Running Ubuntu machine using zoneminder through a VPN - Cameras not working

[larryinfl]

I've been running an Ubuntu box out of my home for nearly a year. I have 1 GIG fiber up and down. I have DDNS service setup and that listens for any IP changes and updates my DDNS.

I run my zoneminder system with 4 cameras off it, plex server and a file server.

I have installed a VPN from purevpn with their port forwarding option. The servers internet access works fine, but my cameras stop working when I have the vpn enabled. I can access zoneminder via the browser on my unbuntu server. The feeds all turn red and they say "Monitor is not capturing. We will be unable to provide an image".

I have the purevpn port forwarding setup to open all ports on their side.

I do also have the dedicated IP option with purevpn for a PPTP connection. I've used openvpn with my purevpn account and I've also used purevpn CLI linux app. Every way I connect gives me the same result.

I've spent a few hours trying to fix this with no luck and I'm not seeing any forum posts or documentation that says what I should do. I have found some zoneminder documentation about using openvpn will require tweaks to get it to work with zoneminder, but that documentation did not say what needed to be done.

I'm hoping someone can help point me in the right direction here? Thanks in advance!

Larry

[bbunge]

Sounds like you have the VPN running on the Zoneminder server. Also sounds like you are using a VPN client to hide your internet traffic Not good for Zoneminder. Better place is to have the VPN on the router. I have a couple of remote networks that I manage via OpenVPN server on the routers. Works swell.

[larryinfl]

Yes I am using a vpn client to hide my traffic. My goal is to add a layer of privacy between my zoneminder server and wherever I may connect to it from or download a file from remotely. I want to hide the traffic from prying eyes and my ISP.

I only want this one machine to use the vpn. With my GIG fiber connection, a VPN slows that down on my machines. So I do not want to add this at the router level. I don't mind the slowdown on the zoneminder server, as it is still plenty fast for zondeminder.

[larryinfl]

So after many hours, I figured out my issue. I figured I'd post here if someone was searching for the same issue at a later date.

It turned out to be my passthrough settings on my router. I had passthrough set up so I could access my server outside my home via my ISP IP address. But with the VPN I had a dedicated IP and port forwarding. After I disabled passthrough and setup PPTP VPN on the server things worked great.