Networking

As both a IP networked and security product, Prescient has two main goals:

• Easy network configuration
• Security of data

Identifying DN4s on the Network

The easiest way to access the UI is by navigating to https://<serial>.local from your web browser of choice where <serial> is the serial number labelled on the board. Alternatively, you can navigate to this address via the QR code on the board.

Generally we recommend accessing the UI and configuring your site database from a single DN4. You may want to create a bookmark for that specific controller's webpage.

Network Configuration

Out of the box there is very little network-level configuration needed; DN4s will discover and communicate with each other autonomously using a set of technologies under the umbrella term of 'zeroconf networking' or 'mDNS'.

On enterprise networks, mDNS traffic (port 5353 multicast packets) may be blocked or undesirable. In this scenario, we recommend separating the DN4 traffic onto it's own VLAN, or using static IP addressing.

Static IP Addressing

Per-controller static IP addressing allows the DN4 to request a specific IP address lease from a DHCP server. As long as you have a DHCP server running on the network, as most basic routers do, then this should work.

Note: if an address collision occurs it may be difficult to log in to a DN4. In this case factory reset the device and set a IP address that is not already leased to another device on the network.

Static IP addresses can be accessed from the Networking page, and are enabled per controller.

Note that you must reboot the controller after enabling and modifying its Static IP configuration for the changes to come into effect.

Security

All DN4-to-DN4 is encrypted and will reject non-NIDAC devices from attempting communication with them.

Browser-to-DN4 traffic is also encrypted with TLS, unlike many other access controllers offering a web-based UI.

Port Forwarding

To port forward a DN4, follow these steps in router settings

1. Create new port forwarding rule
2. Set source port forwarding from any IP address and specify an unused port.
3. Set destination IP address as the DN4 IP address (it's also recommended to set DN4 to use a fixed IP address through the router settings) and destination port as 443.

Example

To access the DN4 type in https://<router IP address>:5443