motionEye Client

A simple async API client for motionEye.

Constructor arguments

The following arguments may be passed to the MotionEyeClient constructor:

This client needs both admin and surveillance passwords in order to interact with the API (which generally require the admin user), as well as prepare the URLs for data streaming (which require the surveillance user).

Primary Client Methods

All async calls start with async_, and return the JSON response from the server (if any) in most cases. async_get_camera_snapshot and async_get_media are the only exceptions, which return actual media/bytes data.

async_client_login

Login to the motionEye server. For motionEye servers before v0.44, this is not actually necessary, but useful for verifying credentials. For motionEye servers from v0.44 on, a async_client_login call is needed at least once. Follow up queries will make use of and in case renew the obtained session cookie automatically.

async_client_close

Close the client session. Always returns True.

async_get_manifest

Get the motionEye server manifest (e.g. server version number).

async_get_server_config

Get the main motionEye server config.

async_get_cameras

Get the listing of all cameras.

async_get_camera

Get the configuration of a single camera. Takes an integer camera_id argument.

async_set_camera

Set the configuration of a single camera. Takes an integer camera_id argument, and a dictionary of the same format as returned by async_get_camera.

async_action

Perform a motionEye action on a camera. Takes an integer camera_id argument and an action string.

Common actions include snapshot, record_start and record_stop. motionEye also supports other user configurable actions which may be called in this manner. See Action Buttons for more details.

async_get_movies

Get a list of recorded movies for a given camera_id. Accepts a prefix argument that gives a path prefix to list (does not recurse).

async_get_images

Get a list of saved images for a given camera_id. Accepts a prefix argument that gives a path prefix to list (does not recurse).

async_get_camera_snapshot

Fetch the current camera snapshot for the given camera_id. The result is the same as querying the URL returned by get_camera_snapshot_url (see below).

async_get_media

Fetch a saved image or movie for the given camera_id and path as mandatory positional arguments. path needs to be the file path relative to the camera's data dir. Additionally requires the named boolean image argument, to fetch an image if True, else a movie. Accepts the optional boolean preview argument to fetch a preview image of the movie, if True, instead of the movie itself.

The result is the same as querying the URL returned by get_image_url and get_movie_url respectively, when using the same camera_id, path, and in case preview argument.

async_get_media_stream

Open a saved image or movie for the given camera_id and path as a streaming response, without buffering the complete media file in memory. The arguments are the same as for async_get_media, with an additional optional range_header argument to forward an HTTP Range request.

The method is an async context manager and returns a MotionEyeClientMediaResponse which exposes the upstream HTTP status, headers, and content as an aiohttp.StreamReader. The response remains open while inside the context manager and is closed automatically when leaving it.

HTTP 206 Partial Content and 416 Range Not Satisfiable responses are preserved. When session reauthentication is required while opening the request, the original Range header is preserved when the request is retried.

Example:

async with client.async_get_media_stream(
    camera_id,
    path,
    image=False,
    range_header="bytes=0-1048575",
) as response:
    print(response.status)
    print(response.headers)

    async for chunk in response.content.iter_chunked(64 * 1024):
        ...

This method does not automatically resume an already active stream if the connection is interrupted after content transfer has started.

Convenience Methods

is_camera_streaming

Convenience method to take a camera dictionary (returned by async_get_camera or async_get_cameras) and return True if the camera has video stream enabled.

get_camera_stream_url

Convenience method to take a camera dictionary (returned by async_get_camera or async_get_cameras) and return the string URL of the streamed content (which can be opened separately). This extracts the hostname out of the motionEye URL and attaches the streaming port to it -- depending on the configuration this may not necessarily lead to an accessible URL (e.g. in the use of motionEye behind a reverse proxy).

Will raise MotionEyeClientURLParseError if the hostname cannot be extracted from the motionEye server URL.

get_camera_snapshot_url

Convenience method to take a camera dictionary (returned by async_get_camera or async_get_cameras) and return the string URL of a single still frame.

get_movie_url

Convenience method to take a camera id and the path to a saved movie, and return a link to playback the movie. Takes a preview argument that if True returns a URL to a thumbnail.

get_image_url

Convenience method to take a camera id and the path to a saved image, and return a link to that image. Takes a preview argument that if True returns a URL to a thumbnail.

is_file_type_image / is_file_type_movie

Determine if a given file_type int (from a web hook callback) represents an image or a movie respectively.

Context Manager

The client may be used in as a context manager, which will automatically close the session.

async with client.MotionEyeClient("http://localhost:8765", ) as mec:
    if not mec:
        return
    ...

Exceptions / Errors

MotionEyeClientError

A generic base class -- all motionEye client exceptions inherit from this.

MotionEyeClientInvalidAuthError

Invalid authentication detected during a request.

MotionEyeClientConnectionError

Connected failed to given URL.

MotionEyeClientURLParseError

Unable to parse the required URL.

MotionEyeClientPathError

Unable to parse a path.

MotionEyeClientRequestError

A request failed in some other undefined way.

Simple Example

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Client test for motionEye."""
import asyncio

from motioneye_client.client import MotionEyeClient


async def query_motioneye_server() -> None:
    """Test the motionEye client."""
    async with MotionEyeClient("http://localhost:8765") as client:
        if not client:
            return

        manifest = await client.async_get_manifest()
        print(f"Manifest: {manifest}")

        camera_list = await client.async_get_cameras()
        print(f"Cameras: {camera_list}")


asyncio.get_event_loop().run_until_complete(query_motioneye_server())

Building / Testing

This library is built using Poetry.

Building:

$ poetry build

Testing:

$ poetry run pytest

Updating Dependencies

Updating dependencies:

$ poetry update

Exporting to requirements.txt and requirements_dev.txt:

$ poetry export --without-hashes -o requirements.txt
$ poetry export --without-hashes --dev -o requirements_dev.txt

Publishing

Publish the package to the Python Package Index.

$ poetry publish