Best IP Camera Discovery Utility: Longse?

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Ethan Ace
Feb 10, 2017

This isn't a joke, believe it or not.

Longse's IP camera discovery tool (IPCSearch) does one thing that almost no one else's does: instead of finding only Longse cameras, it finds every make/model that I've tried it with. For example, here it is search our local network, finding 20+ cameras from 10+ manufacturers (Arecont, Avigilon, Axis, Bosch, Dahua, Hikvision, Sony, Pelco, and others):

You can't do any configuration from the tool itself, but double clicking a camera launches it in a web browser. Additionally, there's no way to point it at other subnets. But in a multi-manufacturer environment, this is a simpler way to find cameras than a typical IP Scanners for Video Surveillance.

What do you think? Would you use a basic camera discovery tool that could find (but not configure) multiple manufacturers? Or is the lack of configuration a showstopper?

RS
Robert Shih
Feb 11, 2017
Independent

Onvif device manager is actually pretty functional in that respect.

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Ethan Ace
Feb 13, 2017

I know that it's supposed to be able to do this, but I've had really mixed results with ODM. Sometimes it just doesn't automatically discover anything. It seems to depend on the machine it's installed on. 

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AT
Andrew Tierney
Feb 14, 2017

I've tried using ODM during pentests before. It seems very hit or miss, though it nearly always shows something.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Feb 13, 2017

Very useful if you are one a site where you are taking over someone else's system blindly.  I have never used ONVIF device manager that Robert mentions, but I will add that to the toolkit as well.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Feb 13, 2017

We use Advanced IP Scanner.  Although you cannot configure the devices from there, you can click on the device to open in a web browser.

Advanced IP Scanner allows us to discover all devices / every device on the network, not just cameras.  So finding workstations, printers, storage arrays, etc becomes easier with one tool.

(2)
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Matthew Fox
Feb 13, 2017
IPVMU Certified

We also use Advanced IP Scanner at our shop.  Works great.  Allows for scanning of any subnet that it can ping.

(2)
MT
Matt Transue
Feb 13, 2017

I also like Advanced IP Scanner, and use it a lot.

However, in a network with a lot of devices, it can be hard to identify what is a camera vs. non-camera.  Not all use a camera-branded NIC so you're left will checking the MAC addresses to make sure it's your device.

A more camera-centric tool would marry the best of both worlds.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Dec 07, 2019

We've created LANScanner for this kind of discovery. It will use HTTP & ONVIF to retrieve camera images. You can add up to 8 logins and can export to PDF and Excel. It will also tell you which switch and port a device plugs into as long as SNMP is enabled on the switch and they're in the same scan range.

LANScanner

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