EZ-NVR - Easy Network Video Recorder

This is a simple and easy Network Video Recorder (NVR) that is designed to run on cheap hardware, such as a Raspberry Pi with a hard drive. 24/7 video streams from network cameras are saved. Recorded files can be browsed using filebrowser.

The project is deliberately bare-bones, configuration is done through config.yaml file and deployed using docker containerization.

The camera video streams are saved in 5 minute files (to prevent long periods of video loss should a file become corrupted). At 01:00 UTC, the video files for the previous day are concatenated into a single 24 hour file, and the 5 minute video files are deleted. At 02:00 UTC, the video files older than 21 days are deleted. Period of retention can be changed with config.yaml file.

ffmpeg is used to connect to the camera streams and save the video feeds. Recording will restart automatically in case of unexpected interruption.

Configuration Options

1. Use TZ: Europe/London environment variable to have filenames in local timezone of London.
2. Set retention period of video files by updating video_store: 21 to your desired days in config.yaml file. (Optional)
3. For password protected RTSP streams, you need pass the argument in RTSP URL configuration based on your camera. E.g., rtsp://user:password@camera-ip/live/stream_01
4. Length of video clip sections can be changed by updating camera_interval: 300 to desired value. (Optional)
5. Logs can be accessed in native docker logs.

Build image using Dockerfile

Clone the repo to build your own image.

TIMESTAMP="$(date '+%Y%m%d-%H%M')"

docker build -t "${USER?}/eznvr:${TIMESTAMP}" .

Run eznvr docker container:

docker run -d --name eznvr -v /path/to/eznvr/config:/config -v /path/to/eznvr/storage:/storage your_username/eznvr:YYYYMMDD-HHMM

Mount following volumes to update camera settings and access or backup stored video files.

1. /config - For NVR configuration
2. /storage - For recorded videos

Using docker-compose.yml

You can also use prebuilt image cyb3rdoc/eznvr:latest (dev tag for developmental image) with docker-compose.yml.

services:
  eznvr:
    container_name: eznvr
    hostname: eznvr
    image: cyb3rdoc/eznvr:latest
    volumes:
      - /path/to/eznvr/config:/config
      - /path/to/eznvr/storage:/storage
    restart: unless-stopped

NVR Logs

Logs can be accessed with docker logs eznvr. For detailed logs, use docker environment variable DEBUG=true in docker command or docker-compose.yml file.