Neolink

Neolink is a small program that acts as a proxy between Reolink IP cameras and normal RTSP clients. Certain cameras, such as the Reolink B800, do not implement ONVIF or RTSP, but instead use a proprietary "Baichuan" protocol only compatible with their apps and NVRs (any camera that uses "port 9000" will likely be using this protocol). Neolink allows you to use NVR software such as Shinobi or Blue Iris to receive video from these cameras instead. The Reolink NVR is not required, and the cameras are unmodified. Your NVR software connects to Neolink, which forwards the video stream from the camera.

The Neolink project is not affiliated with Reolink in any way; everything it does has been reverse engineered.

This Fork

This fork is an extension of thirtythreeforty's with additional features not yet in upstream master.

Major Features:

• MQTT
• Motion Detection
• Paused Streams (when no rtsp client or no motion detected)
• Save a still image to disk

Minor Features:

• Improved error messages when missing gstreamer plugins
• Protocol more closely follows official reolink format
  • Possibly can handle more simulatenous connections
• More ways to connect to the camera. Including Relaying through reolink servers
• Camera battery levels can be displayed in the log

Installation

Download from the release page

Extract the zip

Install the latest gstreamer (1.20.5 as of writing this).

• Windows: ensure you install full when prompted in the MSI options.
• Mac: Install the dpkg version on the official gstreamer website over the brew version
• Ubuntu/Debian: These packages should work

sudo apt install \
  libgstrtspserver-1.0-0 \
  libgstreamer1.0-0 \
  libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 \
  gstreamer1.0-x \
  gstreamer1.0-plugins-base \
  gstreamer1.0-plugins-good \
  gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad \
  libssl

• Windows: You may also need to install openssl
• Macos: You may also need to install openssl or brew install openssl@1.1
• Ubuntu/Debian: Install the libssl package

Make a config file see below.

Config/Usage

RTSP

To use neolink you need a config file.

There's a more complete example here, but the following should work as a minimal example.

bind = "0.0.0.0"

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera02"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "BCDEF0123456789A"
address = "192.168.1.10"

Create a text file called neolink.toml in the same folder as the neolink binary. With your config options.

When ready start neolink with the following command using the terminal in the same folder the neolink binary is in.

./neolink rtsp --config=neolink.toml

Discovery

To connect to a camera using a UID we need to find the IP address of the camera with that UID

The IP is discovered with four methods

1. Local discovery: Here we send a broadcast on all visible networks asking the local network if there is a camera with this UID. This only works if the network supports broadcasts

   If you know the ip address you can put it into the address field of the config and attempt a direct connection without broadcasts. This requires a route from neolink to the camera.

2. Remote discovery: Here we ask the reolink servers what the IP address is. This requires that we contact reolink and provide some basic information like the UID. Once we have this information we connect directly to the local IP address. This requires a route from neolink to the camera and for the camera to be able to contact reolink.

3. Map discovery: In this case we register our IP address with reolink and ask the camera to connect to us. Once the camera either polls/recieves a connect request from the reolink servers the camera will initiate a connection to neolink. This requires that our IP and reolink are reachable from the camera.

4. Relay: In this case we request that reolink relay our connection. Neolink nor the camera need to be able to direcly contact each other. But both neolink and the camera need to be able to contact reolink.

This can be controlled with the config

discovery = "local"

In the [[cameras]] section of the toml.

Possible values are local, remote, map, relay later values implictly enable prior methods.

Cellular

Cellular cameras should select "cellular" which only enables map and relay since local and remote will always fail

discovery = "cellular"

See the sample config file for more details.

MQTT

To use mqtt you will need to adjust your config file as such:

bind = "0.0.0.0"

[mqtt]
broker_addr = "127.0.0.1" # Address of the mqtt server
port = 1883 # mqtt servers port
credentials = ["username", "password"] # mqtt server login details

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"

Then to start the mqtt+rtsp connection run the following:

./neolink mqtt-rtsp --config=neolink.toml

OR for only mqtt

./neolink mqtt --config=neolink.toml

Neolink will publish these messages:

Messages that are prefixed with neolink/

• /status Tracks the connection of neolink, connected for ready offline for not ready this is a LastWill message
• /config The configuration file used to start neolink, you can publish to this to temporarily alter the live configuration
• /config/status If you publish to /config then any errors from your publish config will show here, or Ok(()) if no errors and finished loading

Messages that are prefixed with neolink/{CAMERANAME}

Control messages:

• /control/led [on|off] Turns status LED on/off
• /control/ir [on|off|auto] Turn IR lights on/off or automatically via light detection
• /control/reboot Reboot the camera
• /control/ptz [up|down|left|right|in|out] (amount) Control the PTZ movements, amount defaults to 32.0
• /control/ptz/preset [id] Move the camera to a PTZ preset
• /control/ptz/assign [id] [name] Set the current PTZ position to a preset ID and name
• /control/zoom (amount) Zoom the camera to the specified amount. Example: 1.0 for normal and 3.5 for 3.5x zoom factor. This only works on cameras that support zoom
• /control/pir [on|off]
• /control/floodlight [on|off] Turns floodlight (if equipped) on/off
• /control/floodlight_tasks [on|off] Turns floodlight (if equipped) tasks on/off This is the automatic tasks such as on motion and night triggers
• /control/wakeup (mins) For cameras that are using idle_disconnect this will force a wakeup for at least the given minutes
• /control/siren on Signal the siren, the message is always "on" as there is no "off" signal for the siren

Status Messages:

• /status disconnected Sent when the camera goes offline
• /status/battery Sent in reply to a /query/battery an XML encoded version of the battery status
• /status/battery_level A simple % value of current battery level, only published when enable_battery is true in the config
• /status/pir Sent in reply to a /query/pir an XML encoded version of the pir status
• /status/motion Contains the motion detection alarm status. on for motion and off for still, only published when enable_moton is true in the config
• /status/ptz/preset Sent in reply to a /query/ptz/preset an XML encoded version of the PTZ presets
• /status/preview a base64 encoded camera image updated every 2s. Not every camera supports the snapshot command needed for this. In such cases there will be no /status/preview message. Only published when enable_preview is true in the config
• /status/floodlight_tasks The current status of the floodlight tasks used updated every 2s by default

Query Messages:

• /query/battery Request that the camera reports its battery level
• /query/pir Request that the camera reports its pir status
• /query/ptz/preset Request that the camera reports its PTZ presets
• /query/preview Request that the camera post a base64 encoded jpeg of the stream to /status/preview now, ignoring the timer

Controlling RTSP from MQTT

If neolink is started with mqtt-rtsp then the /neolink/config can be used to control the RTSP

Changes made to the config by publishing to /neolink/config should be reflected in the rtsp

These include changing the:

• Available users

[[users]]
  name = "me"
  pass = "mepass"

• Permitted users on a camera

[[cameras]]
  permitted_users = [ "me" ]

• Available streams

[[cameras]]
  stream = "Main"

Setting a value of None will disable the stream

• Disable the entire camera (mqtt updates and all)

[[cameras]]
  enabled = false

MQTT Disable Features

Certain features like preview and motion detection may not be desired you can disable them with the following config options. Disabling these may help to conserve battery

bind = "0.0.0.0"

[mqtt]
broker_addr = "127.0.0.1" # Address of the mqtt server
port = 1883 # mqtt servers port
credentials = ["username", "password"] # mqtt server login details

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"
[cameras.mqtt]
enable_motion = false        # motion detection
                             # (limited battery drain since it
                             # is a passive listening connection)
                             #
enable_light = false         # flood lights only available on some camera
                             # (limited battery drain since it
                             # is a passive listening connection)
                             #
enable_battery = false       # battery updates in `/status/battery_level`
                             #
enable_preview = false       # preview image in `/status/preview`
                             #
enable_floodlight = false    # preview image in `/status/floodlight_tasks`
                             #
battery_update = 2000        # Number of ms between `/status/battery_level` updates
                             #
preview_update = 2000        # Number of ms between `/status/preview` updates
                             #
floodlight_update = 2000     # Number of ms between `/status/floodlight_tasks` updates

MQTT Discovery

MQTT Discovery is partially supported. Currently, discovery is opt-in and camera features must be manually specified.

[cameras.mqtt]
  # <see above>
  [cameras.mqtt.discovery]
  topic = "homeassistant"
  features = ["floodlight"]

Available features are:

• floodlight: This adds a light control to home assistant
• camera: This adds a camera preview to home assistant. It is only updated every 0.5s and cannot be much more than that since it is updated over mqtt not over RTSP. Not every camera supports the snapshot command needed for this. In such cases there will be no /status/preview message.
• led: This adds a switch to chage the LED status light on/off to home assistant
• ir: This adds a selection switch to chage the IR light on/off/auto to home assistant
• motion: This adds a motion detection binary sensor to home assistant
• reboot: This adds a reboot button to home assistant
• pt: This adds a selection of buttons to control the pan and tilt of the camera
• battery: This adds a battery level sensor to home assistant
• siren: Adds a siren button to home assistant

Extra Camera Settings

Listed below are extra camera settings:

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"
debug = false # Displays Debug XML messages from camera
enabled = true # Enable or Disable the camera
update_time = false # When camera connects, force the setting of the camera date/time to now. The default is false
print_format = "None"  # Type of format that logs are displayed in (None, Human, Xml). The default is None

• Debug: Will dump the various XMLs from the camera as they are recieved and decrypted. Leave this off unless asked for it to fix an issue.

• Enabled: Useful if you want to remove a camera from rtsp without deleting it from the config

• update_time: Used to FORCE an update on the camera time. Usually it checks if it is needed but this will force it regardless. (Mostly this was introduced to address a specific ssue a user had)

• print_format: Used for adjusting printing of some values mostly, battery messages

Pause

To use the pause feature you will need to adjust your config file as such:

bind = "0.0.0.0"

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"
  [cameras.pause]
  on_motion = true # Should pause when no motion
  on_client = true # Should pause when no rtsp client
  timeout = 2.1 # How long to wait after motion stops before pausing

Then start the rtsp server as usual:

./neolink rtsp --config=neolink.toml

Idle Disconnects

To really save battery we need to disconnect the camera when it is idle.

To acheieve this you can add idle_disconnect = true to the [[cameras]] section

bind = "0.0.0.0"

[[cameras]]
name = "Camera01"
username = "admin"
password = "password"
uid = "ABCDEF0123456789"
idle_disconnect = true
[cameras.pause]
  on_client = true # Should pause when no rtsp client
  timeout = 2.1 # How long to wait after motion stops before pausing

When idle_disconnect = true neolink will disconnect from the camera 30s after it stops being used.

Neolink considers it as being used if there is an active stream running, or if there is motion being detected or an mqtt command being run

[Because google remove the api for the push notifications we cannot reliably use push notifications to wake up, so motion won't wake up neolink anymore]

You can make neolink stop active streams when there are no rtsp clients using

[cameras.pause]
  on_client = true # Should pause when no rtsp client

Once in the disconnected state. Neolink will stay disconnected until there is a new requested activation such as a client connecting or an mqtt command

Neolink will also wake up on push notifications from the camera. These are usually sent by the camera on motion or PIR alarms. To disable this you can set push_notifications = false in the [[cameras]] config

[Google removed the apis we were using for push notifications]

Docker

Docker builds are also provided in multiple architectures. The latest tag tracks master while each branch gets it's own tag.

docker pull quantumentangledandy/neolink

# Add `-e "RUST_LOG=debug"` to run with debug logs
#
# --network host is only needed if you require to connect
# via local broadcasts. If you can connect via any other
# method then normal bridge mode should work fine
# and you can ommit this option. Not all OSes support
# network=host, notably macos lacks this option.
docker run --network host --volume=$PWD/config.toml:/etc/neolink.toml quantumentangledandy/neolink

Environmental Variables

There are currently 2 environmental variables available as part of the container:

• NEO_LINK_MODE: defaults to "rtsp" if not set, other options are "mqtt" or "mqtt-rtsp".
• NEO_LINK_PORT: defaults to 8554, set this to your required port value.

Image

You can write an image from the stream to disk using:

neolink image --config=config.toml --file-path=filepath CameraName

Where filepath is the path to save the image to and CameraName is the name of the camera from the config to save the image from.

File is always jpeg and the extension given in filepath will be added or changed to reflect this.

Some cameras do not support the SNAP command that is used to generate the image on the camera. If this is the case with your camera you can try the --use-stream option which will instead create a jpeg by transcoding the video stream.

Battery Levels

You can get the battery level and status using

neolink battery --config=config.toml CameraName

This will produce an xml formatted battery status on stdout for processing

PIR

You can control pir using

neolink pir --config=config.toml CameraName [on|off]

This will turn the PIR on or off

Reboot

You can reboot a camera using

neolink reboot --config=config.toml CameraName

Status LED

You can control the status LED using

neolink status-light --config=config.toml CameraName [on|off]

Talk

You can talk over the camera using

neolink talk --config=config.toml --adpcm-file=data.adpc\
               --sample-rate=16000 --block-size=512 CameraName

Where the sounds is ADPCM encoded

or

neolink talk --config=config.toml --microphone  CameraName

Which uses the default microphone which depends on gstreamer

PTZ

You can control the PTZ using

neolink ptz --config=config.toml CameraName control 32 [left|right|up|down|in|out]

Where 32 is the speed. Not all cameras support speed

Some cameras also support preset positions

# Print the list of preset positions
neolink ptz --config=config.toml CameraName preset
# Move the camera to preset ID 0
neolink ptz --config=config.toml CameraName preset 0
# Save the current position as preset ID 0 with name PresetName
neolink ptz --config=config.toml CameraName assign 0 PresetName

To change the zoom level use the following:

# Zoom the camera to 2.5x
neolink ptz --config=config.toml CameraName zoom 2.5

With 1.0 being normal and 2.5 being 2.5x zoom

License

Neolink is free software, released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.

This means that if you incorporate it into a piece of software available over the network, you must offer that software's source code to your users.

Donations

If you find this code helpful please consider supporting development.