Raspberry Pi - MJPG-streamer as a service

What do you need

Hardware

• A Raspberry Pi (preferably a 2 or 3). My experience with the built-in wifi of the RP 3 is that is works better than the Realtek or WiPi dongles.
• A Raspberry Pi camera (I have used the v1)
• Optionally a case like: https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/camera/camera-cases/nwazet-pi-camera-box-bundle-case,-lens-and-wall-mount-b-plus

Software

• Raspbian
• MJPG-streamer built with raspicam support: https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer
• Some support files found in this repo

Quick start

Camera

• connect and configure Raspberry Pi camera board. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/camera/README.md
• check that raspivid can record video from the camera.

Building mjpg-streamer

• clone repo: https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer

git clone https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer.git

• cd into source dir cd mjpg-streamer
• Build (see also https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer):
  • cd mjpg-streamer-experimental
  • make
  • sudo make install

Installing the web i/f files

In the same directory (mjpg-streamer-experimental)

sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer
sudo cp -R www /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/

Installling the plugin libs

In the same directory (mjpg-streamer-experimental)

sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib/mjpg-streamer
sudo cp *.so /usr/local/lib/mjpg-streamer

Setting path for dynamic libraries

• clone this repository
• cd raspi-mjpg-streamer
• copy the ld config file

sudo cp mjpg-streamer-ld.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/mjpg-streamer.conf

• re-scan dynamic libraries

sudo ldconfig

Check whether mjpg-streamer can be run

If your path includes /usr/local/bin (in which mjpg-streamer will have been installed by the default build process), then check if you can succesfully run:

mjpg_streamer -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www" -i "input_raspicam.so -fps 10 --width 1024 --height 576"

If you test this as user pi, user pi should be part of group video

Create user

Create a user, e.g. user webcam and add it to group video.

sudo adduser webcam
sudo adduser webcam video

Install service files

Copy the service and default files from this repo to the right system directories.

sudo cp cammjpgstreamer.service /etc/systemd/system
sudo cp mjpg-streamer-default /etc/default/mjpg-streamer

Enable the service

• Run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to scan the new service file.
• Enable the service by issuing the command: sudo systemctl enable cammjpgstreamer.service

Start the service

• sudo systemctl start cammjpgstreamer.service

See the results

• Use a browser on a computer connected to the same network as the raspberry pi.
• http://:8080/

TODO: Create a patch file to correct aspect ratio's of images in web interface (4:3 -> 16:9)