MX Linux Forum

Our cars got egged a few weeks ago so now my wife wants a couple video surveillance cameras up on our home. I've never messed with these thing but I do understand you need something running all the time to collect and store video. I piece of hardware called a NVR (network video recorder) can be purchased to do this. Is there a Linux application I could run that might behave as a NVR?

Anybody ever set one up on Linux?

I did a search and found some but it looks like they aren't free.

thanks for any response - cheap Mike

I've just found this and the #1 is ready in repo:

Also the #3 "Motion" is in repo, just it's cli-based:

thanks for the post

a tutorial running on turnkey linux


- mike

FWIW - This set of instructions does work with MX-23.
Bookworm with Zoneminder
-mike

Thanks again Mike. I'm seriously considering getting rid of my qnap nas and your tuts would come in handy indeed. My old amd desktop is faster than the nas cpu for sure. It just draws a lot more energy so I'm holding off atm.

The problem I'm having now is connecting the cameras to zoneminder. There was nothing technical in the literature that came with them. I need rtsp connection strings. I bought escanu ptz cameras and now I'm waiting to hear from the vendor. There are many sites that provide the various settings, technical info but nothing for these, yet.

mmikeinsantarosa wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2023 7:58 pm The problem I'm having now is connecting the cameras to zoneminder. There was nothing technical in the literature that came with them. I need rtsp connection strings. I bought escanu ptz cameras and now I'm waiting ti hear from the vendor. There are many sites that provide the various settings, technical info but nothing for these, yet.

The best connection information site that I have found for cameras is here - It may take a little testing, but so far ALL of my strange old ( and strange new ) cams have worked with some of these connections, or given me the clue too get them operational.
https://www.ispyconnect.com/cameras

CharlesV wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:44 pm

mmikeinsantarosa wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2023 7:58 pm The problem I'm having now is connecting the cameras to zoneminder. There was nothing technical in the literature that came with them. I need rtsp connection strings. I bought escanu ptz cameras and now I'm waiting ti hear from the vendor. There are many sites that provide the various settings, technical info but nothing for these, yet.

The best connection information site that I have found for cameras is here - It may take a little testing, but so far ALL of my strange old ( and strange new ) cams have worked with some of these connections, or given me the clue too get them operational.
https://www.ispyconnect.com/cameras

thanks Charles and yes that one definitely has more products listed. Will post back if anything changes. - m

Ready, fire, aim!

The vendor got back to me and said their cameras do not support streaming/rtsp and only work with their proprietary Vicohome cloud application. I will be boxing them up and sending them back to amazon.

Funny thing, after checking that link, these escanu's must be the only camera that doesn't do rtsp... What are the odds.


A 2 pack of ESCANU Model BC3's is what I am sending back

Live and learn eh. Now to work backwards on the next set of cameras. I'll check the lists of vendors that do support Rtsp and look for cameras based on that. I want Solar powered night vision ptz's. - mike

Yes, companies do this too often. I have two sets of a a very decent camera set ( Heimvision) , dirt cheap nvr, but pretty solid cameras. However, they supposedly do not work with anything except the Heimvision system.

However, after many days of messing about, I did figure out how to get them working with my system and without the nvr. Serious twist on the config and playing middle man to the main system.

Some very nice cams I setup for a business were from Trendnet. The cams were not cheap, but seriously nice to setup and work with.

I joined the zm forums and learned something pretty important.

zoneminder requires rtsp (Real-Time Streaming Protocol) is always on and draws too much power for the solar only camera to run for any length of time. And this is most likely why solar only ptz cameras (at least all that I've investigated) don't support rtsp.

I'm now on the hunt for an opensource video security system that will work off motion activation. -m

I have found iSpy to be very good, especially on ferreting out the various cams that I have (only two of which are rtsp)... And the first time I set it up it was pretty excellent. I struggled with it on the second and real setup and went a different direction, but I think it is pretty good.

Either way, I am also VERY interested in finding a good linux solution. ( Currently, I had to set two clients and myself into a windows solution - its very good, and I can run it in a VM.. but prefer to do it all linux!)

I saw that one too and motion which is motion activated.
There wasn't any documentation with the last pair of cameras I bought and returned. I couldn't find anything that even listed what protocols it supported. I had to guess what the connection string should be and I tried every combination I could find in online examples.

What I don't know yet is how well a camera will work up where I want them. both locations are about 100ft from the wireless router.

Time to watch some instructional videos for ispy & motion.

Yup. I purchased two sets of cams and nvr's ( cheap) from amazon, great cams, and the nvr's work well, but I want more control over how it all works. The cams supposedly cannot be used with out the nvr's

HOWEVER.. I setup a wifi system that mimics the NVR wifi, connected the camera to it and then I can run into the cam and get images. Setting up the refresh rate and working a little with the software and I have video, motion detection and a pretty nice cam setup.

I also have found some pretty nice use on various other older cams I had and have brought these into the system as well.

Bottom line... once you understand how to manipulate the cams around, then most everything else is just 'record on motion' and area detection.

The iSpy camera database was AMAZING to learn how to work the various cams I have had and have worked with... Nothing I have found beats their DB on that !

CharlesV, did you have install instructions you followed?

A Zm install isn't just sudo apt-get install zoneminder...

Yes, I attempted to follow their instructions from the website and had to hack two versions together to get it working this last time around.

m_pav had some discussions with the zoneminder peeps, as I think we got their attention :-) ... and he posted detailed steps here:
viewtopic.php?p=744423&hilit=zoneminder#p744423

and there is more discussion there too.

CharlesV wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2023 4:11 pm Yes, I attempted to follow their instructions from the website and had to hack two versions together to get it working this last time around.

m_pav had some discussions with the zoneminder peeps, as I think we got their attention :-) ... and he posted detailed steps here:
viewtopic.php?p=744423&hilit=zoneminder#p744423

and there is more discussion there too.

I don't see a debian package for ispy but the ispy site does have an install and download section. I guess this is where you got it from, eh?

Oh iSpy... let me grab my notes...

No, I ran the AgentDVR.

Down load here:
https://www.ispyconnect.com/download.aspx

basically this:
According to my notes I had to do a little work on the install script too. I am not sure I have the VM any more, that had all my notes on it...I will check that.

Ever since I read some woman discovered everything she said to her Alexa device ended up as audio files saved on an amazon drive, I really don't want my stream to go to google or anywhere but my devices. What bugged me about the last pair I tried is I had to install their app on my phone to initialize the cameras. This was done through their site which means they could have a hook into my streams.I'm not doing anything nefarious, I just don't want them in the picture. Similar to the reason I run nothing but MX at home.

Is there some generic app that can discover most cameras, get their IP etc or are we all at the mercy of the vendors app?

nope, I nuked the VM that I have tried both ZM and Agent DVR ( ispy) on. I know it was AgentDVR as I was trying to get a linux only NVR system up.

My basic notes say:

Download it
Let it build, the start up needs a little work - had to start manually not on service.

and then on the second time testing it I struggled with getting one of my cams to work properly. My old tp-link did not want to work... My initial test was perfect, but second time I could not get it working - All other cams worked, but i had trouble with it all and can'd it opting for NetCam Studio which I have four installs with. (Pretty kick butt software... just wish it was Linux!)

hmm...

I am not sure I have the VM any more

Curious why a VM?
1-Didn't want to accidentally hose your system?
2-Couldn't get it to run on the desktop you were using so you built a VM it could run on?

mmikeinsantarosa wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2023 4:52 pm Ever since I read some woman discovered everything she said to her Alexa device ended up as audio files saved on an amazon drive, I really don't want my stream to go to google or anywhere but my devices. What bugged me about the last pair I tried is I had to install their app on my phone to initialize the cameras. This was done through their site which means they could have a hook into my streams.I'm not doing anything nefarious, I just don't want them in the picture. Similar to the reason I run nothing but MX at home.

Is there some generic app that can discover most cameras, get their IP etc or are we all at the mercy of the vendors app?

I havent really seen a generic app. And many of the cheap cams have a REALLY bad software that 'sets them up' . (I mean bad!) . I started using TrendNet cams as they are 100% IP driven, you can use any web browser to set them up. Combine that cam with simple NVR software and it works well.

The best NVR I have found is NetCam Studio. ZM showed a lot of potential, and iSpy as well .. but as I said initial testing was good, but trying to get a stable running system ... not so nice.

mmikeinsantarosa wrote: Sat Dec 30, 2023 4:59 pm hmm...

I am not sure I have the VM any more

Curious why a VM?
1-Didn't want to accidentally hose your system?
2-Couldn't get it to run on the desktop you were using so you built a VM it could run on?

My goal with a VM was to be able to move the VM as I wanted ( Clone too ) . And yes not mess with my big systems. I have found VM's to be VERY good with development machines, special process machines etc. I have them for Wifi Controllers, NVR's, DB's and web servers.

And I use VM's to test - everything :-)

I need to buy a fairly cheap ptz camera to do some testing on. I searched amazon for "solar ptz wireless outdoor camera" and checked each vendor to se if there's info for it in the ispy cameras page. For each item , I made a list for cameras that had an entry at ispy and another list for vendors that didn't ave an entry. This is the list of vendors that show up i ispy. and here's the list of vendors not in ispy Most that are in ispy have at least 1 bad review with: batteries don't stay charged, motion detect is late, lens fogs up, wifi connection drops out regularly, poor customer service, fell apart or broke after a month, etc. There were 20 pages of hits with the original query. Now to search by brand and check reviews and characteristics to find me a decent guinea pig.

Nice list and I will be interested in your findings too :-) ... I have one camera connected up to a solar setup, but no real solar cams at this time.