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Releases: samtap/fang-hacks

SD-Card image, V0.2.0

25 Jan 23:36
@samtap samtap
0.2.0
eb493f4
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SD-Card image, V0.2.0 Pre-release
Pre-release

A new sd-card image is available for download.

Upgrading

If you've used the previous image, the fang_hacks.sh script is already on your device and the web-interface will not allow to re-apply the hack. Please make sure to click the Update button on the status page to copy new scripts to the device, or remove /etc/fang_hacks.sh before using the new image!

Notable Changes

  • Support firmware 3.0.3.56 All features supported on new firmware version.
  • Manage WiFi. The wireless interface can be configured in three modes: Cloud, WiFi Client or AP.
  • Option to disable cloud apps. Boot the device in < 15 seconds, don't connect to any cloud servers. To use this the network mode must be set to WiFi Client or AP. Normal mode to use cloud apps (i.e. for firmware updates) remains available, they can still be stopped after booting by the stop-cloud script.
  • Added dropbear (SSH. SFTP, SCP). Telnetd on port 2323 is still enabled in this release but will probably be disabled in the near future.
  • Various bugfixes and improvements, i.e. scripting to wait for cloud apps on boot (sleeps have been removed), unloading snx_wdt, boa webserver startup, service boot-scripts etc.

Testing

I've been focusing on core platform stability so this release doesn't contain any major updates regarding camera features, the RTSP server and IR control scripts are still enabled and started at boot. There're a couple of things included in a 'test' folder on the data partiton for you to experiment with. If anyone comes up with a good use-case or script I'd be happy to include it in the next release.

  • FFMpeg A relatively minimal FFmpeg build is included. I was able to get a HLS server running by using the RTSP server as input stream and outputting fragments to the boa web-root (beware of caching issues, nginx should be more suitable to serve the fragments). However, the memory footprint of FFmpeg is huge and it doesn't seem able to communicate with the camera through V4L2 directly, not even to create a simple jpg snapshot. But perhaps someone else can make it do something useful?
  • NGINX + RTMP module Should be possible, in theory, to create a RTMP/HLS server with nginx-rtmp-module and FFmpeg but I haven't spend much time on it yet. A config file is included but not yet functional.
  • V4l2rtspserver I was able to build the latest v4lrtspserver codebase but it crashes when using the camera as a generic V4L2 source. Hopefully we'll be able to merge some code of the older RTSP_stream_server that supports SN98600.

Known issues

  • Extending data partition After applying the hack the sd-card data partition can be extended through the web-interface. The ext2 filesystem is then resized at the next boot. This can take a considerable amount of time, depending on sdcard size. During this process, when the web-interface comes online it will complain about the data partition not being available. If you scroll down to the process list you will see resize2fs is running. Please allow it to complete and do not reboot. Refresh the page and you'll see the error disappear when resize2fs completes. It can take a long time, be patient!
  • Network
    • The web-interface for network configuration only supports WPA encryption.
    • If you have multiple SSIDs with the same name, the details (i.e. signal strength, MAC address) will get mixed up but that should not cause any problems with connecting.
    • If you have uncommon network requirements you will probably need to manually edit configuration files for wpa_supplicant, udhcpd, hostapd. To simplify this process, you can place any custom files in the bootstrap folder and they will be used to overwrite the existing configuration files during boot (examples are provided, remove the templ extension to apply changes).

Disclaimer

Use at your own risk! It is still possible to break the device, to the point where you'll have to solder some wires to get access to a serial console, or worse. When cloud apps are disabled and WiFi mis-configured or offline you will not be able to access the device, not even by removing the sdcard. The scripts that disable cloud apps and set the network mode are located on the device itself. But don't panic, recovery is possible by placing the right files in the bootstrap folder on the sdcard. If you do find any bugs please let me know!

Assets 3

SD-Card image

15 Jan 18:44
@samtap samtap
0.0.1
060676e
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SD-Card image Pre-release
Pre-release

Image to write directly to an sd-card, i.e. using Win32 Disk Imager

fanghacks_v0.0.1.zip

The data partition can be extended using the status page. Please allow a moment for the resize operation to finish after reboot. And be careful, this is a pre-release. Any bug reports or other comments are welcome!

Assets 2