So I bought a wireless web cam so I can keep an eye on my dog when I’m out of the house. It’s a cute little Panasonic BL-C20A. Reasonably good reviews and a reasonably good price. Problem is, it has some stupid Windows only automatic setup program. Argh. The camera itself works fine with Linux (reportedly) or Mac OS X, but you need Windows and ActiveX to install it in the only documented way. I usually don’t buy any hardware that doesn’t work out of the box with Linux (limits my hardware choices, but saves me lots of hassle). But for reasons I won’t go into, this was the only good option, so I bought it against my better judgment.
Anyway, on to the fun. The camera is completely configurable without Windows, if you’re even slightly computer savvy.
Here’s what you do:
Plug it into your DHCP enabled router. Or a switch if you have a server providing DHCP. I think you need DHCP for this, and I don’t think it knows how to fall back to a static IP address in the event DHCP fails. But maybe I’m wrong.
Turn it on.
Give it a few seconds to find an IP.
Now, run a ping scan using nmap:
$ nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24
Where 192.168.1.0 is replaced with your local network address. Find the one that isn’t one of your existing machines (hopefully you don’t have too many). Hit that address with any browser. It’ll ask you to set an admin password, and from there you can configure it just like our Windows brethren. Done! I can’t imagine why they had to write a big cumbersome ActiveX encumbered Windows application just for that, but that’s the way it is. The web-based UI seems to be browser agnostic once you’ve got it running.
It’s worth noting that the IP might also show up in your DHCP leases list…but it didn’t in my Ruckus Metroflex, so it seems to not handle DHCP correctly (or the Ruckus doesn’t…but all other devices show up in leases).
Ben Abbott | 26-Jan-08 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
Thanks for this post.
After playing some, I found that the wine installed via Fink is able run run the Setup.exe!
After running setup I discovered that DHCP did not work automatically. I had to explicitly select that DHCP mode. Fortunately, I have two lans one with 10.0.1.* addressing and one with 192.168.0.* addressing.
Without a 10.0.1.* lan, I don’t know how I would have ever found the camera.
In any event, I’m off the try to setup internet access through my Airport Extreme.
erichazann | 01-Sep-08 at 2:57 pm | Permalink
I read on another site that the default address of the camera was 192.168.0.253.. I spent a long time trying to reconfigure my router to use the 255.255.0.0 subnet but could not (linksys BEFW11s4) because I don’t have a crossover cable to connect directly. Then I found this site, installed nmap and found the camera at 192.168.1.253 — so it didn’t get a DHCP address from my router. (It was also not showing up in my leases.)
I set a password and it was doing it’s network config and conked out right after port forwarding, so I checked the router config and saw what port it set up, and then just accessed that port. 192.168.1.253:50000. Hope this helps someone.