Reading hardware…

Tick the drives to record to. All ticked drives record at the same time: cameras are spread across them by drive size. Each drive has its own free-space floor, and a size cap for drives shared with DW. A drive you untick keeps its footage, which stays viewable until retention removes it.

Other Sightwise servers at this location — not this one. Use each server's network address with http:// and its port (for example http://172.16.52.228:8787), never localhost. Listing one here makes it appear in the server switcher (top right) and lets you move cameras to it. Add it by address and an access key from that server's config.json (its adminKey to allow moving cameras in).

Site name, watermark and saved camera logins are kept in step across these servers — change them on any one and they apply to all (newest change wins; each server also adopts the latest on restart). Server name, port, storage drives and cameras stay per-server.

Spread recording across the servers in this site and fail cameras over to a backup server if one goes down. Failover is set per camera (edit a camera → Recording tab). Give each camera a Location so the balancer keeps different angles of the same spot on different servers.

Servers

Balance recording across servers

Preview a plan that levels load and separates same-location cameras, then apply it. Applying moves cameras between servers (each camera's existing footage stays on its current server and remains viewable).

Point every server at one network share holding a release (latest.json + the version's zip). Each server checks it, and you can update this server or the whole site from here. Updates are checksum-verified before install, keep config.json and recordings, and keep the previous version as <install>.bak for rollback. (The share path syncs to all servers in the site.)

Events (camera offline, recording stopped, low disk, backup failed…) become notifications. Each user chooses how they're notified — in-app, email, push, sound — per alert type, under the bell → Notification settings. Set the email account here so email alerts can be sent.

Email account (SMTP)

Let people sign in to the hub with your identity provider (Microsoft Entra ID, Google, Okta — any OpenID Connect provider). They're matched to hub accounts by email. In your provider's app registration, add this redirect URL: —

A configuration backup captures this server's setup — settings, cameras, user accounts, saved logins, walls, PTZ tours and retention rules — but not recordings. The file contains camera credentials, so keep it safe. Restoring replaces this server's configuration (the access keys in config.json are untouched, so you can always get back in).

Scheduled backups

Automatically save a backup to a folder (a local path or a network share, e.g. \\\\fileserver\\sightwise\\backups) and keep the newest few.

The usernames and passwords your cameras usually have (up to 10). When adding cameras by ONVIF or by automatic discovery with no login entered, these are tried in order. Test logins checks which one each camera accepts. Passwords are kept on this server and never shown again.

Testing asks each camera's RTSP stream to accept the login, as recording does. It tries the camera's own login first and stops at the first that works. Many cameras block the server's address for a while after 5–7 wrong logins, so keep the list short and put the most common login first.

Named logins for this server. Each user signs in with a username and password — no hub or internet needed. Roles: admin (everything), viewer (operator: live, playback, export, PTZ, audio, layouts — no settings), wall (live only). The access keys in config.json keep working alongside these.

Scan a range of addresses, like 172.16.53.0/24 or 172.16.53.10-80; leave it empty to search this network by broadcast, as DW does. Or paste rows from your DW camera export (copy the rows in Excel, header row included), or one camera per line as name,IP. Then tick the cameras to add: Sightwise asks each one for its main and sub stream URLs.

Off by default. When on, this server searches every set number of minutes and adds any new ONVIF camera that accepts the login below. Tick the networks to search (this server's own networks are read live from its network adapters; networks your cameras are on are listed too), and add custom ranges for other networks or VLANs. Cameras you delete are not added back, and a known camera found at a new IP is updated, not added again.

Header row with any of: name, primaryUrl, secondaryUrl, username, password, record, retentionDays, group. Cameras are added with the values given; record accepts yes/no.

A hub is a Sightwise server in the cloud that lets you reach this site remotely — on mobile or from another location — without opening any ports. This server dials out to the hub and keeps the link open. Get the hub address, site id and key from the hub's Add a site screen.