Foscam R2 with Lenovo Smart Tab [SOLVED]

Monocle

WOW. Just WOW. I can’t believe they are proxying the stream like this. This is not the case for any other Alexa devices that we have worked with. This of course adds latency and is potentially very undesirable from a security standpoint as your audio and video data is getting passed through some server. The packets are encrypted, but still.

Is it working now for your real Foscam camera stream? Make sure to use @tunnel and the camera has “Foscam” listed as the manufacturer in the Monocle web portal.

I have a dynamic IP address assigned to my public interface. I use a Dynamic DNS provider. Can I use a namespace instead of the public address since it will change when DHCP refreshes?

Not without some changes – but it should be possible. The Alexa system will only connect to DNS hostnames with valid SSL certificates. Do you want to setup a real SSL certificate for your domain? Apart from acquiring the SSL certificate, we would also need to provide some configuration method to allow your to include your own certificate and private key to the Monocle gateway on startup.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

Very interesting indeed and ironically different than any other alexa device is even more boggling.

thank you for working with me on this, i really appreciate it.

I think a simpler solution would be to configure my IP with a static. I think direction i would go with this. I keep getting these nagging monthly mails to update my DNS record etc… so it would do away with that.

I expect more of these devices like this to come out though. Would be nice to see continued development on this. At least we have a workaround at this point.

skarragallagher

Yes btw the foscam works!!!

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Glad to hear the Foscam is working.

If we are going to leave port 443 open to the Internet it would be prudent for us to add some form of authentication to the monocle service to prevent unauthorized access. The current exposure is pretty limited but security by obscurity is really not a good solution. At the moment any consumer would need to know the unique STREAM ID and SESSION ID to be able to get access to any camera streams but a proper authentication mechanism would be better.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

@Monocle

Yes i agree. I will work on adding the Static IP address to my internet plan. I am assuming that auth would be handled on the gateway which would mean the a new version would need to be developed by you?

If i can assist in any way by testing or whatever you need, i happy to do so. I really appreciate the help in getting this to work.

Many Thanks!
Ryan

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Yes we will need to add support for this in the software … let me look into this next week and maybe we can get a copy out to test with .

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

Thanks, i have most of cameras working now. My doorbird is not working and then a few combined views from BlueIris but i haven’t spent time investigating.

I created a couple other support threads in the lenovo forums
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Smart-Tablets-with-Amazon/Lenovo-smart-tab-m10-Camera-Streaming/m-p/4633642/highlight/false

We will see if the can escalate this and resolve this as well although we have a workaround.

No rush, but once you have a version you would like to test let me know here and i will give it a go.

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Just a small update … we have added support for a configuration property to automatically detect your public IP address instead of you having to manually define it.
Please see: https://forum.monoclecam.com/topic/485/access-cameras-from-2nd-site-solved/10

Plan on looking into the authentication improvement this week.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

Thank you for tagging me here. I implemented this and it seems to be working with that new function.

Looking forward to testing whenever you are ready. Thanks for following up

skarragallagher

@Monocle

Im not seeing a way to get the log file. I saw the article on this but the logfile is not created

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Well … its should be creating a log file (monocle-gateway.log) adjacent to (in the same folder as) the monocle-gateway.exe when running on a Windows machine. That is if you are running it as a service. If you are just launching the executable directly, then there is no log file but the same contents should be printed on screen while the executable is running in a command shell.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Well, that is confusing :-)

I wonder if it’s getting written to a working directory instead. Can you do a search for “monocle-gateway.log” and see if its getting written somewhere else?
It’s possible it’s not getting written anywhere, but that is a function of the “nssm.exe” utility that turns this monocle-gatesway.exe into a service.

PS, working on gateway authentication and security today.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

I will do a search, i was thinking it was being written somewhere else.

skarragallagher

a search didn’t find it but please don’t worry about this. Its very minor. Don’t want to distract you from the auth piece :)

Monocle

@skarragallagher

As an alternative, you can always just stop the service and run the monocle-gateway.exe from the command line to see the output logging.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

Yeah thats what i did when troubleshooting cams / network stuff

Monocle

@skarragallagher

Progress update on monocle-gateway authentication …

I now have an optional authentication mechanism in place in both an updated (experimental) version of monocle-gateway as well as the server side infrastructure. I’m finishing up some testing and will post a link for you to download it soon.

The way it works is you add your own textual string as a private authentication key in your monocle.properties file. We then share this private key with the monocle servers (via encrypted channel) and use this key to create a unique one-way encrypted hash/signature for each RTSP request from Alexa to your instance of the Monocle Gateway. This way the private key is never included in the public request and never shared with Amazon/Alexa devices. Every unique Alexa request for a camera stream will have a new and unique auth hash/signature such that previously generated authentication hash/signatures are not reusable. The Monocle gateway will only enforce this hash/signature validation if a private key has been optionally configured.

This is only really needed in cases where the Monocle Gateway is exposed to the Internet / publicly accessible on the Internet (via port 443). All traffic is already encrypted using SSL/TLS, but this new authentication method will further ensure security in that each an every Alexa request signature is authenticated and validated. If configured with this private key, the Monocle Gateway will not accept any inbound RTSP requests that fail to provide the authentication hash/signature or any invalid authentication hash/signatures.

Thanks, Robert

skarragallagher

This sounds like awesomeness. Looking forward to giving it a try. Thank you for turning this around so quickly. Much appreciated!

Monocle

@skarragallagher

I have not tested the Windows build yet, but here it is if you would like to try it out:

Monocle Gateway v0.0.4-5 Experimental Builds

Just add the following section to your monocle.properties file:

#--------------------------------------
# RTSP GATEWAY ACCESS KEY
# use if exposing gateway to Internet
#--------------------------------------
rtsp.auth.key=WHATEVER_UNIQUE_TEXT_YOU_WANT

You can provide some unique string for the rtsp.auth.key property.

When attempting to ask Alexa to view a camera stream, you should see something like:

-------------------------------------------------
INITIALIZE RTSP STREAM:  Basement
-------------------------------------------------
 - NAME          : Basement
 - CAMERA.MFG    : HikVision
 - CAMERA.MODEL  : DS-2CD2042WD-I
 - CAMERA.LABEL  : PRIMARY
 - RTSP.URL      : rtsp://10.1.2.115/Streaming/channels/101
 - STREAM.ID     : STREAM:000641fb-3f5a-4b35-aec3-af39baa2c882
 - SESSION.ID    : 3a73207a-dbe6-4f1a-b8bf-66f3212fcd4e
 - LAST.MODIFIED : Tue Feb 04 2020 15:30:14 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
 - TAGS          : @tunnel
-------------------------------------------------

2020-02-05T21:37:56.034Z [INFO]  [10.1.2.90:37802 <r123rhufU>] RTSP CLIENT SOCKET CONNECTED

-------------------------------------------------
INBOUND RTSP CONNECTION FROM ALEXA:  [10.1.2.90:37802 <r123rhufU>]
-------------------------------------------------
 - CLIENT.IP    : 10.1.2.90 ( <-- this should be your Alexa device)
 - CLIENT.PORT  : 37802
 - REQ.ID       : r123rhufU
 - REQ.PROTOCOL : RTSP/1.0
 - REQ.METHOD   : DESCRIBE
 - REQ.URL      : rtsp://_________.mproxy.io:443/STREAM:000641fb-3f5a-4b35-aec3-af39baa2c882?session=3a73207a-dbe6-4f1a-b8bf-66f3212fcd4e
 - STREAM.ID    : STREAM:000641fb-3f5a-4b35-aec3-af39baa2c882
 - SESSION.ID   : 3a73207a-dbe6-4f1a-b8bf-66f3212fcd4e
 - AUTH.HASH    : 82dcd3504d0234wefsdfsfs3gh36c78b32aff0df
-------------------------------------------------

2020-02-05T21:37:56.163Z [INFO]  [10.1.2.90:37802 <r123rhufU>] RTSP GATEWAY AUTH SUCCEEDED: ...
2020-02-05T21:37:56.163Z [INFO]  [10.1.2.90:37802 <r123rhufU>] RTSP CLIENT ATTACHED TO STREAM: Basement (STREAM:000641fb-3f5a-4b35-aec3-af39baa2c882)

Notice the “RTSP GATEWAY AUTH SUCCEEDED” message confirming a successful authentication.

Thanks, Robert