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Support #728

Using Motion To Stream a Webcam with a Raspberry Pi on Arch

Added by Daniel Curtis almost 9 years ago. Updated almost 7 years ago.

Status:
Closed
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Daniel Curtis
Category:
Camera Server
Target version:
Arch Linux
Start date:
01/20/2016
Due date:
% Done:

100%

Estimated time:
1.00 h
Spent time:
6.00 h

Description

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

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/;
    }
}

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