sentinel

This program is a security monitoring program that uses video to detect motion, that records motion video, can express speech alerts, can express alarms and attempts to communicate alerts as configured.

setup (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS)

Python 2 and OpenCV 2 are required. Specifically, this program has been tested with OpenCV 2.4.9.1 and 2.4.13.5.

Install dependencies.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install   \
    libasound-dev  \
    python-dev     \
    python-pyaudio \
    portaudio19-dev\
    python-tk

Install OpenCV 2 using the following procedure, which was defined here.

sudo apt install                     \
    build-essential                  \
    cmake                            \
    libgtk2.0-dev                    \
    pkg-config                       \
    python-dev                       \
    checkinstall                     \
    libavcodec-dev                   \
    libavcodec-dev                   \
    libavformat-dev                  \
    libavformat-dev                  \
    libdc1394-22-dev                 \
    libgstreamer0.10-dev             \
    libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev\
    libgtk2.0-dev                    \
    libjasper-dev                    \
    libjasper-dev                    \
    libjpeg-dev                      \
    libjpeg-dev                      \
    libmp3lame-dev                   \
    libopencore-amrnb-dev            \
    libopencore-amrwb-dev            \
    libopencv-dev                    \
    libpng12-dev                     \
    libqt4-dev                       \
    libswscale-dev                   \
    libswscale-dev                   \
    libtbb-dev                       \
    libtheora-dev                    \
    libtiff5-dev                     \
    libv4l-dev                       \
    libvorbis-dev                    \
    libxine2                         \
    libxvidcore-dev                  \
    python-dev                       \
    python-numpy                     \
    v4l-utils                        \
    x264                             \
    yasm

wget https://github.com/opencv/opencv/archive/2.4.13.5.zip -O opencv-2.4.13.5.zip
unzip opencv-2.4.13.5.zip
cd opencv-2.4.13.5
mkdir release
cd release
cmake                                \
    -G "Unix Makefiles"              \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++\
    CMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc    \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE       \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local\
    -DWITH_TBB=ON                    \
    -DBUILD_NEW_PYTHON_SUPPORT=ON    \
    -DWITH_V4L=ON                    \
    -DINSTALL_C_EXAMPLES=ON          \
    -DINSTALL_PYTHON_EXAMPLES=ON     \
    -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=ON              \
    -DWITH_QT=ON                     \
    -DWITH_OPENGL=ON                 \
    -DBUILD_FAT_JAVA_LIB=ON          \
    -DINSTALL_TO_MANGLED_PATHS=ON    \
    -DINSTALL_CREATE_DISTRIB=ON      \
    -DINSTALL_TESTS=ON               \
    -DENABLE_FAST_MATH=ON            \
    -DWITH_IMAGEIO=ON                \
    -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF          \
    -DWITH_GSTREAMER=ON ..
make all -j"$(nproc)"
sudo make install
cd ../../
rm -rf ./opencv-2.4.13.5
sudo apt install python-opencv
echo -e "OpenCV version:"
pkg-config --modversion opencv

Install sentinel.

sudo pip install python_sentinel

Manually create an account on a Matrix homeserver. Add the credentials to the scalar configuration file, as described here.

usage

sentinel --help

sentinel --display_windows=false --launch_delay=120 --record_duration=15 --message=true

In case of connections problems or other problems that might cause a crash, It may be sensible to have sentinel restart in the case of a crash. This could be done in a way like the following, perhaps with the function described added to .bashrc, and perhaps saving to Nextcloud for remote recording (in additional to the remote recording via messaging):

run_sentinel(){
    #cd ~/Nextcloud
    #mkdir sentinel
    #cd sentinel
    while true; do
        sentinel --display_windows=false --launch_delay=120 --record_duration=15 --message=true
        sleep 5
    done
}

run_sentinel

future

Migration from OpenCV 2 to OpenCV 3 or 4 is under consideration.