Storing Video to External Storage such as a USB Drive

Community Playground General Discussions
#1

I’m looking to store images locally directly on Vera.

Is it possible to have video stored to an external USB drive (AKA USB Key)? If so, does anyone have a link or recommendations on doing so?

#2

I’m not sure if write privileges to the filesystem are provided to Luup scene/or Luup plug-in code, but if it is you could use os.execute(cmd) to run shell commands.

I assume you are talking about downloading the image from an IP camera to the usb drive, so assuming you have the drive mounted as “/mnt/usb” and the IP camera’s current image is downloadable from “http://10.1.1.1/image.jpg” you could should be able to use something like the following as a Luup scene and then schedule or trigger to run as needed:

os.execute(“curl -o /mnt/usb/ “… os.time() …”.jpg http://10.1.1.1/image.jpg”)

I understand it isn’t the most elegant solution, and I haven’t debugged or tested that code, but it should download the current image from the camera and give it a file name that is the current time in seconds, so as long as you don’t trigger it more than once a second that should be fine. If this would be of interest to you as a solution give it a shot and let me know if you need help debugging it.

#3

Instead of that, you could use luacurl ([url=http://luacurl.luaforge.net/]http://luacurl.luaforge.net/[/url]) luasocket ([url=http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~diego/professional/luasocket/]http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~diego/professional/luasocket/[/url]), or luup.wget ([url=http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Luup_Lua_extensions#function:_wget]http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Luup_Lua_extensions#function:_wget[/url])

As for storing in a USB drive, it does work; but you have to manually mount it, typcally something like:

mount /dev/discs/disc0/part1 /mnt/

Of course, you could add an entry to /etc/fstab to make it automount at startup

#4

@javier: Are those modules included with Vera? I went with os.execute because I have more experience with *nix and the “standard” executables included in distros then I do with Lua. I am interested in learning more Lua, is there there a list of if the Lua modules that are included with the Vera?

#5

Hum… that calls for a wiki page. Here’s a quick list:

[ul][li]LuaSocket ([url=http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~diego/professional/luasocket/]http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/~diego/professional/luasocket/[/url])[/li]
[li]LuaFilesystem ([url=http://www.keplerproject.org/luafilesystem/]http://www.keplerproject.org/luafilesystem/[/url])[/li]
[li]LuaCurl ([url=http://luacurl.luaforge.net/]http://luacurl.luaforge.net/[/url])[/li]
[li]LuaExpat ([url=http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/]http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/[/url])[/li]
[li]LuaSec ([url=http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~brunoos/luasec/]http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~brunoos/luasec/[/url])[/li]
[li]LuaProfiler ([url=http://luaprofiler.luaforge.net/index.html]http://luaprofiler.luaforge.net/index.html[/url])[/li][/ul]

… and of course, you could simply upload any lua-only module. For example that’s how I’ve ported LuaXPath and plan to add a few extra utilities to make it simpler to use.

#6

@javier, do you now include all of the components of LuaSocket? Last time I checked the SMTP module was missing (for example):

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=1512.msg8061#msg8061

and yes, you could do with a Wiki page for the libs that are included, and what bits aren’t (if like the above example)

#7

You’re right, only the core and mime parts are included; the higer-level modules are missing (http.lua, url.lua, tp.lua, ftp.lua, smtp.lua). Of course, being just Lua files, you could simply upload them yourself.

#8

thanks for the feedback, everyone! It looks like I have some playing around to do. :slight_smile:

#9

is it possible to write this capacity (local image storage) to a plugin so us common mortals can use it?

#10

sure. any ideas about how would you like to use it?

#11

Here’s a thought for the plugin and goal:

  1. Plug-in a USB drive into the back of the Vera.
  2. This storage is automatically allocated for using the web interface to install packages (ipkg)
    … and …
  3. automatically used to store images from IP video cameras for later retrieval.

To do a lot of this by hand you have to manipulate a lot of things (i.e. fstab, fix jffs, etc.). Is there someway a plugin could automate the processing of all of this?

#12

sure. any ideas about how would you like to use it?
[/quote]

javier : Just to store images from a motion activated camera

#13

Yes, but it would tricky to do so and still allow for user configuration files (ie, fstab) to be manually edited for other reasons.

#14

Or what about simply doing a wiki for right now so us novices can figure it out? :slight_smile:

#15

Can anyone assist with steps of configuring a USB drive to be the extra storage in order to store video locally, install updates to the firewall, etc.? I’m having a hard time trying to figure it out.

Thanks,.