What the difference?

When you connect to the cameras from QCamPro confidential information like your username and password has to travel across the Internet in order to get the image. If you are using HTTP to connect to your camera that confidential information is being transmitted in plain text to your camera! It is obvious how bad this could be for your security, so we use HTTPS to allow the same communications to happen in an encrypted stream. For this reason QCamPro recommends that you always use HTTPS to connect to your cameras.

HTTP: Data (including username and passwords) is sent in plain text across the public Internet.

HTTPS: All data is send to the camera encrypted so no one along the way can read your confidential information (like usernames and passwords)

How do I set up HTTPS?

To tell QCamPro to connect to your cameras using HTTPS, simply select HTTPS instead of HTTP in the camera connection settings. If your camera already accepts HTTPS then this will immediately start working, if not you may need to adjust your router or camera configurations.

Configuring the connection in your router

When you create your port forward rules in your router you have two options, either forward a unique port all the way through to the camera or use a unique port on the router to connect to a standard port on the camera.

Option 1: Port address translation (PAT)

If you can forward a unique external port to a set port on your camera, then you need to make sure the internal port is 443. For example if you connect to the camera using 9000 on the outside connection, the router needs to forward that to port 443 on the camera. If your router supports this and your camera is configured to receive HTTPS connections then you are set.

Option 2: Port forwarding

If your router doesn't support redirecting traffic to a different port on the internal interface then you will need to configure your camera to receive the connection using the same port as you use to connect to the camera from the outside. For example, on a MOBOTIX camera you can change the HTTPS listening port by going to the Admin Menu -> Web Server -> HTTPS Port.