Installing and configuring a surveillance camera is becoming an operation very easy and very common, strong technical skills are not required anymore.
The question is: can we control a “home camera” with our RaspberryPi ? The short answer is: YES !
I’ll show how to use the RaspberryPi to control, using jus the linux shell, a D-Link DCS-960L .
Required hardware
- RaspberryPi
- D-Link DCS-960L
- a smartphone (only required to initially setup the camera)
- a wifi router already configured
- an internet connection
Initial setup
- Make sure your internet connection is functioning
- Configure your wifi network using WPA2 encryption and make sure your network name (SSID) is not hidden
- Assemble and cofigure your RaspberryPi and check that:
- curl is installed
- ssh service is enabled
- wifi connection to the router is functioning
- Connect your smarphone to the local WiFi network you have setup up
- Configure your camera using your smartphone (following the instructions)
- Configure you WiFi router and/or DHCP server to always give the same IP address to che camera
Data to collect
- IP address given to the camera
- camera’s admin username
- camera’s admin password
Now it’s time to create our control script.
Login, via SSH, to your RaspberryPi and create file cam.sh in a directory you want, putting inside this new file the following text:
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#!/bin/bash # # DAVIDE AIRAGHI # # DLINK DCS-960L console motion detection manager # License GPLv3 - see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html # # This script allows you to manage (query, enable, disable) # motion detection of your DCS-960L camera from console # # Requirements: # - bash shell # - curl # - same network used for camera and computer # # camera authentication info USER="YOUR_ADMIN_USERNAME" PASS="YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD" # generic info # seconds to wait before enabling motion detection TIMEOUT_BEFORE_ENABLE=15 # seconds to wait before disabling motion detection TIMEOUT_BEFORE_DISABLE=0 # camera base url URL="http://YOUR_CAMERA_IP_ADDRESS:80" # camera video capture params CAPTURE_SENSITIVITY="60" CAPTURE_ENABLE_MASK="FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" CAPURE_DISABLE_MASK="000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000" CAPTURE_ENABLE_URL="/config/motion.cgi?enable=yes" CAPTURE_DISABLE_URL="/config/motion.cgi?enable=no" INFO_URL="/config/motion.cgi" if [ "$ACTION" = "" ]; then ACTION=$1 fi case $ACTION in info) ACTION="" IS_ENABLED=$( curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} ${URL}${INFO_URL} 2>/dev/null | grep 'enable=yes' ) if [ "${IS_ENABLED}" != "" ]; then echo enabled else echo disabled fi ;; enable) ACTION="" sleep ${TIMEOUT_BEFORE_ENABLE} curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} "${URL}${CAPTURE_ENABLE_URL}&sensitivity=${CAPTURE_SENSITIVITY}&mbmask=${CAPTURE_ENABLE_MASK}" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null || exit 1 ;; disable) ACTION="" sleep ${TIMEOUT_BEFORE_DISABLE} curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} "${URL}${CAPTURE_DISABLE_URL}" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null|| exit 1 ;; toggle) ACTION="" IS_ENABLED=$( curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} ${URL}${INFO_URL} 2>/dev/null | grep 'enable=yes' ) if [ "${IS_ENABLED}" != "" ]; then sleep ${TIMEOUT_BEFORE_DISABLE} curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} "${URL}${CAPTURE_DISABLE_URL}" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null || exit 1 else sleep ${TIMEOUT_BEFORE_ENABLE} curl -u ${USER}:${PASS} "${URL}${CAPTURE_ENABLE_URL}&sensitivity=${CAPTURE_SENSITIVITY}&mbmask=${CAPTURE_ENABLE_MASK}" 2>/dev/null >/dev/null || exit 1 fi ;; *) ACTION="" ;; esac exit 0 |
Before saving the file replace the following placeholders :
- YOUR_ADMIN_USERNAME : camera’s admin username
- YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD : camera’s admin password
- YOUR_CAMERA_IP_ADDRESS : camera’s ip address
After saving the file make it executable ( chmod +x cam.sh ).
Now, if everything went well and there are no other issues (network, firewall, …), you should be able to manage your camera’s motion detection status using the linux shell:
- cam.sh info : get motion detection status (enabled o disabled)
- cam.sh enable : enable motion detection
- cam.sh disable : disable motion detection
- cam.sh toggle :enable motion detection if it’s disabled or disable motion detection if it’s enabled