'webcam surveillance' stream not available outside network?

Ak Eric

I've been using Octoprint for years to remotly monitor and control my prints when I'm away from home.
Recently I piped the Octorpint webcam stream into my DWC to do the same thing: I port-forwarded my duet (pssd protected) so I can login from the intenernet, to monitor/control it too.

I thought this was working a-ok: My my house, I can log into my IP address from my phone, and see the DWC and the webcam stream. Basically, just like Octoprint, but with the DWC.

However, something weird happened: When I'd actually leave my house, over the same web interface, the webstream disappeared. Tracked it down : I can only view the "Webcam Survaliance" section of the DWC if my phone is connected to my homes local wifi. Once it's off that network, while the DWC still works over over the web, the webcam stream (the same stream that works fine for Octoprint) fails.

Am I doing something wrong here? Any thoughts appreciated.

resam

"Works as implemented" I would say.
DWC simply embeds your webstream as iframe into the DWC page. If you pointed your webstream to a "local" address (e.g., 192.168.1.42 or similar), it simply won't be reachable from outside this network (given a common NAT).

You might be able to fix this also adding a port-forward for the webcam, and then entering the public address+port into DWC.

Phaedrux

The real solution is to use VPN.

You can still reach the webcam directly if you forward the ports as you would have for octoprint and go to it's frame URL.

Ak Eric

Thanks for the thoughts. It's weird though, since the webstream in DWC is the exact same webstream that Octoprint uses (both local to my network), but Octoprint instance is available over the internet, while the exact same stream through DWC is not.
I've looked at VPN setups several times but I just don't 'get it'. Any suggested tutorials?

Phaedrux

@ak-eric VPN is one of those non-trivial things that is going to take some doing to setup unfortunately. I haven't found a simple tutorial to follow. There's going to be several ways to approach it. I would suggest doing a search for your particular router and going from there.

I view the webcam stream as something less sensitive than actual printer control to expose to the internet so I'm ok with forwarding the port and accessing it directly. You might feel differently about the contents of your build plate though.