GNet Solutions » Hardware Hacking » Raspberry Pi

This is a guide on how I created a video stream using a webcam attached to a Raspberry Pi Model B running Arch Linux.

Prepare the Environment¶

• Make sure the system is up to date:
  

  sudo pacman -Syu
  

Get Webcam Information¶

• Install the v4l2 utilities:
  

  sudo pacman -S v4l-utils
  

• Get the current resolutions and pixel format of the webcam:
  

  v4l2-ctl -V
  

  • NOTE: For more details use the following command:
    

    v4l2-ctl --all
    

• Get a list of supported resolutions and pixel formats:
  

  v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext
  

• Set the resolution of the webcam to 352x288 (to make streaming a little faster):
  

  v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=352,height=288,pixelformat=0
  

Install Motion¶

• Install motion:
  

  sudo pacman -S motion
  

• Edit the motion config file:
  

  nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
  

  • And modify the following parameters:
    

    daemon on
    v4l2_palette 2
    width 352
    height 288
    framerate 100
    webcam_localhost off
    control_localhost off
    output_normal off
    ffmpeg_cap_new off
    ffmpeg_cap_motion off
    webcam_motion off
    webcam_maxrate 100
    

• Test start the motion server to check that everything is running properly:
  

  sudo motion -n -c /etc/motion/motion.conf
  

  • Ctrl+C to quit the server when done testing.

• Make the /run/motion directory:
  

  mkdir /run/motion
  

• Start and enable the server at boot:
  

  sudo systemctl enable motion
  sudo systemctl start motion
  

• Open a web browser and go to http://motion.example.com:8081 to view the video stream.
  • Open a web browser and go to http://motion.example.com:8080 to view configuration information.

Install Nginx¶

• Install Nginx
  

  sudo pacman -S nginx
  

• Start and enable nginx at boot:
  

  sudo systemctl enable nginx
  sudo systemctl start nginx
  

• Create a configuration directory to make managing individual server blocks easier
  

  sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/conf.d
  

• Edit the main nginx config file:
  

  sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
  

  • And strip down the config file and add the include statement at the end to make it easier to handle various server blocks:
    

    worker_processes  1;
    error_log  /var/log/nginx-error.log;
    
    events {
        worker_connections  1024;
    }
    
    http {
        include       mime.types;
        default_type  application/octet-stream;
        sendfile        on;
        keepalive_timeout  65;
    
        # nginx may need to resolve domain names at run time
        resolver 192.168.1.1 ipv6=off;
    
        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
    }
    

• Add a camera site server block:
  

  sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/camera.example.com.conf
  

  • Add the following:
    

    server {
        listen       80 default_server;
        server_name  camera.example.com;
        access_log  /var/log/camera.example.com.log;
    
        location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:8081/;
        }
    }
    

Resources¶

• http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/ConfigFileOptions
• http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/MotionGuideBasicFeatures
• http://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-webcam-server/
• https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/780055-how-to-operate-linux-spycams-with-motion