I have to thank Trevor for the photo, this was a LONG time ago.

I chose to go with an IP camera since it could be incorporated to our existing system without much trouble. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many of them come with their own web-server software. This is important for remote monitoring. I eventually settled on the Sharx SCNC2607 from SecurCam. Some of the highlights include:

• Night Vision
• Motion Detection
• 640×480 @ 30FPS
• Wired and wireless

Setup would be difficult for a novice user. Knowledge of DHCP, UPnP, NAT, Ports, Firewalls, and 802.11 setup were helpful. One thing that was extra handy was Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). After enabling this feature on the pfGuard, the Sharx grabbed an IP and then was recognized within Vista showing the IP. I didn’t have to log into the firewall and check for the most recent lease. Although the wording in the manual makes it sound difficult, it was easy to configure the ports and know which ports to forward through our firewall. I chose to pull the MAC address and set up a static lease on the pfGuard so that it keeps the same IP.

Night Vision

Other handy settings allow for motion detection within zones (areas of the shot), alert settings (I chose email from a pop enabled gmail account), resolution, frame rates, and bandwidth for web streaming. I went for quality since our WAN from Cox Business is strong.

Sharx also provides MultiLive software that installs on a client. This allows you to not only monitor a number of cameras either simultaneously or individually but it also allows you to establish your recording drive and determine the length of recording time after an alarm has been triggered. A feature I didn’t use was the included SD card slot. I simply don’t have one laying around.

Hopefully this will give us an idea of where are missing product is going. Not so much to bust them, but to open the door to serve another client at the Bread of Life.

I recently purchased another Watchguard Firebox X Core unit on ebay. This time I picked up an X1000 for $31 including shipping. This is intended to be more of an experimental box. So I also ordered a PIII 1.4ghz processor (CPU ID SL6BY) to replace the 1.2ghz Celeron.

Next step will be more memory and some quieter fans because these things are loud!

Install of pfSense 1.2.3 embedded was pretty easy onto a WD 40gb laptop drive I had laying around. I initially ran the box with the Celeron. After letting the thermal paste warmed up a bit I powered down and twisted the heat sink off. This took a little more force than expected, but eventually it popped off. The newer cpu went right in with no modifications of any files. The system boots noticeably faster for me.

My next task and one that I have wanted to do for a while on my other pfGuard boxes was to get the LCD panel working. Further investigation returned this post which was very concise and accurate for getting the LCD going. Just remember to first download your lcdd.tar.gz file and your sdeclcd.so files to your computer then upload it to the pfGuard using the Diagnostics -> Command -> Upload featured.

Next I used this post to change what the lcd displayed to my personal preference.