When: 2022

Why: To publish images from your ip camera to Apache Server

Time: 20 minutes

Tags: Linux, RTSP, ffmpeg, Apache

What is RTSP?

The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams (such as interactive media, video and audio) over a suitable transport protocol.

Real time streaming protocol or RTSP is essentially the pure video and audio feed coming off IP cameras, NVRs, or networked DVRs.

1. Get your IP Camera RTSP url

The format of the string for RTSP streaming is as follows (optional components are enclosed in square brackets):

rtsp://[username[:password]@]ip_address[:rtsp_port]/server_URL[?param1=val1[&paramN=valN]] 

The common port for rtsp protocol are 554 and 8554.

If you need help to get your rtsp url, you can go to this page:

https://www.ispyconnect.com/cameras

Example of url cameras:

rtsp://admin:888888@192.168.0.10:8554/profile1
rtsp://rtsp:z05roG8d
@192.168.0.17:554/av_stream/ch1 

Usually, the url indicates the resolution channel. In the last example profile1 and ch1 are for the low resolution channel. profile0 and ch0 are for the high resolution channel.

2. Install ffmpeg

sudo apt install ffmpeg

FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. It supports the most obscure ancient formats up to the cutting edge.

3. Install Apache

sudo apt install apache2

The goal of the Apache HTTP Server project is to build a secure, efficient, and extensible HTTP server as open source, standards-compliant software. The result has long been the number one web host on the Internet.

Enable CORS headers:

sudo a2enmod headers
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Add the Header in the VirtualHost tag at 000-default.conf

Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"

Restart apache2:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

4. Make a bash file to grab an image per second from the IP Camera

sudo vi /home/debian/residentfy_camera1.sh

#!/bin/sh
sudo ffmpeg -rtsp_transport tcp -i "rtsp://admin:888888@192.168.0.10:8554/profile1" -r 1 -vf "scale=1024:-2" -f segment -segment_time 0.5 -segment_format singlejpeg -segment_wrap 2 /var/www/html/camera1_%d.jpg  > /dev/null

-rtsp_transport: Set RTSP transport protocols (Default is udp, but you can switch to tcp if you have any problems with the connection)
-i: Input file or stream
-r: Frame rate
-vf: filter_graph set video filters (In this case we scale the size of the image)
-f: Force format, in this case we will force to use segment (Demuxer)
-segment_time: Segment duration
-segment_format: Container format used for the segments
-segment_wrap: Number after which the index wraps

The image out will be located to the html directory from Apache. The script will create one image per second: camera1_0.jpg and camera1_1.jpg, it is neccesary to create two images to have time to read the image because is overwritten.

5. Make the file executable and test it

cd /home/debian
sudo chmod +x  residentfy_camera1.sh
sudo ./residentfy_camera1.sh

You can now stop the task and check for the generated images:

6. Make a Systemd Unit to control the task

sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/residentfy_camera1.service

This is the content of the file:

[Unit] 
Description=residentfy_camera1 

[Service] 
ExecStart=/home/debian/residentfy_camera1.sh  

Restart=always 
[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the unit:

sudo systemctl enable residentfy_camera1.service
sudo systemctl start residentfy_camera1.service

Check the status:

sudo systemctl status residentfy_camera1

7. Make a bash file to “monitor” the task, because the task could stop if there is a intermitent net connection.

sudo nano /home/debian/residentfy_monitor.sh

This is the content of the file:

#!/bin/sh
while true
do
        MODIFICADOS=$(find /var/www/html/camera1*.jpg -mmin -5 -type f -ls | wc -l)
        if [ "$MODIFICADOS" -eq "0" ]; then 
                echo "NO HAY ARCHIVOS MODIFICADOS CAMARA 1. REINICIANDO"; 
	        sudo systemctl restart residentfy_camera1 
        fi
        #REINICIAMOS EL SERVICIO TODOS LOS DIAS
        HORA=$(date +"%H%M")
        #DIFERENCIA DE 5 MINUTOS, IGUAL QUE EL SLEEP
        if [ "$HORA" -ge 2353 ] && [ "$HORA" -le 2358 ]; then
                echo "REINICIAR"
                sudo systemctl restart residentfy_camera1
                sleep 1m
        fi
        sleep 5m
done

The bash file check if the images has been modified in the last 5 minutes. If not, restart the task.

Give permission of execution:

sudo chmod +x  /home/debian/residentfy_monitor.sh

Create the unit file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/residentfy_monitor.service

This is the content of the file:

[Unit] 
Description=residentfy_monitor

[Service] 
ExecStart=/home/debian/residentfy_monitor.sh  

Restart=always 
[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl enable residentfy_monitor.service
sudo systemctl start residentfy_monitor.service