Zyzel NSA310/NSA325 NAS Box recording a Foscam IP Stream

CreepingDeath · 20-03-2014 10:49pm #1

Hi,

on a bargain alert I mentioned this could be done and another poster asked for a "mini tutorial" on it.

Rather than polluting the bargain alerts thread with seriously technical details I'll start a thread here, so people can reply/respond to it.

In summary, you install FFMPEG and it can record both local USB webcam streams AND streams from a wireless IP camera you might have.

Okay, so you need a Zyzel NAS box.
I've a Zyzel NSA325, which is the dual bay version of the Zyzel NSA310 which has an extensive thread on bargain alerts in it's own right.

I've a FOSCAM FI8918W IP camera, but I imagine other cheap chinese pan and tilt clones will work too.

1. Install FFP, a nice collection of extra packages for the Zyzel NSA310/NSA325 family of NAS boxes.
See http://zyxel.nas-central.org/wiki/FFP-stick#NSA-320.2C_NSA-325.2C_NSA-325v2.2C_NSA310S.2C_NSA320S.2C_TDC_Homebox.2C_on_FFP-Stick_version_2012-03-19_or_newer

2. Install a utility that updates the list of sites you can then download extra packages & utilities from.
Link : http://nas-tweaks.net/373/uwsiteloader-tool-to-download-the-sites-definitions-for-packages-of-the-fun_plug-0-7/

3. Login via telnet to your NAS box and run "slacker -i" to install the FFMPEG packages, in my case in installed the following

br2:ffmpeg2/fdk-aac-0.1.2-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/ffmpeg-2.1.3_git20140213-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/fontconfig-2.10.95_git20130907-arm-0.tzy
br2:ffmpeg2/freetype-2.5.0.1-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/fribidi-0.19.5-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/lame-3.99.5-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/libass-0.10.1.-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/opus-1.0.3-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/rtmpdump-2.4_git20130907-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/shine-3.0.0-arm-0.txz
br2:ffmpeg2/twolame-0.3.13-arm-0.txz
br2:gettext-0.18.3.arm-0.txz
br2:libiconv-1.14-arm-0.txz

4. Then I wrote a Linux script to execute FFMPEG in the background.

Below you'll want to change the destination folder, your FOSCAM IP address, username and password to access your IP camera.

export PATH=/ffp/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/ffp/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
NOW=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H%M")
# Change the directory below to the directory you want to record to on your NAS

DESTDIR=/i-data/028894c9/FOSCAM/video

echo "Capturing $1 : $DESTDIR/test_${NOW}.avi"

nohup ffmpeg -r 1 -i "http://192.168.1.21/videostream.asf?user=YOUR_WEBCAMUSERNAME&pwd=YOUR_WEBCAM_PASSWORD&resolution=32&rate=15" -t $1 -vcodec mpeg4 -an -y -vf drawtext="fontfile='$DESTDIR/cour.ttf':expansion=strftime:text=%{localtime:%d/%m/%Y %H\\\\:%M.%S: x=2: y=2: fontcolor=white: box=1: boxcolor=black" $DESTDIR/test_${NOW}.avi > /dev/null 2> /dev/null < /dev/null &

I used mpeg4 as the codec as it didn't max out the CPU.
I did use X264 too, but it did max out the CPU and when I gave a time limit of eg. 6 hours it was accurate using mpeg4, but X264 overran badly as it tried to catch up on frames, eg. it ran for 9 hours instead of 6.

Usage:

Save the above Linux script as recordTimelapse.sh.
Give it execute permissions, eg. chmod a+x recordTimelapse.sh

To record 1 hour, capturing 1 frame per second run

recordTimeLapse "01:00:00"

To record 12 hours, capturing 1 frame per second run

recordTimeLapse "12:00:00"

I have an Android app "ServerAssistant" on my smart phone allowing me to define and execute pre-defined Unix commands, so I have "record for 1 hour", "record for 12 hours" etc defined on it.

Oh yeah, I needed to grab a true type font file from Windows eg. cour.ttf and put it in the destination folder too.

So the tricky part is installing the extra packages for ffmpeg.

regards,
CD

CreepingDeath · 21-03-2014 12:22am

Think I left out the main package for ffmpeg !
So you need to install it via the "slacker" utility as above ( updated list above now )

br2:ffmpeg2/ffmpeg-2.1.3_git20140213-arm-0.txz

iPhone. · 21-03-2014 9:25pm

The bottom two packages on your list aren't displaying for me, any idea how to source them?

br2:gettext-0.18.3.arm-0.txz
br2:libiconv-1.14-arm-0.txz

Also, how do I add the path to the script so that I can excecute it from the NAS?

I keep getting command not found.

Thanks for the great work on the Tut!

CreepingDeath · 21-03-2014 10:28pm

Hi,

you may or may not need the br2:libiconv-1.14-arm-0.txz.
The br2:gettext-0.18.3.arm-0.txz I think may only be required if you want to draw a security timestamp on each frame.

Can you run ffmpeg on the command line now without error ?
If so, you're a good ways there.

I downloaded and ran the "usiteloader.sh" utility in one of my links.
This gave me the option of selecting various sites I could download extra packages from. You might as well select all the sites ( 8 on my machine ) that they offer you.

Then when you ran the "slacker" utility, you get more selections to download.

If you just want to test ffmpeg on an active webcam there's incremental steps you can take to test it.

FFMPEG webcam capture page

So a usb webcam would probably be something like

ffmpeg -f v4l2 -r 25 -s 640x480 -i /dev/video0 out.avi

If you've an IP camera, then you typically need to know the URL of the video feed, and the cameras username and password if required.

For Foscam cameras that's in the format of

http://YOUR_WEBCAM_IP/videostream.asf?user=YOUR_USERNAME&pwd=YOUR_PASSWORD

If you've a Foscam clone, then it might be a different URL format.
You can try them directly in a browser URL to see if it works first.

When you got it right, then you can run something like the following..

ffmpeg -r 1 -i "http://YOUR_WEBCAM_IP/videostream.asf?user=YOUR_USERNAME&pwd=YOUR_PASSWORD" -t "0:01:00" -vcodec mpeg4 -an -y test.avi

That'll try to capture the video for 1 minute.
I explicitly didn't want to store audio, so the "-an" in the command line does that. If you leave out the "-an" bit, you'll record audio too.

If you get it working on the command line like that, then you can alter my linux script accordingly.
You need the "nohup" and redirection of standard input/output if you want to run a recording in the background but logout.
Otherwise your timelapse recording will end abruptly as soon as you logout of your telnet session.

regards,
CD

iPhone. · 21-03-2014 11:02pm

Thanks for the detailed response, really appreciate the time it has taken you to do that!

I'm still stuck at 'command not found' stage on the command line

I can't for the life of me find the profile file or whatever the equivalent on the NSA310 is that stores the paths to see if I can add it there.

CreepingDeath · 21-03-2014 11:11pm

It's been a while since I installed it, but I thought I just needed to use the "slacker" utility to install the new packages, eg. anything that had "ffmpeg2" in the name.

When I run "which ffmpeg" (tells you what path it found it at), it says "/ffp/bin/ffmpeg" for me.

When I run "export $PATH" to see what my system path is, I have

/ffp/opt/java/jre/bin:/ffp/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

CreepingDeath · 21-03-2014 11:16pm

iPhone. wrote: »

I can't for the life of me find the profile file or whatever the equivalent on the NSA310 is that stores the paths to see if I can add it there.

Looks like FFP adds a profile file.

I've some form of a bash profile file in /ffp/etc/profile

Chet T16 · 22-03-2014 6:27pm

Trying to get this setup with my NSA310 and y-cam.

Probably a stupid question but where should i save the recordTimelapse.sh file?

CreepingDeath · 23-03-2014 11:49am

Chet T16 wrote: »

Trying to get this setup with my NSA310 and y-cam.

Probably a stupid question but where should i save the recordTimelapse.sh file?

No worries, it's not a stupid question, it's tricky to know where to store it.

If you telnet/ssh in to your NAS box and run "df -h" it will show you the file systems mounted on the NAS box.

My 3TB hard drive is mounted as /i-data/028894c9

So I created a folder called FOSCAM there, off the root directory.
I stored it there.

iPhone. · 23-03-2014 11:34pm

OK I can see the live footage in my browser by going to

http://YOUR_WEBCAM_IP/videostream.asf?user=YOUR_USERNAME&pwd=YOUR_PASSWORD

but when I run

recordTimeLapse.sh "00:01:00"

I get

Capturing 00:01:00 followed by the path addy but the file never shows up.

Any ideas on where it's sending it?

iPhone. · 24-03-2014 11:00am

Seems like I'm in business, finally got it sorted, just need to tweak it now hopefully!

I'm getting the time stamp showing at the start of the recorded video clip but it fades out after a few seconds, any pointers on how you got it to display constantly for each frame as it plays? - Definitely a case of not seeing the wood for the trees! - I just noticed now that the time stamp is actually displayed in the top left very inconspicuously and it does indeed display constantly for each frame, I was looking at the initial file name that VLC displays by default for about five seconds which in this case just happens to contain the time stamp as part of the name, threw me a bit!

Delighted to have gotten this far, I always thought it was a glaring omission on Zyels part not having it as part of the onboard package selection like other NAS manufacturers do.

Chuffed with this, thanks again for the great explanation and the time you took to post it, I reckon lots of people will find it useful as there aren't many 'real life' how to's on this particular NAS.

CreepingDeath · 24-03-2014 11:17am

iPhone. wrote: »

Chuffed with this, thanks again for the great explanation and the time you took to post it, I reckon lots of people will find it useful as there aren't many 'real life' how to's on this particular NAS.

Excellent, delighted it works for you !
It's been a while since I had set up FFP/slacker packages so I was worried I might've missed something.

Due to my script using "nohup" and redirecting standard input/output to null, it does hide any error messages you get.

So for anyone else, I'd recommend getting it working on the command line first before moving to the shell script.

iPhone. wrote: »

Delighted to have gotten this far, I always thought it was a glaring omission on Zyels part not having it as part of the onboard package selection like other NAS manufacturers do.

Yeah, although that could open a can of worms for them support wise, eg. webcams which aren't supported by Linux, and having to know and include the codecs for all IP cameras.

I did read up about how to create your own Zyzel packages but not sure I'd have the time/enthusiam to do this!

cheers,
CD

iPhone. · 24-03-2014 11:37am

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Due to my script using "nohup" and redirecting standard input/output to null, it does hide any error messages you get.

So for anyone else, I'd recommend getting it working on the command line first before moving to the shell script.

That's what I did myself, makes it easier to get the feedback on the initial command line alright.

One tip for anyone else trying it is - when you are using your web browser at the start to confirm you have a live stream to grab etc - don't for the love of God use Chrome as your browser!! I wasted an entire hour or more trying to get it to display as Chrome is my default browser, just had a thought and switched to Firefox and the damned video stream appeared instantly!!:mad:

Another tip, I use windows more than Linux and found using Filezilla to ssh into the NAS was a great way of updating the recordTimeLapse.sh file every time you tweaked it as it also allows you to change the permissions back to 777 straight from windows.

CreepingDeath wrote: »

I did read up about how to create your own Zyzel packages but not sure I'd have the time/enthusiam to do this!

It would be a nice hobby once you didn't get caught up in the frustration of it I'd imagine, but somehow I think it would slowly take over your life

iPhone. · 24-03-2014 12:00pm

Forgot to ask you about the android app 'ServerAssistant' - I cant see that at all in the google store, is there any alternative that you know of to achieve the same? It would be very handy to just be able to issue the command from mobile for the various time lengths.

I know it's linux, but wonder if there is possibly an iPhone app capable of doing the same too?

CreepingDeath · 24-03-2014 12:56pm

iPhone. wrote: »

Forgot to ask you about the android app 'ServerAssistant'

Here's the direct link to the Android playstore.

ServerAssistant Playstore link

iPhone. wrote: »

I know it's linux, but wonder if there is possibly an iPhone app capable of doing the same too?

I don't have an iPhone, but you'll probably want to search the Apple store for something like "remote unix shell client" or "telnet client".

iPhone. wrote: »

It would be a nice hobby once you didn't get caught up in the frustration of it I'd imagine, but somehow I think it would slowly take over your life

Actually it looks like it "might" be easy Creating FFP packages

Maybe just tar up the directory which contains the ffmpeg2 binaries, as a .tgz archive.
Then others can install it as "funpkg -i ffmpeg_for_zyzelnas.tgz"

iPhone. · 24-03-2014 2:27pm

I just recorded an hour of footage and checked the timestamp, it isn't correct, I started the hour recording at 11 and the final frame time stamp is for 11.32, seems to be running approximately 50% behind with the time stamp even though it does record for the full 60 minutes.

Does yours do the same or is there something I'm missing to regularize this?

CreepingDeath · 24-03-2014 2:53pm

For my Foscam FI8918W, I can specify an optional parameter in the URL to define the frame rate I want the camera to serve.

rate=15 is 1 frame per second

ffmpeg -r 1 -i "http://192.168.1.21/videostream.asf?user=YOUR_WEBCAMUSERNAME&pwd=YOUR_WEBCAM_PASSWORD&resolution=32&rate=15"

I don't know what your specific camera model is, or whether it can take a frame rate parameter.

Also, have you got your NAS doing anything else in the background?
Media server, torrenting etc ?

Chet T16 · 24-03-2014 4:11pm

I'm heading in the right direction now and seem to have the correct URL for my y-am figured out but when i try run from the command line i get a "protocol not found" error which seems to be caused by the USER:PASSWORD@http://... format of my url as when i allow anonymous access to the camera i can record using the url on its own.

Also i noticed that although it was set for 1fps for 1 minute it seemed to be reading at the cameras up date rate then stretching them out over 60 seconds but this may be because the camera is running at its default 15fps so that can be fixed

CreepingDeath · 24-03-2014 5:00pm

Chet T16 wrote: »

"protocol not found" error which seems to be caused by the USER:PASSWORD@http://... format of my url

I done a quick search for "Y-Cam" and URL and found a handy page here

So your URL format also seems to be

http://IPADDRESS/videostream.asf?user=[USERNAME]&pwd=[PASSWORD]&resolution=64&rate=0

BUT... I'm not sure of the resolution and rate correspond to the same as on my FosCam.

The FosCam values for rate translate to...
0 : full speed
1 : 20 fps
3 : 15 fps
6 : 10 fps
11: 5 fps
12 : 4 fps
13: 3 fps
14: 2 fps
15: 1 fps
17: 1 frame per 2 seconds
19: 1 frame per 3 seconds
21 : 1 frame per 4 seconds
23: 1 frame per 5 seconds

The resolution value translates to
8 : 320 x 240
32 : 640 x 480
\\

bkdg100 · 28-03-2014 4:27am

how many frames are you guys capturing per sec, and how much cpu is used ? thanks in advance.

CreepingDeath · 28-03-2014 10:56am

I explicitly only wanted 1 frame per second, for a poor mans security camera, also to limit the file sizes.

I can't remember offhand how much of the CPU was used.
I'd have to check when I get home, but I used MPEG4 compression.
X264 compression would be more CPU intensive.

If file size wasn't a problem, there's probably other simpler/faster video codecs that might not use the CPU as much.

I imagine if you used the same codec that the camera produces, there would be no transcoding required at all, eg. mine produces an MPEG video stream. I was more biased towards smaller video file sizes with codec compression than CPU usage.

iPhone. · 28-03-2014 1:11pm

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Actually it looks like it "might" be easy Creating FFP packages

Maybe just tar up the directory which contains the ffmpeg2 binaries, as a .tgz archive.
Then others can install it as "funpkg -i ffmpeg_for_zyzelnas.tgz"

Came across this today - might be of interest to you.

LINK

iPhone. · 28-03-2014 11:13pm

bkdg100 wrote: »

how many frames are you guys capturing per sec, and how much cpu is used ? thanks in advance.

I've set mine like creepingdeaths at 1 Frame per second but my cpu is pelting along at 100% but that's not caused by the ffmpeg install, it seems to be the ffp package in general, have to get to the bottom of it myself.

CreepingDeath · 29-03-2014 5:25pm

Yeah, 100% isn't right.

I've just tested mine, running the "top" command in telnet.

ffmpeg is coasting along nicely at between 11-14% of CPU.

I've posted my results so you can see which process might be taking up more CPU time.

top - 16:17:30 up 11 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.06, 0.44, 0.40
Tasks:  90 total,   1 running,  89 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 12.6%us,  1.7%sy,  1.0%ni, 84.8%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    509844k total,   503000k used,     6844k free,   135888k buffers
Swap:  1038320k total,        0k used,  1038320k free,   203016k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 5324 root      20   0 35700  11m 3504 S 12.6  2.4   0:24.86 ffmpeg
 5265 root      20   0  1256  608  440 R  0.3  0.1   0:00.79 top
    3 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 events/0
    1 root      20   0  2724  528  456 S  0.0  0.1   0:29.19 init
    2 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 kthreadd
  119 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kblockd/0
  124 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_zyxeljob_w
    5 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
    8 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 async/mgr
  157 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto
  158 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto_ret
  161 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 button controll
  169 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
  170 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.12 pdflush
  171 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.48 kswapd0
  172 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
  173 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 nfsiod
  174 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 cifsoplockd
  176 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 xfs_mru_cache
  177 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 xfslogd/0
  178 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 xfsdatad/0
  179 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 xfsconvertd/0
  180 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 crypto/0
  850 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0
  851 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1
  865 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 sata2rbm/0

FYI: I installed FFP permanently on a USB key on the NSA325.

If your webcam isn't recognising the frame rate parameter or not interpreting it as 1 FPS, then ffmpeg may be trying to encode 30fps or the like, which would explain the extra cpu.

If you can record a video for a fixed length of time, then use some video utility to check how many frames have been recorded you could confirm/rule out that theory.

iPhone. · 29-03-2014 8:15pm

I deleted a clutch of packages from ffp on mine, just pruned down on a best guess way what mightn't be needed. Of course I deleted a file that was needed and ended up with this error

/ffp/bin/funpkg: can't load library 'libexpat.so.1'

This left me unable to install or uninstall anything. Fortunately I was able to download the expat package and extracted the contents of the lib folder on a linux machine (tried on windows first but that breaks the symlink) and then copied them back in to the ffp via ssh, was then able to use slacker -a expat to update it.

Seems to have done the trick, cpu not running at a constant 100% anymore, ffmpeg running around 6-8% when recording.

bkdg100 · 30-03-2014 2:56am

iPhone. wrote: »

Came across this today - might be of interest to you.

LINK

the wording throws you a bit , so let me make it simple . download the file

This file "web_prefix" and put in \\NAS***\admin\zy-pkgs\

continue to follow directions...

great find ..

iPhone. · 30-03-2014 1:36pm

Where is recordTimeLapse.sh pulling the time from? Windows, my system and the ip Cam time are correct but the recordings are displaying a timestamp one hour in arrears since the daylight savings came in this morning.

CreepingDeath · 31-03-2014 12:48pm

Yeah, I see a similar issue on my environment, even with the correct timestamp and auto-daylight savings enables in the NSA325 administration web interface.

When I telnet in and run "date" it shows it as UTC, not localtime.

The drawtext filter on the ffmpeg command line of my recordTimeLapse.sh shell script is where the date comes from.
Although I see the "strftime" function in it is supposed to be deprecated.

I tried a number of different things, including setting some environment variables which are supposed to dictate the locale, eg. "TZ=Europe/Dublin" but it didn't have any effect.

I also tried a couple of different parameters for the drawtext filter (which draws the timestamp on each frame ).
No joy yet.

A dirty workaround might be to set your timezone to GMT, disable daylight savings hour and manually increment the hour by 1...
So you would have to manually control the daylight saving time yourself.

But I haven't had time to fully look into this.

CreepingDeath · 01-04-2014 11:32pm

Okay, after a lot of googling I find the solution.

So the /etc/localtime file is a symbolic link to the /etc/MyZone file on the NSA325.

Typically it's a direct link to one of the timezone files.
If you look in /usr/local/zoneinfo there's a load of timezone files.

Quick solution is to make a backup of your original MyZone file in case you need to restore it, and copy the Europe/Dublin file over it.

So the following 2 commands should do that for you

cp /etc/MyZone /etc/MyZone_BACKUP
cp /usr/local/zoneinfo/Europe/Dublin /etc/MyZone

You must be logged in as "root" for this.

You can confirm it worked by running "date" on the command line.
Before the fix, it showed UTC time, now it shows IST.
Confirmed working with ffmpeg too.

I haven't tested whether the fix will survive a reboot or not.

regards,
CD

iPhone. · 02-04-2014 9:46am

CreepingDeath wrote: »
So the following 2 commands should do that for you
cp /etc/MyZone /etc/MyZone_BACKUP
cp /usr/local/zoneinfo/Europe/Dublin /etc/MyZone

Tried it and it works alright but doesn't survive a reboot.

CreepingDeath · 02-04-2014 10:10am

Okay, some script must be overwriting it.
I'll have a look tonight, but so far I've found this web page on FFP, and under the "Basic Configuration" heading is mentions the FFP start up scripts.

I'd be looking around there first, and maybe adding the above fix if needed, or ideally removing places where they overwrite it, so any change remains intact regardless.

Basic configuration

During startup, various scripts are run that you can enable, disable, and modify to your needs.

Scripts to start, stop, and restart various network servers and a few other functions are stored in /ffp/start/. The scripts that are marked 'executable' will be run automatically at startup. To activate a script, e.g. mediatomb.sh, run:

chmod a+x /ffp/start/mediatomb.sh

To remove the 'executable' flag, run:

chmod a-x /ffp/start/mediatomb.sh

Example configuration files for some services are included in /ffp/etc/examples.

Before the scripts in /ffp/start, /ffp/etc/fun_plug.local is run, if present and executable. You can use fun_plug.local for any commands you want to run during startup that don't fit in real start scripts. Examples:

adjust clock ticks to reduce drift
set your timezone
remove firmware cronjobs
…

/ffp/etc/examples/ contains an example fun_plug.local script. Note that you should set the PATH yourself early in in fun_plug.local. The fun_plug.local function was added in version 2008-08-11 of the fun_plug script.

Zyzel NSA310/NSA325 NAS Box recording a Foscam IP Stream

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