[Chester LUG] Home NAS device

[Roger Gibson]

Thanks Robin.  Just to be clear, the camera (Ucam 247) comes with fairly 
comprehensive software and does everything I want, except that, 
continuous and snapshot images can only be stored either on an SD card 
in the camera, or by Wifi to an NAS device connected to my router.  
Hence my queries about setting up an NAS device using an old laptop.  
The short comings of the SD card are are that it could be damaged/stolen 
with the camera, and it has limited capacity, about three weeks of 
continuous recording before it starts overwriting the oldest files.

There is a third option I could explore, in that a continuous feed can 
be independently and continuously viewed in a browser, so this feed 
could be intercepted.  I'm not sure about the quality of this feed.

And also to be clear, nothing goes out over the internet, unless I log 
in to the camera from holiday etc to look see.

Anyway, many thanks to all who have sent helpful replies.  I am at 
present exploring using Samba to set up an NAS device, but also looking 
at dedicated NAS programs as well.

Thanks again - Roger.

On 08/02/17 23:01, Robin via Chester wrote:
> Well I know pretty much sod-all about NAS, so I doubt this will be much help, but all the same...
>
> Are you trying to configure your laptop to act as a router, so you can then turn the plusnet thing off, and have your security cameras connect to your laptop instead? I take it your laptop could then (sneakily?) record the camera feed before it gets sent wherever it gets sent to on the Internet.
>
> Failing that, what about a script that reacts to the motion-trigger email, logs into the camera using it's IP address, and downloads the last hour of footage? I think there are some command line tools that can do that kind of thing. I can't honestly say I know offhand how to use them though.
>
> Regards,
> Robin
>
>
> On Wednesday 08 February 2017 19:48:19 Tony TF via Chester wrote:
>> As I've seen no other comments here I thought I might wade in with one or
>> two basics about a NAS for your security cameras.
>>
>> A NAS Attaches some Storage to a Network or more descriptively shares
>> regions of a storage device on the network. On Linux this is usually done
>> by the Samba software which provides the Microsoft SMB interface to share
>> disk partitions or directories. Have a look at Samba. If you install it on
>> your laptop and share your USB drive you should have a usable NAS.
>>
>> I personally am wary of sharing things over the Internet (like your camera
>> stream) It probably has to go via some proprietory server associated with
>> the camera manufacturer. Your configurations to keep this secure are a
>> whole order of magnitude more complicated than a basic LAN.
>>
>> There are others in the lug far more competent than me. They might feel
>> that your level of expertise means you have a lot to learn to get where you
>> want to be, or maybe they're just too busy. Have a look at Samba but bear
>> in mind that you have to keep everything secure. You might be better off
>> installing a ready made NAS distro
>> <https://www.linuxvoice.com/group-test-nas-distros/>.
>>
>> Have fun
>> Tony
>>
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