Question for network gurus

[G G]

Originally Posted by 8zeros

So dyndns sets up a place on the internet you can address to look back at your router to see the cameras, right? And you have a port set up to forward out to that dyndns place, it seems.
Question 1. Does this work without the VPN?

VPN sets up a standard port to connect to that is running a program that encrypts and authenticates the connection with an outside computer.
Question 2. Does this work without the camera/dyndns stuff?
In other words, can one or the other or both work without the other running?

It seems to me that they are two separate things running their separate ways and should not bother the other.

the answer is yes they can both work separately. It's not quite as simple as you make it though. Using a VPN changes your ip (because of the encryted tunnel from my computer to the host) to the one on the VPN server. That is why the ISP cannot log or track what you are doing on the internet. The dyndns is required to connect back to the home network because most of us have a dynamic IP and not a static one. It simply lets you use a domain to connect back to the cameras, because when you set up the dyndns on the router it updates the actual ip so that the domain is always looking at the router. That's probably not as technical or correct as some on here can make it, but I think it's close enough.