Although LAN computers may connect to a WAN, such practice is typically achieved by the use of a “Gateway” or “Firewall/Router or Proxy Server.” A gateway acts as a conduit for networking traffic, and computers that communicate through the gateway assume the IP address of the gateway. In other words, if your personal computer, which is connected to your LAN, has an IP address of 10.1.1.1 and it is connected to the Internet through a gateway computer with an IP address of 123.456.789.123, other computers outside your LAN will recognize your computer as having the same IP address as the gateway computer. Multiple LAN computers may be connected to a WAN by this method and every computer communicating from behind the gateway will appear to the WAN as the gateway computer. The gateway will convert the IP addresses of the LAN computers to its own IP address for both inbound and outbound traffic.

A firewall/router or proxy server is a hardware and/or software device that allows definable filtering of specific information, file types, and network access. It is often used for security purposes—if your hard drive and console are networked, you might want to carefully research the need for firewall/proxy protection.

FTP

FTP is the acronym for File Transfer Protocol. FTP communicates over TCP/ IP and is one of the languages/methods that the Transport Control Protocol accommodates. As its name implies, FTP was designed to transfer files over a network. Some of the unique capabilities of FTP are the recognition of transmission loss and file integrity checking. If a file transfer is interrupted during an FTP session, the FTP “client” will perform an integrity check and attempt to re-establish connection and transfer. Most FTP servers and clients employ a user name and password scheme for authorization purposes. The MDR24/96 FTP implementation sets the client account to anonymous status, thereby allowing any fully functional FTP client to connect to the internal file system of the recorder. Because it’s possible that an unknown computer may connect to the MDR24/96 and add or delete files, care should be taken when connecting the MDR to a publicly available network (WAN).

IP Address

Without detailing the intricacies of network security and firewalls, you should be aware that configuring the MDR24/96 with a publicly available IP address on a publicly available network may make the recorder’s hard drive and functions visible to network traffic, i.e., the Internet. When connecting two Ethernet devices directly, without including an outside network, this is a non- issue. Certain IP address ranges have been set aside by key Internet standards bodies for use in private networking applications. Those ranges are as follows:

Class A 10.0.0.0—10.255.255.255

Class B 172.16.0.0—172.31.255.255

Class C 192.168.0.0—192.168.255.255

If your MDR24/96 is connected to a network that never “touches” another network, i.e., not publicly available outside of your network, you may use any IP address range you choose. However, research and consideration in this matter should be conducted to prevent any unwanted breaches of security and IP address conflicts. For further details, you are encouraged to seek additional information from the following organization:

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

http://www.iana.org

Guide Operation

 

 

Operation Guide

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