# TODO
Simply clone this repository and run setup.sh in the top-level directory,
specifying the port you'd like the server to listen on (i.e., the port that
will be opened up to the world) with the -p/--port flag. IMPORTANT:
If you wish to run the program in a Python virtual environment (which is
recommended), ensure that the virtual environment is activated before running
setup.sh.
git clone https://github.com/nrsyed/flask-cam.git
cd flask-cam
./setup.sh --port 9001
Replace 9001 with the port you wish to use (the standard HTTPS port
is 443, but it may be prudent to choose a different port for obscurity). After
the necessary packages have been installed and configuration files have been
created, the script will prompt you to set up an authorized username/password.
These credentials will be required by the web interface to view the
livestream webpage. For more information on user authentication, see the
User Authentication section below.
As part of the installation process, the opencv-python Python package is
installed. However, some users may wish to build/install OpenCV manually (for
example, using the instructions at
pyimagesearch). For this reason, opencv-python is not included in
requirements.txt (but is installed by setup.sh). If you wish to skip
installation of opencv-python, pass the --skip-opencv flag to setup.sh:
./setup.sh --port 9001 --skip-opencv
NOTE: This project relies on uvcdynctrl because it assumes that a webcam
supported by uvcdynctrl is being used. If this is not the case, camera.py
must be modified based on the specifics of your particular webcam(s).
# TODO
Before you can access the webpage from the internet, you must modify your
router's port forwarding settings to direct traffic on the chosen port (9001 in
the example above) to the Raspberry Pi. Depending on your router, this may
require you to know the Raspberry Pi's IP address on the local network, which
can be obtained via ifconfig.
To access the app, use your public IP address and the port you chose above.
You can obtain your public IP address using the dig tool, which is part of
the dnsutils package and is installed by setup.sh.
dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com
Then, to access the index page of the app, simply navigate to
https://123.4.567.890:9001 in a web browser, replacing 123.4.567.890 with
the IP address returned by dig and 9001 with the port selected above.
To uninstall all components and configuration files, simply run setup.sh with
the uninstall option:
./setup.sh uninstall
The Flask application requires username/password authentication to access the
index page. Passwords are encrypted and authenticated via bcrypt. To add a
user, run password.py with the -a/--add-user flag, specifying the
username with the -u/--user option and the password with the
-p/--password option. Replace dexter with your desired username and
omelet with your desired password.
python password.py --add-user --user dexter --password omelet
By default, this creates a file named users in the application directory,
which contains the username and the base-64 encoded hash of the password.
Additional users can be added by the same process.
To modify an existing user's password or to delete a user from the list, use
the -m/--modify-user and -d/--delete-user flags, respectively.
# Modify a user's password.
python password.py --modify-user --user dexter --password hunter2
# Delete a user.
python password.py --delete-user dexter
To check a user's password, use the -c/--check-password flag, which prints
True if the password given is correct and False otherwise.
$ python password.py --check-password --user dexter --password 1234
False
$ python password.py --check-password --user dexter --password hunter2
True
There are a number of ways to send email alerts initiated by events on the Raspberry Pi. Because it's relatively easy and doesn't require storing or using the credentials for my primary Gmail account, I've opted to use Amazon AWS SES (Simple Email Service). You'll have to create an Amazon AWS account first if you don't have one.
On the Amazon AWS SES page, go to SMTP settings and make note of the server name and port choices; these will be needed later (see the screenshot below).
Click Create My SMTP Credentials and follow the instructions therein. At the end of the process, you'll be presented with an SMTP username and password; these credentials will be required to communicate with the AWS mail server (refer to the screenshot below).
Following this step, go to the Email Addresses link under Identity Management in the navigation bar (refer to the first screenshot above), click Verify a New Email Address, and follow the instructions to add the email address you'd like to send email from.
Finally, copy the sample file secrets.example
to a file named secrets and replace the example information with your email
address and the AWS SES credentials from the previous steps. The secrets file
contains all of the information needed to communicate with the AWS SES server
in the form of a JSON object; the file is parsed by the import_secrets()
function in sendmail.py.
Currently, an email alert is sent whenever your router's external IP address
(the IP address that other computers see when any machine on your network
communicates with the outside world) changes, since most residential customers
have a dynamic IP address that can change from time to time. This ensures that
you always have the correct IP address to access your webcam feed. This is
achieved by means of the
make_external_ip_check_cronjob.sh script that runs on installation, which
adds a cron job to regularly run
external_ip_check.sh, another script that calls sendmail.py if the IP
has changed since the last check. Note that the secrets file does not have to
be named secrets; however, if a different name is used, it must be passed
to sendmail.py via the --filepath option in external_ip_check.sh.