Admin guide

Users and roles

Every Sentinel account has one of three roles:

• Adding or changing accounts: call J&J Technical Services support or your installer to add an account, change a role or reset someone's password. Give each person their own account rather than sharing one.
• First sign-in: every new account must choose its own password the first time it signs in.
• Forced reset: support can set an account so that person must choose a new password at their next sign-in.

Account and camera password security

Both of these live in Settings under Security.

Login policy

Optional rules for Sentinel accounts: password expiry, strength, and no reuse of recent passwords. On new installs the policy is on, with passwords of at least 12 characters, expiry after 90 days with a warning 7 days ahead, and no reuse of the last 5. When you upgrade an existing install it stays off until an admin ticks Enable login password policy.

Camera and NVR password rotation (Patent Pending)

Sentinel can change each camera and NVR password automatically on a schedule. Here's what you'll see:

• Enable camera / NVR password rotation and a Default schedule of every 30, 60, 90 or 180 days. It's on for new installs and off when you upgrade an existing install.
• A status count and a row per device: OK, Due, Failed, Manual, Rotating… or Needs attention, with last rotated, next due and the result.
• Rotate now for one device, Rotate all now and Rotate this site…. If a change can't be finished, the device is marked Failed or Needs attention and you get an alert.
• Manual devices: any device that can't be changed automatically is listed here, and you get reminders when it's due.
• Export audit (CSV) and Printable audit: every attempt is recorded, never the password itself.

Camera and email passwords are stored encrypted, and they never appear in logs or the Audit log.

Licensing and camera seats

Licenses and keys come only from J&J Technical Services. To buy, renew or change one, call (254) 978-5534.

• Camera seats: systems come in sizes of 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 cameras. Each camera you add uses one camera seat. When you import channels from a recorder, the channel picker shows how many camera seats are used and how many are left, and won't let you pick more than you have.
• Over the limit: cameras beyond your camera seats stay listed but don't stream, record or run S.I. Their tiles and the Cameras list say over license limit.
• Industry packs: packs are add-ons. The License page lists the ones your license includes, and packs it doesn't include show as locked.
• The License page (admins only) shows the status badge, who it's licensed to, your camera tier and how many cameras are configured, your industry packs, the license type and any expiry or update-plan date.
• Update plans: if your plan ends, the version you have keeps working. Newer releases need a renewed plan, and the Updates page tells you when one is waiting.
• Evaluation: without a key, a full install runs in evaluation mode for 30 days with up to 8 cameras and watermarked exports.

To install or replace a key, see Your license key.

Updates

Sentinel updates itself with signed packages from J&J Technical Services. You don't need to download new installers.

• Updates page: shows the installed version and edition, the channel, the last check, the updater status, any available version with its release notes, the last problem (if any) and the update history.
• Install updates automatically is set with a maintenance window (by default 3:00 AM local time for 120 minutes). Updates install only inside that window, or when an admin clicks Update now.
• Update now installs right away. Recording pauses for about a minute while the services restart.
• Channel: Stable or Beta. Sentinel is in beta today, so ask us which channel your site should use.
• Safety net: before each install Sentinel backs up its database, then checks that the new version starts correctly. If it doesn't, Sentinel puts the previous version and database back on its own and logs what happened. Your license key file is protected during every update.
• Offline: if the PC has no internet, the update check fails quietly and tries again later. Recording isn't affected.
• Admins see an update available banner, and open Sentinel pages reload themselves when the version changes.

Backups

Automatic backups before updates

Before every update, Sentinel saves a copy of its database, its encryption key file and your license key in C:\ProgramData\JJSentinelNVR\updates\backups\. It keeps the last 3.

Your own backup

Sentinel doesn't have a scheduled backup button yet, so we recommend a copy of your settings after setup and after big changes:

1. Stop the services in the Windows Services app, in this order: JJSentinelNVR-Updater, JJSentinelNVR-AI, then JJSentinelNVR. Recording stops while they're stopped.
2. Copy these files from C:\ProgramData\JJSentinelNVR\ to a USB drive or another PC: nvr.db (cameras, users, settings and events), secret.key (it unlocks the stored camera passwords, so always keep it with nvr.db) and license.key.
3. Start the services again in the reverse order: JJSentinelNVR, JJSentinelNVR-AI, then JJSentinelNVR-Updater.

• Recordings are in the rec folder in the same place. They're large. Back them up to a separate drive if you need to keep footage longer than your retention setting.
• Keep backups private. They hold your camera list and settings.
• Restoring or moving to a new PC: call support. The key file is protected by Windows on the PC that created it, so moving to new hardware needs our help.
• In development Cloud backup of recordings and alert clips is on the roadmap, not available yet.

Where the logs are

All logs are in C:\ProgramData\JJSentinelNVR\. If support asks for logs, zip these files and send them.

Health and the Audit log

• Health shows free disk space, S.I. and camera event counts for the last 10 minutes, and a row per camera: online, recording, seconds since the last write and storage used. Check it after setup and whenever something looks off.
• Audit records every login, setting change, face enrollment, face or plate search, export, deletion and retention purge, with who did it and when.
• Sites & Compliance holds each site's state, video retention (30 days by default, with automatic cleanup), privacy presets for face and plate data, printable signage text and data requests (delete or access plate records). The presets are a setup aid, not legal advice.

Remote access

Each site picks a mode on the Remote Access tab:

• Tunnel (the default): a private encrypted tunnel, either direct or through a relay hub. Each phone gets its own QR key, and you can revoke any of them.
• P2P: phone viewing through J&J Technical Services' own relay, with a key per phone, end-to-end encryption and revoke. In development J&J's relay service for P2P isn't live yet, so use Tunnel for now.
• Both: Tunnel and P2P together.

Low-bandwidth link profiles help on Starlink or cellular connections. Whatever mode you use, never forward port 8000 on your router.