
http://mywebserver:8080

The same would pertain if you have a device and you change the
common port it uses.

 

[RussM]

For remote access from the Internet, it's almost always best to leave the device.. whatever it is... aquarium controller, network camera, etc... at its default port(s) and only use an custom port with a port forwarding (also sometimes called port translation) rule in the router.

Contrary to what seems be the general consensus, it is NOT necessary to change the ports used on the inside devices... every firewall I've ever used allows port translation.

My AC3 is still at defaults... port 80 for web interface, port 23 for telnet. For example, a router might be configured to accept connections from the Internet on port 7780, which then forwards the traffic to the AC3's IP address on port 80. Similar for telnet... outside port 7723 becomes port 23 on the inside.



I travel extensively on business, so it is crucial to me to have remote monitoring and remote management capability. In addition to full access to my AC3 itself, there also is a small script which runs on my home server every 10 minutes... it telnets to the AC3, pulls the latest data, outputs a tiny text file, which then gets FTP'd to my hosted web server. A PHP script on the web server, when accessed, parses the latest text file and dynamically generates a 2k PNG image. The image is formatted specifically for my Blackberry, and looks like this:

This is my home page whenever I run the BB's browser.

 

[gilweb]

RussM very good point. Do homeowner routers support PAT (port address translation)? I thought they would only do port fowarding?

I also do a port translation but I have a Cisco lab and use that instead of the normal homeowner equipment.

 

[RussM]

"Do homeowner routers support PAT (port address translation)? I thought they would only do port fowarding (NAT)? I also do a port translation but I have a Cisco lab and use that instead of the normal homeowner equipment."

Yeah, PAT is what I was talking about... I shouldn't try to post messages in a B2C condition (Before 2nd mug of Coffee!)

There are probably some consumer-grade router/firewalls that don't do PAT, but every one I've owned (LinkSys, Netgear, D-Link) did support it.

I do a lot of Cisco ASA firewall & VPN work... I keep thinking about picking up a used PIX506e to use at home, but my NetGear FVS124G works just fine. I configured and installed a pair of ASA5540s for a client a few months ago... they offered to let me take their old PIX535, but I graciously declined... kinda overkill for home use!:eek1:

 

[Runfrumu]

Can anyone give a step by step on how to set-up remote monitoring for a controller? I have a Lighthouse pro XLS and have TWC internet (since I work for them) with a linksys N router. I have my controller set-up to send me texts, forwarding them through gmail, but I'm not real familiar with the remote access. Am I going to need to get a static IP?

 

[stugray]

Runfrumu,

To make it so that you can always get to your router from the internet, you either need to: 1- Ask you service provider for a static WAN IP, or 2 - Open a free account at DynDNS & install the DNS updater software on a computer inside your LAN.

If you use the DNS service, your home router will be something like myhouse.homeip.net.

Next you want to configure any device inside your LAN to use a fixed IP within the LAN. This way your router ( the DHCP server for your LAN ) will always give out the same IPs to each device.

Finally you need to setup "port forwarding" on your router.
So if you wanted to connect to a wireless webcam ( lets say its LAN IP is 192.168.0.75 ) that uses HTTP ( port 80 ) you would do the following:

Configure the router to port forward an incoming port ( say 8080 ) to the internal address 192.168.0.75 port 80.

Then from the internet ( e.g. at work ) you would type into the browser: http://myhouse.homeip.net:8080.

Your router will see the incoming request on port 8080 and say "OH this is meant for 192.168.0.75 on port 80" and it will route all the traffic to the webcam.

You then keep repeating the port forward settings for all devices you want to see from the outside & give them different outside ports ( e.g. 8081, 8082, etc ).

HTH

Stu

 

[Runfrumu]

Thanks stugray.


Is the DynDNS pretty safe and secure? That would be alot cheaper and easier than doing the static IP route.

 

[theatrus]

DynDNS is fairly reliable. I've not had it fail yet, with my DD-WRT router updating it on a regular basis.

 

[olemos]

My thoughts on this is, although it’s cool to access your tank from far away, other then cameras, the more gadgets you add to your system, more chances things are going to go wrong.

 

[PaulieWalnuts]

very cool...i am trying to do something like this also.

 

[gilweb]

DHCP

DHCP

Next you want to configure any device inside your LAN to use a fixed IP within the LAN. This way your router ( the DHCP server for your LAN ) will always give out the same IPs to each device.

Just a correction on this. DHCP stands for "Dynamic" host configuration protocol. A node on the lan configured to get an ip VIA dhcp could get a new ip once its "lease" runs out.

Unless of course the homeowner routers support reservations with MAC addresses. Then the node will always be issued the reserved IP.

 

[stugray]

gilweb,

Thanks for the clarification!

Here's a question for you: If I configure everything on my LAN as FIXED IP, do I still need my DHCP server to be enabled ( on the router ) to "negotiate" all the traffic, or can I disable it completely?

I thought you might need a high level master to make sure all the fixed IP guys still "played nice" with each other...

Stu

 

[gilweb]

Stu,

You are 100% correct. If everything has a static IP there is no need for a DHCP server. Just make sure no 2 devices get the same IP on accident.

And of course make sure all static ip's are on the same network\subnet so they can all "talk" to each other without the need for routing.

 

[BeanAnimal]

No stu... all DHCP does is hand out addresses. If you set static IPs on all of your devices, then you do not need DHCP. That said, there is no problem running a mix of dynamic and static clients.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Oops sorry. I did not see that gilweb already answered

 

[madmike]

forgive me, but alot of this thread has gone right over my head. I have an ACIII and i am able to get in thru a Dyndns account I set up. I have never used webcams but would love to add one to my setup, could I just hook a webcam up to my pc and link to it thru dyndns also? Any recommendations on a good webcam?
Thanks!