Linux compatible IP camera

[Karuphee]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and looking for a tabletop IP camera similar to the Foscam FI9831P.
The camera should not require a browser plugin, at least not for the configuration.

Requirements:

• priced under 200 USD
• indoor
• pan/tilt
• night vision / IR
• 1 MP+ resolution
• no browser plugin required // must work with Linux

Does this even exist?
Thank you for your help.

 

[nayr]

meets all your requirements: https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9163-Dahua-Mini-Black-Face-PTZ-(SD29204S-GN)

you wont find any plugin-less h264 high def cameras that play the stream in a linux browser, but you can use the vlc-browser plugin and make your own live stream page.. or just use VLC for viewing the live rtsp stream.

the ptz commands are documented, you can put them into your page too or use the native UI's ptz controller.. they do not require a plugin to be installed to command or configure or anything other than viewing the rtsp stream.

it can be flipped so it'd work on a table top..

and I believe mplayer will play back the .dav files it saves via ftp in linux.

 

[Karuphee]

meets all your requirements: https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9163-Dahua-Mini-Black-Face-PTZ-(SD29204S-GN) you wont find any plugin-less h264 high def cameras that play the stream in a linux browser, but you can use the vlc-browser plugin and make your own live stream page.. or just use VLC for viewing the live rtsp stream. the ptz commands are documented, you can put them into your page too or use the native UI's ptz controller.. they do not require a plugin to be installed to command or configure or anything other than viewing the rtsp stream. it can be flipped so it'd work on a table top.. and I believe mplayer will play back the .dav files it saves via ftp in linux.

Thank you! I'm adding this one to the short list. The only potential problem is that the bottom part of the picture is cut off when the dome is mounted. Maybe I'll consider mounting the camera on the ceiling after all. Streaming H.264 with VLC is okay. I'd just like to configure it without a plugin (Foscams now require a plugin just to log in!)

 

[jasauders]

Hi there, karuphee. I too am a Linux user. I too have dealt with the madness behind these browser plugins (often leveraging the 'wonders' of activex) required for these CCTV cameras. Unfortunately, while the rest of the world is getting smart and getting away from browser plugins, the CCTV world... is not. So here are a couple thoughts:

A) For managing cameras (set up, config changes, etc), it's just easiest to salvage an old computer, throw Windows on it, and have at it. Another alternative is to install Windows in a virtual machine. It goes against what I believe, but what can you do. I personally have Windows 8 on an old laptop that I use just for these things.

B) If your goal is just to have the easiest, smoothest method to simply view the live feed, it's totally do-able if you leverage something like VLC. I actually copied and edited the vlc.desktop launcher file to better accommodate something I was after. I wanted to click an icon, boom, live feed. It went something like this...

1) Copy /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop to /usr/local/share/applications/rear-cam.desktop (or whatever the name would be for the camera)
2) Edit /usr/local/share/applications/rear-cam.desktop, particularly the exec line, to automatically pass in the RTSP URL as part of the opening sequence.
i.e.: Exec=/usr/bin/vlc --qt-minimal-view --no-video-title-show rtsp://userassword@192.168.1.20:554/live1.sdp
(the minimal-view and no-vide-title-show entries were to slim things down a bit and give me *just* the feed without anything else)
3) Edit the same file to change the "name" field of the application, etc. This will show you VLC Media Player + Rear Camera in your applications menu, thereby keeping them separated by name.
4) Optional (but I was a big fan of this): I created an icon, added it to /usr/share/icons, and changed the icon path in the config file to reflect that. This way I didn't have the orange VLC cone as the icon for both VLC *and* Rear Camera, but instead, just the orange cone for VLC, and a totally different icon for the Rear Camera stream. I simply found an icon on Google images to leverage. Something like this. Keep in mind I was aiming for an icon that had square dimensions (same height and width) for consistency.
5) Log out, back in, and you should have this new "application" in your menu. Click it, and it opens to your live stream.

Here's my old full blown rear-cam.desktop for a reference: http://paste.ubuntu.com/16210815/

In short... I found an icon on Google, saved it, copied the VLC application launcher, edited the icon path to use the icon I just saved, edited the name and exec path to reflect the name of the camera + RTSP stream of my camera, logged out and back in and... win. One click launch direct to my camera stream.

By doing this, you're still fully relying on VLC. You're still using the guts of the VLC desktop (application) file. All it's doing is assigning the newfound "application" a cute little icon while eliminating the otherwise manual steps of opening VLC, opening a network stream, and plugging in the network stream to connect directly to that camera's live stream.

I no longer utilize these files (I had one for each camera) as I ultimately went for an NVR solution on my Ubuntu server which comes with its own cross platform client, *but* this worked out very well for what my intended uses/needs were at the time. If this is something you're after and it helps, great. If not, maybe someday will dig this up on a Google search someday. If nothing else, it's just a thought I was compelled to share.

 

[nayr]

Free Windows VirturalBox Images, straight from Microsoft, no signup/registration required: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/linux/

just incase you need access to a Windows Browser for IPCameras, I have zero Windows computers in the house.. heavy linux user (but I use hackintosh desktop) and all my dahua's are fine tho, used those VM's for a few other shitty cams that require Windows plugins.

But having to boot up a windows box to make a few changes sux, no need for ActiveX plugin to sumbit a fucking form.

and Modern browsers HTML5 H264 Video streaming is finally pretty decent, its only decent for playing back files.. not a live stream in realtime.. support for that in even the latest and greatest browsers is pretty poor, and thats why it'll be a bit more before we see IPCameras being plugin-less entirely.. (hint the IP Security cameras use RTSP and browsers cant play it, RTSP is fine... old yes, but browsers should play the shit without plugins.

 

[jasauders]

VMs would be the preferred option for sure. Given I'm squeezing my SSDs already and Windows is, well, quite large, that turned into an issue. Abusing an old laptop was just as do-able for the rare config changes that need to be made. But if you have the storage available, VM is definitely preferred. It'd be my preferred method. Where can I get a 1TB SSD for sub ~50 USD?

 

[nayr]

SSD's dont need to be in everything, sheesh hehe.

I was one of the first adopters of solid state disks, I still have a $800 32GB Mtron SLC SSD I bought 10 years ago still in operation... but I also have ~34TB of spindles here, because most stuff has no reason to be on flash memory

 

[jasauders]

SSD's dont need to be in everything, sheesh hehe.

I was one of the first adopters of solid state disks, I still have a $800 32GB Mtron SLC SSD I bought 10 years ago still in operation... but I also have ~34TB of spindles here, because most stuff has no reason to be on flash memory

I have SSDs in all laptops for obvious reasons. I don't need mammoth storage in my laptops since they just autofs shares automatically from my NAS on an as-needed basis. I'd certainly not opt for swapping back in a HDD over an SSD *just* to maintain a Windows VM on my Linux laptop.

I could do this on my desktop, but that takes the mobility out of it. I like my recliner at night. We're best friends. That's where the old Windows laptop comes in handy.

'ifferent strokes.

 

[nayr]

*cough*

 

[jasauders]

*cough*

I used to leverage that for hosting my ownCloud within a VM on my server, then NFS'd the data dir back to the physical software RAID on the box itself. It works... I mean it has its quirks but it pretty much does the job. In the end it's just easier to leverage old hardware to be a designated Windows system. I have about six old laptops I'm tripping over at the moment, and I knew it'd be a slam dunk answer with minimal fuss. Wife prefers it, as she does couponing now and then. Many coupon sites require a "virtual printer" that is strictly Windows only. She knows to grab it if she wants to do couponing. I grab that laptop for camera setting changes. I could still host that on my server, but meh. That would be "just another thing" I'd be changing.

Happy wife, happy... well you get it.

 

[nayr]

I gave all my old laptops to my son when he was a toddler, they now have no keyboard keys left on any of them hah..

im not a big laptop fan my self, but I work from home and have a fairly impressive workstation, and server room.

im using FreeNAS now for ownCloud and VirturalBox, love me some ZFS.. especially without all the solaris bullshit.

 

[jasauders]

Snazzy. ownCloud is a work of art. I just have OC/IRC/DDNS/Apache running on a web server (an old laptop - ha), and Bluecherry, samba, all major storage, etc on the NAS. Both are on Ubuntu Server 14.04 with an array of automatic backup scripts/random scheduled tasks that I wouldn't even be able to name without going into cron and seeing what runs. It's been fine tuned enough that I SSH in to maintain it about... well, next to never.

Someday I'll figure out how to rig up my desktop to a couch. Until then I'll tolerate the limitations of laptops.

 

[nayr]

with ZFS you dont need all those scripts, I just snapshot the volume and then clone the snapshot to an archive disk every night.. it keeps nightly snapshots for the last 2 weeks, then monthly for the last year and the archive disk still is rocking hard.. does it all very fast too, my home shares are snapshotted every 5mins and I have a ~/.zfs folder that I can browse to and see all the changes Ive made to files over the last few hours.. really nice for unbreaking things, its like Apple's TimeMachine but it actually kicks ass.

unfortunately ZFS cant come into the Linux Kernel, you'll have to use a FreeBSD Kernel (decent support now days) or a Sparc Kernel (Nexenta/OpenSolaris) or since you like doing things your self all through CLI (cant blame yeh there) there is kFreeBSD which is Debian w/BSD Kernel.. but im not sure how mature that is, but ive always been keen to give it a go.

ZFS is worth the trouble, Ive been using it for >10 years now and I cant imagine life without it.

 

[jasauders]

Eh, I'd still need those scripts. They're on the account of drive failure. ZFS snapshots won't help me much in the event of a drive failure. I may run a RAID but the more locations my data is in, the better off I am. I still want the data going to a secondary box automatically (which it does every 12 hours), and in the end, getting synchronized offsite (which I do via an external drive I bring home from work once a week, type 1 thing over SSH, it mounts/runs/unmounts and notifies me, then I take it back to work when lunch is over).

I get what you mean though, but my angle was a bit different.

 

[nayr]

you can do zfs snapshots over the network, easy peasy
zfs send -i tank/dana@snap2 tank/dana@snap3 | ssh host2 zfs recv -F newtank/dana

I dont do raids unless I need the speed of a stripe or the HA of a mirror, who wants to wait months to rebuild XXTB of data and likely have it fail anyhow, puke.. I snapshot to local disks, that are then cloned to remote disks.. snapshots are so much faster than rsyncing, no scanning for diffrences.. the filesystem knows exactly what changed since last time and only transfers or stores the changes since.

 

[jasauders]

Rsyncing is... well... kind of wicked fast. Not to downplay ZFS snapshots, but rsync is kind of remarkable with how quickly it kicks into gear syncing items. Plus, it hardly matters. It does it while I sleep.

 

[JuliusTheodore]

I want to be either one of you when I grow up I have decades of experience with Windows admin and development, and zero with Linux. But I love a good challenge. Do you see any issues (conceptually) with running BlueCherry on one box but storing all the files on a different FreeNas box that would also be running Plex part time? The FreeNas box would house all sorts of media, not just camera footage.

 

[nayr]

you should not put video surveillance and home media on the same box..

if my NVR shits a HDD today, I replace it as fast as I can and spend Zero Effort trying to recover that data (Unless today I am also robbed) and focusing only on getting it back up and running ASAP.. Downtime: few hours tops

if my NAS shits a HDD today, I am shutting down every app and attempting to make last min backups.. then I am carefully rebuilding my array and verifying my data before anything else has a chance of doing it.. Downtime: few days minimum, with as much data as my NAS has.. it could be a week or so before its back online.

Personal Media NAS = Always holds important Data
Surveillance System NAS = Only holds important data if/when a crime takes place.

the above dont mix well.. 2 different goals, 2 different uses.

 

[jasauders]

I actually agree with nayr here, despite the fact my current implementation would suggest otherwise. Given Bluecherry is crazy light, along with NAS functionality being crazy light, I had a difficult time justifying running a second box 24/7 just to split the services off. I built my server years ago, and will keep it for many years to come as long as nothing explodes. It was (at the time) the lowest end/lowest wattage i3 I could find. Things like Plex would probably give it an intense workout, things like Blue Iris would make it cry, but the particular combination I am running now... the processor is all but asleep. Currently the load is 0.05, and that's including 24/7 recording with six 3 megapixel cameras.

That being said, there is value to your ability to bounce back. In the past, I simply let my video recording continue while the RAID rebuilds. My video feeds get stored to a dedicated 2TB WD Purple drive, which is not in a RAID. Simultaneously for the NAS side of the box, four 3TB WD Reds are configured in a RAID 6. While I always let the RAID rebuild before copying data back over to it, that's as far as I go with it. Feeds being recorded to a totally separate drive outside of the RAID changes things a bit.

Likewise, being able to bounce back is important to me. Every night I have my server automatically tar the entire /etc directory (which is where all of my configs are stored) and append the current date within the filename. The system keeps these tars for 90 days and get synced to various places. Once upon a time, I did a full format of my server, but before I could hear David Gilmour's epic Pink Floyd riff midway through the song I kicked off once I started copying the configs, I was already done copying all of the configs back, effectively giving me a fully functional server with everything configured in less than 4 minutes time.

That said, I struggle with the thought of Plex being on a video surveillance server. Last I looked, Plex was quite heavy, and something about that combination with video surveillance makes me feel a bit weird. On the flip side, having my NAS also handle video surveillance stuff... it's not something I have much of an issue with. With all of the backups I have in place, both from a config standpoint and data security standpoint, should anything go wrong I can bounce back quickly. Over the course of the last few years, I haven't had an instance to push me in the other direction. That said, if I could pick up a pair of Raspberry Pi sized devices for 35 bucks that pack the processing power equivalent to an i5 or i7 processor, I would surely do that, split the services off, and move on with life.

So basically, my frugal/green/whatever side suggests one thing (i.e. my current setup), whereas IT-based logic suggests the other (different rigs for different services). Someday maybe I'll meet in the middle. Until then, this particular combo seems to work fine.

 

[nayr]

power efficency is something to be considered not only for cost, but for battery backup runtime..

thats why I went with the hardware NVR, it has 2 Disks in no array.. moves from one to the other and uses just a few watts.. if one disk fails and the NVR has issues I can just pull it back out and plug it back in, it will run at half capacity until the replacement disk arrives.

my NAS is big and beefy, not really power efficient.. its a Hex Core AMD Phenom.. but it's got alot of disks and powers multiple Plex transcodes with ease.. (I often get 4-5 devices streaming from plex at once, we are cord cutters)..

as a result the NAS shuts down immediately if the power has been out for longer than 30s, so does everything else.. but the NVR/Switch/Router/Wifi/VoIP Phones stay online as long as possible, I even have an automatic transfer switch so the battery backup has its own battery backup.

because I have my services split out to separate hardware, I can manage my battery consumption much more effectively.. I would get a fraction of the runtime if I had to leave my NAS up and running as long as possible.