The Auto Negotiation Service Between Router and IP Camera Based on UPnPG
I – Introduction
IP camera (Internet Protocol camera) is a networked digital video camera that receives control data and sends image data over a local area network or the internet. The IP camera, like any network device, is assigned an IP address when it is connected to your router and powered on. Some of them require a network cable connection and some are wireless and transmit their packets via radio frequency signals over the Wi-Fi network. Users can access the IP camera by typing in a specific IP address to a web browser, a video streaming player, or mobile application. They can then watch the camera live stream, receive push alerts, check the camera recordings, and configure the IP camera settings wherever they are.
II – Background
Connecting an IP camera from your computer is easy. But the question now is, how do you manage multiple IP cameras from your computer?
The challenge is that when your IP cameras increase, you need to find a way to manage them effectively. You can set port forwarding rules on the router for your IP cameras one by one, or enable the UPnP feature on your router. When you need to access your IP cameras, it’s not easy to remember each of their IP addresses. And it should not be a problem to easily access their configuration webpage or streaming video.
In this paper, we propose a solution called “The Auto Negotiation Service between Router and IP Camera Based on UPnP” that can display all IP camera information on the router webpage. Users do not need to write down the IP address of each IP camera. They just need to type the router’s IP address into a web browser.
They can know the IP address, MAC address and device name of all IP cameras connected to this router.
III – How Auto Negotiation Works
This Auto Negotiation Service between Router and IP Camera feature is based on UPnP technology. Users can connect to the web page of the IP camera by clicking the IP camera list directly on the router. This is illustrated in Figure 1.
A. Router side works
Once the router receives the UPnP probe packet, it is recognized as an IP camera that supports the auto negotiation feature by looking up the UPnP description field. If the IP camera supports the auto negotiation feature, the router will update its IP camera list. This is illustrated in Fig.2.
1. IP camera sends UPnP probe with specific description.
2. Port forwarding rule is created by UPnP, and the router updates its own IP camera list.
3. User accesses the webpage of the router to get the IP camera list.
B. IP camera side works
The description field of UPnP probe packets contain the device name, MAC address, HTTP port, RTSP port, RTCP port, etc.
The IP camera sends out UPnP probe with specific description when power is on. When the setting of the IP camera is being changed, the IP cameras will send out UPnP probes again to update their information on the router. Make sure that the latest information of the IP camera is on the router.
