Advice on Zerotier settings for accessing network camera on multiple similar LAN configuration

[swarooph]

Hi all! We have been exploring Zerotier for a use case that involves the following:

1. Site 1: Computer 1 running linux os is connected via LAN to multiple network/ip cameras all of which have video streams accessible via rtsp through certain static ips and ports. Computer 1 also is connected to the internet via 4G.

2. Site 2: Computer 2 doing the same. Including network and IP configuration on the LAN.

Site 1 and Site 2 are not connected to each other in anyway.

Now in a “server” machine, we want to access the rtsp streams of ALL the site cameras. We were hoping zerotier has ways to solve this.

The setup:
Install zerotier in computer 1, 2 and server. All setup using the guide here including port forwarding and iptables configuration. All on the same network id in zerotier.

What works 1: Accessing rtsp streams of camera using the “local LAN ip” for computer 1 works. Great!

What does not work 1: Accessing rtsp streams of camera using the “managed ip” assigned by zerotier doesn’t work. Able to ping this ip. But no data. This is sad because now there’s no way to uniquely identify the cameras on the “other side” of LAN using this assigned ip. On their respective lans both are 192.168.11.65. Question 1 is, is this possible?

What does not work 2: We compromised and now “changed” the ip address of ip cam connected to computer 2. Lets say 192.168.11.66. So now they are “unique”. Despite adding the new computer to the managed routes, we are unable to ping this resource.

So tldr; for two lans with similar network devices with same ips, how to access these resources via zerotier on a “server” machine? We also brainstormed a multiple network id approach but that doesn’t seem like the way to go. We saw the bridging guide but unsure if thats the way to go.

Granted I’m not a networking wiz. But a software engineer. Any ideas?

[cubimol]

These linux commands executed at startup are what turn my little linux armv7 devices with ZeroTier into gateways to the local network:

  # bridge config
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1
  sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.src_valid_mark=1
  iptables -A FORWARD -i zt+ -j ACCEPT
  iptables -A FORWARD -o zt+ -j ACCEPT
  iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE
  iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -o lo -j ACCEPT

Try something similar.

Good luck!

Note.- Remember that you may need to establish routes on your ZeroTier network, for example, 192.168.3.200/32 via 10.10.10.9, where 192.168.3.200 is the IP address of your camera within the local network, and 10.10.10.9 is the IP address of your gateway device on the zerotier network.