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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] can i set up a d-link DCS-936L network camera to view via linux?

  • Subject: Re: [OCLUG-Tech] can i set up a d-link DCS-936L network camera to view via linux?
  • From: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca>
  • Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 04:09:11 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 19 Sep 2017, Richard Guy Briggs wrote:

> On 2017-09-19 13:19, rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca wrote:
> >
> >   friend just handed me a d-link DCS-936L network camera, and it
> > would seem that the normal use of these is via a tablet or
> > smartphone, but i would like to be able to use my fedora linux
> > laptop and pop up a browser window (i'm assuming) and view what
> > the camera is seeing in real time, and it's not clear how i would
> > do that (yet).
> >
> >   anyone done this? i want to use the camera *only* from within
> > the secure wi-fi network in the home -- no access from outside.
> > what's the recipe here?
>
> I'm quite familiar with the Ottawa-based Lumenera cameras, having
> written Linux firmware kernel imager drivers for them:
> 	https://www.lumenera.com/products/surveillance/le375.html
>
> They are just a web page on the device configured by default with
> DHCP.  Image streaming is MJPEG wrapped in HTML.  Image streaming
> can be configured for RTSP/RTP.  They don't do IPv6.
>
> I recently bought a Hikvision camera that needed another driver
> supplied for Windows.  I was able to configure it via HTTP, except
> for live exposure view and setting up motion alarms and privacy
> masks which needed the plugin.  I was able to use RTSP to stream the
> live output of that camera using standard open source tools (such as
> VLC? or maybe mplayer?) but wasn't able to get RTSP working within a
> web browser for configuration.  This camera does IPv6.

  just to be clear about all of this, i know *squat* about setting up
one of these things, having never done it before, so let me describe
what i think is the end result, and people can point out where i am
going horribly wrong.

  given that this camera supports wi-fi, i had imagined that the end
result would be that it would eventually be configured as just another
device on my in-house network, having been assigned an IP address
either dynamically or statically, at which point i imagined i could
fire up either a browser, or some webcam app like "cheese", point at
that IP address, and view the live video stream from my linux laptop
(or from a windows or mac machine with the proper software as well).
make sense so far?

  now, this particular camera has no wired ethernet port (not
surprising), so it can't be connected to the in-house router for
initial configuration. it does come with an initial SSID and password,
so i assume that, to configure, one normally downloads d-link's
configuration app (https://www.mydlink.com/apps) and connects to the
camera's wi-fi network for that initial configuration, but there is no
obvious linux client to do that. therefore, i'm assuming that one
*needs* some mobile device (iPhone, android) for that initial
configuration. am i understanding this properly?

  in short, at least for this camera, i absolutely require an android
or iphone with the d-link app for the initial configuration, which is
kind of a pain, unless i have this completely wrong.

  am i at least understanding all this correctly?

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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