How to stream a webcam to a web browser in Ubuntu

readme.md

Grr this took hours to figure out. I was trying to install MJPG-streamer and running VLC command lines and all this crap but nothing worked.

First install motion:

~> sudo apt-get install motion

Then create a config file:

~> mkdir ~/.motion
~> nano ~/.motion/motion.conf

In it, the bare minimum to run a web server and view it on other computers:

webcam_port 8081
webcam_localhost off

Then run motion:

~> motion

Now you can view the webcam at http://hostname:8081 If it doesn't work, try rebooting between steps or something.

Isn't that easy? >:(

See also: How to run webcam software only when I am not home

***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ How can I change to /dev/video1?

A couple of ways, which can be confusing.  The command line is "videodevice /dev/video1" (without the quotes).  If this is placed in motion.conf then it will affect all cameras attached to that Motion computer.  I prefer to place the command in camera1.conf (or whatever name is appropriate).  If you have one camera then either motion.conf or camera1.conf -- doesn't matter, but if multiple cameras then definitely in the camera/n/.conf. When using a camera/n/.conf you also need to uncomment the line in motion.conf.  (In my system it's in the last few lines.) Barry

After messing about with VLC, go2rtc, and webcamd for days, motion simply just works with MINIMAL fuss.

Here is my motion.conf file:

stream_quality 98
stream_maxrate 5
stream_port 1984
stream_localhost off
output_pictures off
framerate 30
ffmpeg_video_codec mpeg
width 640
height 480
auto_brightness off
contrast 0
saturation 0

Here is my NGINX server

server {
    server_name DOMAIN;
    root /var/www/html;

    auth_basic "Admin"; # password protected domain
    auth_basic_user_file /etc/apache2/.htpasswd;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:1984/;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Prefix /;
    }


    listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/DOMAIN/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot

}