*SDM2 Device Manager

Owned by Tom Polman
Last updated: Dec 19, 2023 by Onno Verkerk
17 min read

 

TKH Security Solution | Video Surveillance

Support Software | SDM2 Device Manager |

 

 

Use the SDM2 Device Manager tool to install, commission, and maintain your Siqura products.

Downloads are here:

Introduction

Welcome to the SDM2 Device Manager tool. With this tool you can detect your devices on the network, and configure the principal settings on each of these devices.

This program replaces the Siqura Device Manager tool, version 1.x, which is now obsoleted. SDM2 can be downloaded from https://siqura.com/downloads/software/ .

Use the SDM2 Device Manager to

  • Detect your devices on the network

  • Change the network settings on your device

  • Inspect/Modify parameters on your device

  • Log selected device parameters

  • Video live video from those devices that support (MPEG) video

  • Backup and restore the configuration of your devices (XSNet excluded at this time)

  • Update the firmware for your devices (XSNet excluded at this time)

  • Take a snapshot of the device list parameters and view this file offline

  • Copy and Paste selected parameters from one device to one or more other devices

As of version 2.1.0, the tool supports a driver mechanism. In comparison with the previous version 2.0.4, the only driver supported was SPI. This is still the preferred driver in the Auto driver detect mechanism, for backwards compatibility reasons.

Portable

The SDM2 Device Manager tool is a 32-bit portable tool. You should be able to run it on your customer's machine without installing anything on it. Many customer forbid installation of your software on their machines. This tool should run fine from a USB stick.

No settings are written to the Windows Registry. All settings are kept in the tool's settings file (SDM2.xml).

You need write access on the tool's folder.

Installer

Since version 2.3.3 you can now also download the SDM tool as an installer. The installer will also start the video viewer control installer. You may decide to not install this control, it can be run from the SDM2 Tools menu after installation completes.

When uninstalling SDM2, the video viewer control will not be uninstalled. You may uninstall this control manually from the windows applications control panel.

Installed SDM2 versions will write settings data to the windows common application data folder, instead of writing these to the executable file’s folder (the portable version does this).

Important Note

Windows supports several protection mechanisms against malicious software. When you run the SDM2 tool, you may get warnings from Windows that this software is not recognized as safe. With later versions of Windows 10, these warnings have become quite dominant, scaring away the ignorant. Please make sure that you check the validity of your SDM2 download, by using the md5 hash next to the zip file. If this checks out, then the download is safe.

Version 2.5.1 adds two auxiliary tools SDM2 calls by itself for the following reasons:

  • If SDM2 closes, it starts KillProcess.exe that sits next to the SDM2.exe file. This program will warrant that the SDM2 tool will be closed, even when it hangs. Normally of course this should not happen, in which case KillProcess.exe just exits without doing anything. But in case of an unfortunate SDM2 hang, KillProcess.exe will kill SDM2. You need this mechanism especially when you run the tool from a USB drive. Dismounting the USB drive will work properly with this mechanism.

  • If SDM2 needs a restart (for example, if you changed appropriate options), it calls RestartApplication.exe. This essentially functions the same as KillProcess.exe, then after the SDM2 tool was stopped, RestartApplication.exe will start SDM2 again.

Version 2.8.0 adds two more tools to the SDM2 suite, being a DHCP server and a TFTP server. Both applications are portable standalone windows applications. SDM2 communicates with these tools via localhost TCP connection with dynamic TCP port usage (i.e. SDM2 lets Windows decide on appropriate TCP ports to use). If you are concerned about this dynamic port usage, then you can disable this localhost inter process communication (IPC) by manually editing the SDM2.xml file with a text editor:

  • To disable IPC for the DHCP server, set xml value <Apps><DhcpServer><Ipc><Enabled> to False. By default, this value is True.

  • To disable IPC for the TFTP server, set xml value <Apps><TftpServer><Ipc><Enabled> to False. By default, this value is True.

In later versions the SDM2 tool executables are now digitally signed, so you should no longer be nagged with Windows security notifications.

Device detection

Several options are available to let you detect the devices on your network. Typically, you just start the tool and it will use UPnP device detection to auto discover the TKH Security Solutions devices. But you can also run a scan over a given IP range to find out directly which devices exist in this range.

If you are out there in the field and find yourself frequently testing out which devices are there in your customer's network, then you can benefit from the Document feature. The device list is stored in the document you save to disk, then later on when you reopen this file, the device list is immediately available again.

To maintain the device list, following functions are available:

  • Auto device detection

(UPnP, 1000/1100/2000 series, 810/820/860/880 series, MX, WS-Discovery)

  • Manual scan over a given IP range

  • Manually add a device with a given IP address

  • Save and open your device list

Note on UPnP device detection: this standard protocol requires multicast for good operation. If multicast is not working correctly on your network, then the device detection will either be slow on the discovery of the devices, or not work at all. Also, your Firewall application might interfere with the UPnP discovery.

It is for this reason that the Manual scan function is also available in the tool.

Auto detection using UPnP

Typically, auto detection is Enabled when you start the tool, so the detected devices will drop in automatically. But when you open a previously saved device list, auto detection will be Disabled.

With Edit > Auto detect new devices, you can turn auto detection on and off.

You can check the status bar to see if auto detection is enabled or not. Also, when enabled, you will see a checkmark next to the menu option.

Note: UPnP detection works over all found network adapters on your machine. You do not need to select a network adapter.

Tip: UPnP detection is a continuous process that runs in the background of the application. If you want to be sure that the process starts by sending out a new request over the network, you can Disable and then Enable the device detection.

As of version 2.1.0, the tool will show a message box when no devices are auto detected for about 30 seconds.

Manual scan over a given IP range

Choose Edit > Manual scan for devices from the menu bar (or hit Ctrl+M on the keyboard) to show the manual scan dialog.

Note: the manual scan function will take the IP range you entered as input and automatically determine the network adapter to which this IP range applies. The dialog shows you the list of networks on your machine to help you find out which IP ranges are typically accessible. But you can specify any IP range.

Manually add a device with a given IP address

Choose Edit > Add device from the menu bar (or hit INS on the keyboard) to show the Add device dialog.

Note: you need to enter the device credentials correctly, or the connection with the device will not be possible. The tool will remember the credentials per device and save these to its settings file (password is encrypted). By doing so, you can clear the list, redetect all devices, and the tool will already fill in the right credentials. This saves you a lot of work.

Of course, you can also save the device list to a file, and the credentials will also be stored in that file.

Device list file

You can save the currently shown device list to a file.

For each device, the tool will then write the device information to this file.

By default, an XML file is written. If you want to use this device information in other applications (like Excel), then make sure you save the file as a CSV file. This will write a comma separated file.

Note: the device's credentials are stored in the file without encryption! Make sure that the file you write is saved in a proper location, so that it will not fall into the wrong hands.

Filter by blacklist and whitelist

The device list might become unusable in size, if your network contains so many devices. Since version 2.5.1, you can now filter out those devices you wish to hide from the device list, even when auto detection is enabled. Via the Options menu, you can control the blacklist (IP addresses in that list will not show in the device list) and the whitelist (if entries appear here, only those will be shown).

An easy way to filter out a device from the device list is to select the device in the device list, then from the context menu (right click menu) choose Filter > Add to blacklist/whitelist.

Device drivers

As of version 2.1.0, you can now choose a driver per device in the Edit Device dialog.

Normally, the device driver used will be AutoDetect.

You can manually change the selected driver, after which the tool will reconnect to the device using this different driver. Depending on the device's capabilities, the connection will work or not.

Depending on the driver selected for the device, the list of parameters shown will vary.

Currently, the following drivers are supported:

  • SPI preferred driver, works with

o C/S-50 / 60 / 620 series video encoders

o 620 / 840 series cameras

o 810 / 820 / 860 / 880 series cameras

o 1000 / 1100 / 2000 series cameras

  • ONVIF (since version 2.14) works with

o All ONVIF compliant cameras and encoders

  • MAPI works with

o C/S-50 / C/S-60 / C620 series video encoders

o 620 / 840 series cameras

  • XSNet preliminary (limited) access, works with

o XSNet switches

  • SNMP works with

o All devices that support SNMP (v1, v2)

  • ISAPI works with

o 1000/1100/2000-series cameras

  • MX works with

o C2x / V30 / C/S-4x / S5x series encoders and decoders

Device connection

For each device in the device list, the tool will maintain a logical connection. In the device list table you can find the Status column. This column shows you the current status for the device connection. Typically, your device will either be Online (i.e. connection is OK and you can work with it), or Forced Offline (you configured the device to be Offline in the Edit device dialog).

Setting the device to Forced Offline is handy if you know that the device is not there at this time.

Change network settings on your device

To change the network settings on your device, you select the Change network settings option from the device right-click menu. From the dialog you then see, you can change the network settings for each selected device, then hit Apply.

In case you are unsure whether the new IP address you want to assign to the device is currently free, click on the Test button. This will run a PING for the new IP address and let you know if the new IP address is available (i.e. can be used for the new device).

After changing the device network settings, the tool will attempt to reboot it. This normally works, but some devices do not support remote reboot. So after changing the network settings for one or more devices, do check the device Status column in the main window; the device should come back Online under the new IP address.

Backup and restore your device(s) configuration

Since version 2.2.0, you can back up the configuration of your devices. Select one or more devices from the device list, then from the context menu, select Backup. You will then select the base folder in which the backup(s) should be written.

The backup folder structure is two levels: 1) dated base folder, and 2) device backup folder containing the backup for one device.

When you want to restore a previously saved backup, select the device(s) you want to restore the configuration for, and from the context menu, select Restore. You will then select either the base folder for the backup, or the specific backup folder inside the backup base folder. In case you select the base folder, SDM2 will look up the appropriate device backup by searching for the device MAC address. In case you selected a specific device backup folder directly, SDM2 will check this backup against the selected device for compatibility. You can only restore backups to identical device models, and even then there is a change that the device will refuse to proceed with the backup; this happens if the device has a different version firmware which is no longer compatible with the stored configuration backup. Not to worry: the device will check the file by itself and only proceeds with the restore if it can indeed use the given backup.

If you restore the configuration of a device, this might include changing the IP address of that device. If that is the case, then SDM2 will change the IP address for the device list entry as well to reflect the new situation after restoring the configuration completes.

Take snapshot

Since version 2.3.3, you can take a snapshot of the currently connected devices in your device list. This serves as an alternative to the above Backup and Restore function, but does not replace this. By taking a snapshot, you actually save a file that is an extended version of a regular device list file, but with the device parameters added. This allows for visual inspection of the device parameters, and can therefore be easily used as a diagnosis tool: you can take the snapshot and send it to our support personnel.

Since version 2.3.4, you can now open the snapshot file with SDM2 (File > Open snapshot). This opens the snapshot as an offline document file that includes the parameters found in the snapshot. This allows for very easy inspection of snapshot files, either by the customer/installer or by support/service personnel.

Since version 2.9.0, you can now take a snapshot from the selected devices only, not the whole device list. To do this, make the selection, then from the device list context menu, select Take snapshot.

The Snapshot function when called from the menu bar remains unchanged and still applies to all devices in the device list.

Also new in version 2.9.0 is the rather specialistic option to restore presets from the taken snapshot file. This currently only works for snapshots taken from the 820 series domes via the DC driver. Restoring the presets from this snapshot file will help overcome an issue that arises during the firmware upgrade of the 820 series domes (they lose their presets configuration). The function will replay the presets are found in the snapshot file, then forcefully save these presets, thus overwriting the faulty presets configuration in the 820 series dome with the right one.

Firmware upgrade

As of version 2.2.0, you can now upgrade the device firmware. Select the devices you want to upgrade the firmware for, then from the context menu, select Update Firmware. Then select the firmware file you want to use. You will get a confirmation box before the upgrade actually takes place.

You can upgrade firmware for multiple devices in one operation, but then the devices need to be the same model. If this is not the case, then the context menu option is disabled and cannot be selected.

For the 810/820-series cameras, the firmware upgrade procedure is a time consuming operation that includes multiple reboots on the device side. Please be patient, this operation may take up to 10 minutes per camera!

Since version 2.15.0, it is now possible to configure a post-firmware upgrade operation. If you enable this function, you will then select the file location of the executable of your choice (typically this is a console application). Via the command line arguments, you may want to pass the necessary device access information. For instance, if you specify Arguments := “-ipaddress {IPAddress} -username {Username} -password {Password}”, then your (console) application will receive a command line with the proper device IP address and the right username/password combination to log into the device.

Your application should finish as soon as possible; SDM2 will wait for your application to finish and collect its standard and error output text, and will include this information in the log strip.

Note that if your console output line starts with “error” (case insensitive), this line will be included in the log as an error line. Likewise, “warning” will result in a warning log line.

As an extra protection mechanism, you may want to specify the Timeout field to be some positive number. In that case SDM2 will timeout waiting for your application to finish after this amount of seconds, and write an error line to the log.

This function is disabled by default to ensure backwards compatibility with older versions of the tool.

By all means, if you use this mechanism, make sure to save the logging information and include this in your As Build documentation. This is especially important if you are firmware upgrading multiple devices in batch!

Find device

With the Edit > Find devices function, you can select one or more devices in the device list, based on the search text you enter. You can select which column to search in, or just search over all columns. To speed up the find function, you can also hit Ctrl+F on the keyboard to show the Find dialog.

Show video

As of version 2.1.0, you can now show live video from those devices that support MPEG video. To show video, select the device you want to show the video from, then choose menu option Tools > Show video (or use the same options from the device context menu).

If the video device supports PTZ, you can use the mouse cursor on the video panel to move around, and the mouse wheel to control zoom.

Note that to be able to show live video, the SDM2 tool requires the Video control installed on your host machine. Normally, this is not the case, and then you need to install this Video control first. To do this, choose menu option Tools > Run Video control installer. This installation wizard will guide you through the installation process for the Video control.

Since the SDM2 tool is a portable tool, this Video control installation is a separate process. You can decide whether or not to use the live video capability of the tool. Do note that installing the Video control to the host machine will mark traces on the host machine. Even if you uninstall the Video control (which can be done with the same installer), traces of the installation may be left on the machine. If you are running the tool on a customer’s machine, please make sure that this is allowed!

Version 2.7 add the option to show Video Snapshot pictures. In this new view, you can also automatically refresh the snapshots, creating a ‘picture pull’ video stream at a user defined framerate. Note that the maximum framerate for this type of stream may be limited.

Since version 2.9 the video panel will stay on the screen, even when the device for which the video is shown will go Disconnected or Offline. Only when you delete the device from the device list will the video panel disappear. Also, you can now check the used driver in the video panel’s title bar if PTZ control is possible.

One more (seemingly insignificant) feature is now found in the Options dialog, to Show the video panel in a separate process. When you check this feature on, then showing video for a device will run an independent process to show the video. This improves SDM2 stability greatly, especially when the video connection is bad. The Video panel might crash on bad video, but SDM2 will just keep running.

Options

Under Tools > Options, you can modify the tool's options. Options are:

  • Show third party devices. This will effectively turn off the filter function for UPnP detection. By default, this option is disabled, and only devices from TKH Security Solutions are shown.

When running a manual scan on the network, you will always get a new device list entry for each detected device.

  • Show subnet mask and default gateway columns. With these checkboxes checked, the device subnet mask and default gateway will show up in the device list view.

  • Show driver in status. With this checkbox checked, the device status will display the used driver next to the Online status for the device.

  • Show serial number column. With this checkbox checked, the device serial number will show up in the device list view. Note that the serial number shown is retrieved from the device software configuration. Under certain circumstances you may find different serial number information on the sticker of the device.

  • Show firmware version column. With this checkbox checked, the device firmware version is shown in a separate column.

  • Show product type column. With this checkbox checked, the device product type is shown in a separate column. In previous versions this information was always shown, and since version 2.3.0 you can now turn this off. By default, this information is shown.

  • Browser selection. By default, the tool will use the default browser on your machine, to open the device web page. Since some equipment still heavily relies on plugins or other older mechanisms, you can only correctly show these devices' web pages by using an older browser, like Internet Explorer. By changing the browser here, you can overcome this issue.

  • System logging. The tool logs information to its private system log. Depending on the logging level you select here, the tool will log more or less information.

You can show the system log by selecting View > System log.

Version 2.7 adds the option to enable the new built-in Syslog server. Received syslog messages will appear in the SDM2 system log.

  • Enable auto detection at application startup. Normally, this is turned on. If you prefer the auto detection to run under manual control, you can uncheck this option. You can then manually start and stop the auto detection from the menu bar.

  • Reopen last used document. When this option is checked, then the tool will re-open the file you last used.

  • Enable auto detection after file opened. Controls the auto detection mechanism after opening a file.

  • Set document Modified flag on auto detected devices. If you select this, the document will be marked Modified when new devices are auto detected. This is the same behaviour as was seen on the previous version 2.0.4 of the tool. If you do not want to be annoyed by the Save question when only auto detections were seen, uncheck this option. Note that when you manually modify any device in the list, the Modified flag will work as before.

Since version 2.5, there’s now a second options tab Login, which allows you to enter a list of credentials. SDM2 uses this list of credentials to try and automatically connect to the devices. Prior to version 2.5, only Admin / 1234 was used, and this is still the starting point. However, you can now extend this with more credentials, so that you do not need to enter the credentials in each detected device.

Do not that if you make this credentials listing very long, this will impact the connection times, since SDM2 will try all of these entries for each device until it finds a working one.

Version 2.5.1 adds more tabsheets to the Options dialog:

  • Network: in here you can select the PC network adapters to communicate over. By default, all network adapters are used. Note that changing settings here requires an application restart.

  • Drivers: allows you to enable or disable the drivers and detection mechanisms available in the tool. By default, all drivers and detection mechanisms are enabled. Note that changing settings here requires an application restart.

  • Filter: here you can control the blacklist and whitelist, these allow you to hide selected devices (via the blacklist) or focus on selected devices only (via the whitelist).

DHCP server

Since SDM2 version 2.8.0, SDM2 ships with a DHCP server tool. This tool allows you to (temporarily) run a DHCP server on your machine. This tool assists in the detection of new equipment, in case this equipment is configured for DHCP dynamic IP address control. If you do not have a DHCP server running in your network, then this tool will prove very handy for your device discovery purposes.

Inside the tool, you can configure the DHCP server configuration, which include:

  • Interface address: select the desired network adapter by its IP address. The tool will only serve DHCP via this chosen network interface address.

  • DhcpFirstIPAddress, DhcpLastIPAddress: this specifies the address pool from which the DHCP server can pick new IP addresses to assign to the new device.

  • DhcpSubnetMask: this subnet mask will be assigned to the new device. Use the same subnet mask as also found on your selected network adapter!

TFTP server

Since SDM2 version 2.8.0, SDM2 ships with a TFTP server tool. This tool allows you to (temporarily) run a TFTP server on your machine. Use this tool to download XSNet switch configurations. Like the DHCP server tool, you can configure this TFTP server configuration, which includes:

  • Interface address: select the desired network adapter by its IP address. The tool will only serve TFTP via this chosen network interface address.

  • Folder: downloaded files are stored here.

FTP server

Since SDM2 version 2.12.0, SDM2 ships with an FTP server tool. This tool allows you to (temporarily) run a simple FTP server on your machine. Use this tool to test your camera’s FTP function. Like the DHCP server tool, you can configure this FTP server configuration, which includes:

  • Interface address: select the desired network adapter by its IP address. The tool will only serve FTP via this chosen network interface address.

Since FTP also heavily relies on user management, do adjust the tool’s users dialog appropriately.

Activate 1000/2000-series cameras

Since SDM2 version 2.13.0, SDM2 ships with a new tool to activate one or more 1000/2000-series cameras in batch. Activation of these series cameras is required the first time these are unboxed and connected. This is a safety measure to enforce the installer to input a non-trivial login password. This task is normally done via the camera’s web pages, which remains the most trivial way to do this. However, when the installer is facing the job of activating the whole batch of, say, 400 such camera, he finds himself spending days opening the individual camera’s web page and enter the new password twice in there. This tool fixes that in a split second.

Known issues

For this version (found on top of this readme), following issues are known:

  • none.

If you wish to see the full revisions list, please check out the Version info in the About box.