Windows Firewall and GigE Vision Cameras

Can Windows Firewall interfere with acquiring images from a GigE Vision camera when using MATLAB Image Acquisition Toolbox with the videoinput gige or gigecam interfaces?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Windows firewall can block the UDP packets used for image data transfer by the GigE Vision Streaming Protocol. The ports used for image data transfer by the camera and Gigabit network adapter are dynamic, and setting up the required firewall rules is an advanced operation. In addition, firewall processing of the image data stream can reduce performance.

Unlike MATLAB, some applications can stream images from a GigE Vision camera even when a firewall is enabled because they use a packet filtering driver.

A convenient getting-started configuration is to turn off the Windows firewall for the camera’s dedicated network connection, while keeping the firewall enabled for the other network connections (such as the Internet connection or your organization’s local area network connection).

Note: Windows uses network location connection profiles to group firewall settings for different types of connections, and turning off Windows firewall selectively for an individual network connection is not directly possible.

For more details, refer to the following Microsoft resources:

1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/cc725993(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN
2. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/technet-magazine/cc138010(v=msdn.10)
3. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/protect-my-pc-from-viruses-b2025ed1-02d5-1e87-ba5f-71999008e026