Cisco Video Surveillance Manager Streamer

vsmstreamer is a Python utility to stream Cisco Video Surveillance Manager streams on macOS.

Requirements

This utility requires the following software:

• macOS (tested using 18.0.0, Mojave)
• Python 2.7 or 3 (tested using 2.7.15, and 3.7)
• VLC media player Nightly Build (tested using vlc-3.0.5-20181022-0636)

Note: Due to a bug in VLC 3.0.4, you MUST use a nightly build of 3.0.5. Otherwise, the stream will stop after 120 second. For more information read this thread.

These are the Python modules that the utility depends on:

• configparser
• requests
• PyCocoa
• python-vlc

However, you need not install these packages by hand. Installing vsmstreamer through pip will automatically install these packages.

Installation

From PyPI

The latest released version of vsmstreamer can be installed from PyPI.

pip install vsmstreamer

PS: Run with sudo like sudo pip install vsmstreamer if necessary.

From Source

The latest development version of vstreamer can be installed from source.

git clone https://github.com/kprav33n/vsmstreamer.git
pip install -e ./vsmstreamer

Usage

vsmstreamer is a command line utility. The following summarizes list of options available.

$ vsmstreamer --help
usage: vsmstreamer [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--profile PROFILE]
                   [--server SERVER] [--username USERNAME]
                   [--password PASSWORD] [--stream STREAM]

Cisco Video Surveillance Manager Streamer

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --config CONFIG, -c CONFIG
                        path to config file
  --profile PROFILE, -r PROFILE
                        profile name to use
  --server SERVER, -s SERVER
                        VSM server address
  --username USERNAME, -u USERNAME
                        VSM username
  --password PASSWORD, -p PASSWORD
                        VSM password
  --stream STREAM, -n STREAM
                        stream index to display

In order to stream from a Cisco Video Surveillance Manager, you would need the following three parameters:

• server address
• username
• password

Credentials File

The above mentioned parameters can be stored in a credentials file. The default path of the credentials file is ~/.vsm/credentials. However, this path can be overridden using the --config command line option. This file can contain one are more sections. The section name is enclosed in a square bracket like this [default]. A desired section can be selected using the --profile command line option. A sample credentials file looks like this:

[default]
server = vsm.example.org
username = jsmith
password = $up3rsecret

However, use of credentials file is optional. In the absence of the credentials file, the command line options --server, --user, and --password can be used to specify the required parameters.

Streams

vsmstreamer plays only one stream at a time. You can have many instances of this utility running at the same time if you want to want multiple streams. By default, this utility tunes to the first stream in the list of available streams. However, you can use --stream command line option to specify the stream index (0-indexed) to tune into.

Feedback

If you find a bug, or you would like to see a new feature, please feel free to open an issue.