ipcam

A command-line tool for managing IP cameras (Tapo, Reolink) via RTSP and vendor APIs.

Features

• Capture snapshots from individual cameras or all cameras in parallel
• Assemble multi-camera snapshots into a single tiled grid image
• Record video clips and build timelapses using ffmpeg
• Print or pipe RTSP stream URLs (main and sub streams)
• Pan/tilt/zoom control via ONVIF (Tapo) or Reolink API
• Poll motion detection events and watch for status changes
• Health-check all cameras and run a hook command on status change
• End-to-end camera test (network reachability, RTSP URL, snapshot)
• Discover cameras on the local network via ONVIF WS-Discovery
• Interactive init wizard that auto-discovers and configures cameras
• Frigate NVR integration: list events and fetch latest snapshots
• go2rtc restream proxy support for cameras behind a proxy
• JSON output for every command (--json)
• Shell completions for bash, zsh, and fish

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (install via rustup)
• ffmpeg — required for snapshots, recording, and timelapse

Build and install

cargo install --path .

Quick Start

Run the interactive setup wizard to discover cameras on your network and generate a config file:

ipcam init

Or use --auto to skip prompts and generate a config from detected cameras:

ipcam init --auto

Once configured, a few common commands:

# List configured cameras
ipcam list

# Capture a snapshot
ipcam snapshot front-door

# Check all cameras are reachable
ipcam status

# Run an end-to-end test on all cameras
ipcam test

Configuration

The config file is TOML and lives at:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/ipcam/config.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/ipcam/config.toml

Run ipcam config to print the exact path on your system.

Example config

[go2rtc]
host = "192.168.1.10"
port = 8554  # default

[frigate]
host = "192.168.1.11"
port = 5001  # default

[[cameras]]
name = "front-door"
type = "reolink"
host = "192.168.1.101"
username = "admin"
password = "your-password"

[[cameras]]
name = "backyard"
type = "tapo"
host = "192.168.1.102"
username = "admin"
password = "your-password"
# Optional: override RTSP port (default: 554)
rtsp_port = 554
# Optional: override ONVIF port (default: 2020 for Tapo, 8000 for Reolink)
onvif_port = 2020
# Optional: use a go2rtc restream instead of direct RTSP
go2rtc_stream = "backyard"
# Optional: Frigate camera name if it differs from the config name
frigate_name = "backyard_cam"

Config fields

Commands

All commands accept --json for machine-readable output and --config <path> to override the config file location.

Examples

Snapshot

# Single camera, default filename (<camera>_<timestamp>.jpg)
ipcam snapshot front-door

# Single camera, custom output path
ipcam snapshot front-door --output /tmp/front.jpg

# All cameras saved to a directory
ipcam snapshot --all --output-dir /tmp/cams/

# Tiled grid of all cameras
ipcam snapshot --grid --output-dir /tmp/

# Capture every 5 minutes, save timestamped files
ipcam snapshot front-door --every 5m --output-dir /tmp/front-door/

Status and test

# Check all cameras
ipcam status

# Check a single camera
ipcam status front-door

# Full end-to-end test (network + RTSP + snapshot)
ipcam test

# Test a single camera, JSON output
ipcam test front-door --json

Watch

# Poll every 30 s, print status changes to stdout
ipcam watch

# Poll every minute, run a script on any status change
ipcam watch --interval 1m --exec 'notify-send "$CAMERA_NAME is $CAMERA_STATUS"'

The --exec command receives these environment variables:

Timelapse

# 1-hour capture with a snapshot every 30 s, encoded to timelapse.mp4
ipcam timelapse front-door --interval 30s --duration 1h --output front-door.mp4

# Keep individual frames as well
ipcam timelapse front-door --interval 1m --duration 4h \
  --output timelapse.mp4 --output-dir ./frames/

Shell completions

# zsh
ipcam completions zsh > ~/.zfunc/_ipcam

# bash
ipcam completions bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/ipcam

# fish
ipcam completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/ipcam.fish

PTZ control

# Pan left at speed 5 (default)
ipcam ptz backyard left

# Tilt up at speed 8
ipcam ptz backyard up --speed 8

# Go to preset position 1
ipcam ptz backyard preset 1

# Stop movement
ipcam ptz backyard stop

Supported Cameras

Tapo (TP-Link)

• Snapshots captured via ffmpeg over RTSP (sub-stream by default)
• PTZ control via ONVIF SOAP over HTTP (port 2020 by default)
• RTSP streams: stream1 (main), stream2 (sub)
• Motion detection: not supported (Tapo does not expose an API for this)
• Health check: TCP connect to the RTSP port

Reolink

• Snapshots fetched via the Reolink HTTP/JSON API (/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap)
• PTZ control via the Reolink PtzCtrl API
• Motion detection via GetMdState API
• RTSP streams: h264Preview_01_main (main), h264Preview_01_sub (sub)
• Health check: GetDevInfo API call (also returns model name)
• Device info (model, firmware) available via GetDevInfo

Integration

go2rtc

If your cameras are behind a go2rtc restream proxy, add a [go2rtc] section to your config and set go2rtc_stream on each camera. ipcam will use the proxy RTSP URL (rtsp://<host>:<port>/<stream>) instead of connecting to the camera directly.

Sub-stream URLs are constructed by appending _sub to the stream name (e.g. backyard_sub).

Frigate NVR

Add a [frigate] section to your config pointing at your Frigate instance. Then use the frigate subcommand:

# List the 20 most recent events across all cameras
ipcam frigate events --limit 20

# Filter by camera
ipcam frigate events --camera front_door

# Save the latest Frigate snapshot for a camera
ipcam frigate snapshot front_door --output /tmp/latest.jpg

Frigate camera names use underscores (e.g. front_door). Set frigate_name in the camera config if the name differs from your ipcam name.

License

MIT