PiCam

👻 This project is not maintained anymore.

These scripts handle the events of the Motion program.

Examples:

When an image is created, it's sent by email.
When an video is created, it's uploaded to Dropbox.
automatically disables or enables motion detection

Compatibility

This software has been tested on Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi with a logitec C720.

Requirements

Motion (apt-get install motion)
ssmtp (apt-get install ssmtp)
mpack (apt-get install mpack)
dropbox_uploader.sh (or any other upload script).

Components

picam_event does something when a motion event is triggered. Executed by Motion based on the settings in /etc/motion/motion.conf
picam_notify notifies you of something by email.
picam_supervise checks if the zone is secure and does appropriate action. By default it is executed to check if the zone is secure. It decides to enable or disable motion detection based on $CHECK_ZONE_CMD in /etc/picam.conf It is executed by cron every minute.
motion_control controls the Motion software. Executed by picam_supervise.

Installation

The installation of the software is quite simple however the setup and configuration require some work.

The summary of the installation looks like this:

Prepare the system
Install Picam
Configure PiCam
Configure Motion

1. Prepare the system

Install the required packages above
Install dropbody_uploader.sh or any other script that uploads the media files somewhere safe.

2. Install Picam

This is how to dowload and install the files:

git clone https://github.com/samyboy/picam

# Install the binaries
sudo cp ./picam/bin/* /usr/local/bin/

# Copy the config files
sudo cp ./picam/etc/picam.conf /etc/picam.conf
sudo cp ./picam/etc/cron.d/picam /etc/cron.d/

Edit /etc/sudoers with visudo

motion ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/service motion

It's time for some configuration.

3. Configure PiCam

Have a look at /etc/picam.conf and configure it wisely.
Configure notifications

By default the notifications are done by email with the script picam_notify.
- Configure ssmtp in /etc/ssmtp.conf. If you use gmail, a working example of this file is available in the misc folder.
Configure syslog

If you want you can copy the files in misc/rsyslog.d/ and misc/logrotate.d/ to the appropriate system folder if you want to have a separated log file.

4. Configure motion

Configure your motion installation with the following settings in /etc/motion/motion.conf:

;on_event_start /usr/local/bin/picam_event event_start %v %C
;on_event_end /usr/local/bin/picam_event event_end %v %C
;on_picture_save /usr/local/bin/picam_event picture_save %v %C %f
;on_movie_start /usr/local/bin/picam_event movie_start %v %C %f
;on_movie_end /usr/local/bin/picam_event movie_end %v %C %f
;on_camera_lost /usr/local/bin/picam_event camera_lost

Restart motion to apply changes

License

TODO

SamK/picam