Eye-Fi 4 Linux

[berend]

But I did find something interesting when I looked a bit closer: On my Eee PC, calculating the integritydigest for a ~20MB raw file takes ~10 seconds. Since we don't send an answer to the card before we have calculated and checked the integritydigest, this means the transfer pauses during these calculations.

The card firmware pipelines transfers and will initiate the next transfer starts while the integrity digest of the previous one is waited upon, provided that the main "event loop" of the receiver is capable of responding to the StartSession and GetPhotoStatus requests for the next photo while the previous one is still being processed through the integrity digest calculation.

Berend

[toffer]

The card firmware pipelines transfers and will initiate the next transfer starts while the integrity digest of the previous one is waited upon, provided that the main "event loop" of the receiver is capable of responding to the StartSession and GetPhotoStatus requests for the next photo while the previous one is still being processed through the integrity digest calculation.

Huh, that's pretty neat! Looking a bit closer at iptraf, it is easy to see you are right: The card is pretty good at always keeping data moving. The program forks off a new thread for each connection (with no connection roof - pretty easy DoS angle there), but I guess I got a bit too focused on the log output of one single thread.

That makes the integrity digest calculation optimization pretty uninteresting. Thanks for saving me from spending more time on that!

Regards,
Kr.

[soundpartner]

Hi!

maybe there are some kind of delay between the pictures that could be tweaked i dont know

There are no delays or slow-downs in the code - or at least no intentional ones. But I did find something interesting when I looked a bit closer: On my Eee PC, calculating the integritydigest for a ~20MB raw file takes ~10 seconds. Since we don't send an answer to the card before we have calculated and checked the integritydigest, this means the transfer pauses during these calculations. On my stationary PC with a Core2 CPU it takes 1-2 seconds, so there it is a much smaller issue. I was surprised by the large difference between the computers, but playing around with the digest calculation code didn't turn up any obvious easy fixes.

Regards,
Kr.

ohh that explains it. the computer i am using for it is compared to a eee-pc (atom 1,6ghz)
the funny thing though is that running the eye-fi manager in windows in virtualbox on the same hardware doesnt seem to have this delay. they are propably doing something different there...
By the way i am working with feh at the moment and it seems like i have a preaty good solution on the imagewiewer and so on i asked for earlyer...

it still need some tweaking, but i simply created a bashscript that is looping everey 10 seconds looking for new files.
new .Avi's are then moved to the movie folder, ned Nef's are moved to the raw folder, new jpg's are copyed, a smaler wersion with watermark are created, and the original is moved to the jpg folder.
the smaler wersion with watermark are then displayed for 10 seconds before roling back to a slideshow containing all images from the folder with the watermarked version...
when i get it working just the way i want it, ill clean up the bash-script and share it with you guys

[soundpartner]

ok here we go...
the code for my bashscript is locatet here http://scripts.linux.dk/work/billeder it is far from finished at the moment, but it is running (as long as it is placed in the right folders)
is i said it is a work in progres. at the moment it make folders for moovies, jpg's nefs and thumbs and coppys files to the right location. it also creates thumbnails in a size defined in the setup.
right now i am working with zenity to get a grafic aproach to the script.
It is mostly in danish (it is the plan it should be in english at some time as well)
when finiced it will be able to run from whereever it is placed, it wil help you setup the rifec.config file (prompt you for the mac and uploadkey)
it will ask you where you vould like to place your pictures in every session, and it will ask you for the size of thumbbails, if you want to ad a text to the images, and a lot of other neet stuff.
also there will be an option to run the scrips as a server running in the background or if you want to display the pictures in fullscreen
the plan is for the script to help you download and install all dependensys (rifec.pl from github, the pearl packages and so on). i think at some time i will make it so it could be configuret with a config file, and when that one exists the script wil just start doing its things. without the config file it will prompt you for everything. That way you can actually save the settings for the script and only need to run the config part when you wish to change the settings.
I am a little limited as i onlu uses ubuntu, however the script should work on most debian based distros.
if someone would like to make a version for fedora or other distros that woul be cool. i think it is only small diferences souch as packages that are the problem everything else should be preaty mouch the same

[csavery]

Hello,
I would like to buy a new Eye-Fi X2 Connect to transfer files to my home linux server. I just wanted to verify that either the python or C++ (iii) software around here that I've been reading about can work with these new models of the Eye-Fi. I just wouldn't want to get one and then find out it was only tested with the older "Home" version.

My application is for using a digi-cam as a home security cam that takes photos at intervals and stores them on my server. I'm interested in maybe transferring video clips too if that will work.

My idea is to upgrade the camera firmware with CHDK and run a script to takes photos every 30 seconds. I don't know if anyone has done that but it seems workable and would be pretty useful.

Thanks for any input or experiences.
Chris

[hacker]

Hello,
I would like to buy a new Eye-Fi X2 Connect to transfer files to my home linux server. I just wanted to verify that either the python or C++ (iii) software around here that I've been reading about can work with these new models of the Eye-Fi. I just wouldn't want to get one and then find out it was only tested with the older "Home" version.

iii (the one I wrote) is tested (and used) with Geo X2 and Pro X2 cards now. I expect them to be compatible with Connect X2, though haven't tried.

[csavery]

Thank You. I'll get one for testing then.
Chris

[hacker]

Thank You. I'll get one for testing then.
Chris

I hope it works for you, but if you have to fix something, your feedback (preferably commits:)) is appreciated

[toffer]

Hi!

I would like to buy a new Eye-Fi X2 Connect to transfer files to my home linux server. I just wanted to verify that either the python or C++ (iii) software around here that I've been reading about can work with these new models of the Eye-Fi.

The one I wrote, rifec, works great with my Pro X2 card. I haven't tested any other variants, but I would expect it to work with at least all the X2 generation ones. (Feedback from people who have tested it with other cards is appreciated.) I know you primarily wanted to know about the C++ and Python variants, but I thought I'd advertise a bit anyway.

My application is for using a digi-cam as a home security cam that takes photos at intervals and stores them on my server.

If you plan to use the "endless memory" mode for this, note that for that feature to work the camera needs to be power cycled regularly: See this and this thread.

Regards,
Kristoffer

[hacker]

Hi!

I would like to buy a new Eye-Fi X2 Connect to transfer files to my home linux server. I just wanted to verify that either the python or C++ (iii) software around here that I've been reading about can work with these new models of the Eye-Fi.

The one I wrote, rifec, works great with my Pro X2 card. I haven't tested any other variants, but I would expect it to work with at least all the X2 generation ones. (Feedback from people who have tested it with other cards is appreciated.) I know you primarily wanted to know about the C++ and Python variants, but I thought I'd advertise a bit anyway.

Well, your code may not be affected, but I had to fix mine to work with Geo X2, though it worked with Pro X2 (I didn't expect flags parameter to don't-remember-which call).

[toffer]

Well, your code may not be affected, but I had to fix mine to work with Geo X2, though it worked with Pro X2 (I didn't expect flags parameter to don't-remember-which call).

Huh, that's interesting! I'll moderate myself to saying that it is only tested with Pro X2 cards, but that making it work with the other X2 cards should be pretty easy. Thanks for the tip!

Kr.

[csavery]

@Toffer,

Thank you for pointing out the issue with power cycling. I didn't know that.
It sounds like I should explore having CHDK handle deleting files. I'm assuming that a CHDK script can delete images, though I haven't got that far yet. Since a script will be timing and taking shots it hopefully it can know how many there are and delete the oldest one when a new one is taken, like a ring buffer.

Anyway, I ordered the X2 from Amazon and since I'm overseas it has to go thru a family member in USA to get here and so I'll be waiting a while for arrival.

Aside ----
I know there's been some *discussion* over the ability to delete images but I have to ask why the card cannot mimic the process of being removed/disconnected from the camera? I mean I've often popped my card out without warning the camera - it seems to be able to handle that. If the card electrically behaves as though removed, it can do whatever while "out" and then act like it is being inserted again and the camera has to re-init as it cannot assume it was the last card inserted. Perhaps driving the SD control lines to a high impedance state can mimic being removed? I know some electronics but not enough to know if that works.

[kgi]

Hi all.

I'm not sure this is the right place to ask this, but I'll give it a go anyway.

I bought an EyeFi card a while back, and so far it's been sitting gathering dust because my house and office are both 100% Linux, and I'm not going to have a VirtualBox'd Windows session running just to run a crummy program to transfer photos (and, btw, it really IS a crummy program, isn't it?).

I recently decided to re-check the status of Linux servers, and I got all excited because I found this:

https://launchpad.net/eyefi

The reason I got all excited is that I have significant experience using Python, and Twisted in particular, so this was right up my street.

So I grabbed the source and got it all installed and running, then I realised that I didn't have my "EyeFi Upload Key". When I originally installed the EyeFi windows software, I had managed to grab the key way back, but I've since lost it, so I have no idea what the key was.

So I installed XP inside a VirtualBox session with USB support, installed the EyeFi software (the Adobe Air-based trainwreck), found the card, did the firmware upgrade that it kept nagging me to do, and transferred some photos to the VirtualBox session.

Then I looked for:

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Eye-Fi\Settings.xml

to grab the upload key, but ... it wasn't there! I also looked for:

C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Roaming\Eye-Fi\Settings.xml

... which is the Win7 location, "Just In Case", but again, nothing.

So I did a drive-wide scan for everything called "*.xml", and looked all over the registry for likely-looking stuff.

Admittedly, my Windows-Fu is limited, but I couldn't find *anything* that looked plausible.

Is it possible that the software now no longer stores the key locally, but downloads it each time from the eyefi servers?

As an aside, I also installed the Android server and managed to configure the card to upload to my Android phone. I found an sqlite file that I was able to "adb pull" over to my Linux box and examine it. It had a column called "upload_key" with a 32-byte hex value, but trying that also failed to work.

How on earth can I get hold of my upload key? Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

kgi

[c-hri-s]

Hi,

Looks like https://launchpad.net/eyefi is what's going to do it for me too - I have a linux machine on 24/7, I want to save my images in folders by date, and I want to benefit from the geotagging feature, it seems to do all that for me.

I'm okay at Linux, no expert, but have zero python exposure.

Is there an easy guide to getting this set up on a CentOS (RedHat/Fedora) system?

I'm bumbling through building boost at present .. there are dependencies all over the place which I don't have. Just thought if someone had already written something which I could follow, it'd save me (and others) the trial-and-error.

Thanks

[hacker]

Looks like https://launchpad.net/eyefi is what's going to do it for me too - I have a linux machine on 24/7, I want to save my images in folders by date, and I want to benefit from the geotagging feature, it seems to do all that for me.

I'm okay at Linux, no expert, but have zero python exposure.

May I shamelessly suggest that you try my c++ iii daemon - http://kin.klever.net/iii - if you'd rather stay away from python? It still has a couple of dependencies and I have never built it on fedora, but it should be pretty straightforward, autotools-based, etc.

[c-hri-s]

Looks like https://launchpad.net/eyefi is what's going to do it for me too - I have a linux machine on 24/7, I want to save my images in folders by date, and I want to benefit from the geotagging feature, it seems to do all that for me.

I'm okay at Linux, no expert, but have zero python exposure.

May I shamelessly suggest that you try my c++ iii daemon - http://kin.klever.net/iii - if you'd rather stay away from python? It still has a couple of dependencies and I have never built it on fedora, but it should be pretty straightforward, autotools-based, etc.

Very happy to give it a go - in fact it's sat on my desktop here as well. I just didn't see an easy (read 'understandable to me') way of getting it to place the images in folders based on date once it had obtained them.

[hacker]

Very happy to give it a go - in fact it's sat on my desktop here as well. I just didn't see an easy (read 'understandable to me') way of getting it to place the images in folders based on date once it had obtained them.

There is this file - http://git.klever.net/view/cgit/kin/iii.git/tree/doc/on-upload-photo.bash (it's distributed, you don't have to download it separately) that does the trick if you have exiftime installed. I think if you just make it start the file on upload it will work out of the box. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of the move and my server is disassembled and packed so I can't check my own config for you to make sure.

[c-hri-s]

Thanks very much - I'll give it a go.

It compiled and installed okay (CentOS 5.6), however the only conf file I've found seems to be in /usr/local/share/doc/iii/000000000000.conf

The man page suggests the conf file should go in ${prefix}/etc/iii/XXXXXXXXXXXX.conf, but I'm not sure quite what you mean by ${prefix}?

/etc/iii/ doesn't exist

[hacker]

Thanks very much - I'll give it a go.

It compiled and installed okay (CentOS 5.6), however the only conf file I've found seems to be in /usr/local/share/doc/iii/000000000000.conf

The man page suggests the conf file should go in ${prefix}/etc/iii/XXXXXXXXXXXX.conf, but I'm not sure quite what you mean by ${prefix}?

/etc/iii/ doesn't exist

Sounds like a bug in manpage generation. If iiid is in /usr/sbin, then ${prefix} is /usr, if it's in /usr/local/sbin, then it's /usr/local. I normally compile with --sysconfdir=/etc, so it's /etc/iii for me. If the directory is not created, you need to create it manually. And the X-s stuff should be your card mac. The key you get from the xml of your mac/windows eyefi thingie. You can try xsltproc -o confs.sh scripts/xml2sh.xsl Settings.xml, but it's easier to do by hand, I think

[c-hri-s]

Hi hacker,

Things don't seem to be working out - is there a way to debug thing, or have iiid create a log?

I have 'xxxxxxxxxxxx.conf' in /usr/local/etc/ (where xxxxxxxxxxxx is the MAC of the eye-fi card, taken from the eye-fi manager and verified with my router).

iiid is in /usr/local/sbin/iiid

It's running okay:

Code: Select all

[root@greateek ~]# iiid
iiid[28472]: Starting iii eye-fi manager

The conf file is (I think) correct (the upload key is correct in my file, captures from the settings.xml file on Windows):

Code: Select all

[root@greateek etc]# cat xxxxxxxxxxxx.conf
# target directory for uploaded files, if the name contains %s, it is replaced
# with eyefi card mac address.
targetdir = "/mnt/photo/2011/%s/"
# the upload key as seen in Mac and (perhaps) windows Settings.xml file
uploadkey = "xxxxxxcxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcxxxxxxx"

# commands to be executed at certain events, the commands also receive certain
# values of interested passed via environment.
# for on-start-session: EYEFI_MACADDRESS, EYEFI_TRANSFER_MODE, EYEFI_TRANSFERMODETIMESTAMP
on-start-session = "bash /usr/local/lib/iii/on-start-session.bash"
# for on-upload-photo: EYEFI_MACADDRESS, EYEFI_UPLOADED (uploaded file name)
on-upload-photo = "bash /usr/local/lib/iii/on-upload-photo.bash"
# for on-mark-last-photo-in-roll: EYEFI_MACADDRESS, EYEFI_MERGEDELTA
#on-mark-last-photo-in-roll = "bash /usr/local/lib/iii/on-mark-last-photo-in-roll.bash"

# file mode creation mask
umask = 002
[root@greateek etc]#

But nothing happens.

There is a firewall on the machine, but port 59278 has been opened

Code: Select all

#eye-fi
ACCEPT     net       $FW                tcp       59278

I commented out '#on-mark-last-photo-in-roll' as 'on-mark-last-photo-in-roll.bash' isn't included in your distribution.

[hacker]

But nothing happens.

If nothing happens, the configuration file is not yet relevant. Your card does not connect to the iii. Is your card running in "direct mode" or whatever was the name for it? Otherwise it will try to connect to eye-fe servers. Also, is it getting the IP address in the same subnet where your server is?

[c-hri-s]

If nothing happens, the configuration file is not yet relevant. Your card does not connect to the iii. Is your card running in "direct mode" or whatever was the name for it? Otherwise it will try to connect to eye-fe servers.

I had it configured to work with the Windows application. I just stopped that and started iiid, so it shouldn't be in direct mode.

Also, is it getting the IP address in the same subnet where your server is?

It is, yes.

[hacker]

If nothing happens, the configuration file is not yet relevant. Your card does not connect to the iii. Is your card running in "direct mode" or whatever was the name for it? Otherwise it will try to connect to eye-fe servers.

I had it configured to work with the Windows application. I just stopped that and started iiid, so it shouldn't be in direct mode.

I'm not sure I follow you, the thing is, somewhere in configuration you may let it try the eye-fi servers if you're not around your machine, something like that, I haven't seen the configuration dialog for quite a while (because I use iii). If this feature is on, I believe, it won't work. Otherwise it should at least establish connection. You may compile the iii with ---enable-debug to make sure, but I think it will spit out a line or two on console when the card connects by default.

So, I'm pretty sure that your problem now is either with your firewall or card setup.

[c-hri-s]

I found the feature you mentioned (relayed transfers), it was enabled (I've an X2 Pro device and it's automatically enabled if you have 'hotspot access' turned on). Disabling it didn't seem to help.

I don't think it's a firewall issue as I can telnet to port 59278 from another machine on the network, closing iiid terminates that connection.

None of ---enable-debug --enable-debug or -enable-debug were recognised.

Code: Select all

[root@greateek ~]# iiid ---enable-debug
iiid: unrecognized option `---enable-debug'
Huh?

My understanding is that the card will promiscuously search for the first machine it finds with port 59278 open, so my thought is that if my Windows machine was not running the software and not accepting connections, it woudl find the Linux machine on the same subnet. It's all connected to the same wi-fi network, so no issues there.

[hacker]

I found the feature you mentioned (relayed transfers), it was enabled (I've an X2 Pro device and it's automatically enabled if you have 'hotspot access' turned on). Disabling it didn't seem to help.

I don't think it's a firewall issue as I can telnet to port 59278 from another machine on the network, closing iiid terminates that connection.

None of ---enable-debug --enable-debug or -enable-debug were recognised.

Code: Select all

[root@greateek ~]# iiid ---enable-debug
iiid: unrecognized option `---enable-debug'
Huh?

My understanding is that the card will promiscuously search for the first machine it finds with port 59278 open, so my thought is that if my Windows machine was not running the software and not accepting connections, it woudl find the Linux machine on the same subnet. It's all connected to the same wi-fi network, so no issues there.

The --enable-debug switch is compile-time, so it's for ./configure (./configure --enable-debug && make clean && make && make install)

And yes, the option I meant is relayed transfers, once it's off it should search on the network for the first machine that has the port open and is able to properly authenticate. You're supposed to get message about sessionstart on the console regardless of whether your config file is okay or not...

[c-hri-s]

Ah, perhaps I didn't wait long enough - now I get a couple of connection messages:

Code: Select all

[root@greateek iii-0.2]# iiid
iiid[32047]: Starting iii eye-fi manager
iiid[32068]: StartSession request from 0018XXXXXXXX with cnonce=1624e141a50f972915a10e6dbc092513, transfermode=33315, transfermodetimestamp=1308047674

iiid[32135]: StartSession request from 0018XXXXXXXX with cnonce=09dd4a77fcc61b38b11a1a72816a8279, transfermode=33315, transfermodetimestamp=1308047674


It still didn't seem to transfer any images, however.

[hacker]

Ah, perhaps I didn't wait long enough - now I get a couple of connection messages:

Code: Select all

[root@greateek iii-0.2]# iiid
iiid[32047]: Starting iii eye-fi manager
iiid[32068]: StartSession request from 0018XXXXXXXX with cnonce=1624e141a50f972915a10e6dbc092513, transfermode=33315, transfermodetimestamp=1308047674

iiid[32135]: StartSession request from 0018XXXXXXXX with cnonce=09dd4a77fcc61b38b11a1a72816a8279, transfermode=33315, transfermodetimestamp=1308047674


It still didn't seem to transfer any images, however.

That's closer. I hope your config filename is in lowercase and in the proper directory? This looks fine, maybe you should wait longer for the image too? Because other than that I'm not sure what could be the matter.

[c-hri-s]

Code: Select all

[root@greateek sbin]# ls -la iiid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 555871 Jun 14 11:56 iiid
[root@greateek sbin]# ls -la ../etc/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Jun 14 14:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 May 11 12:58 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  892 Jun 14 14:17 004433222112.conf
[root@greateek sbin]#

All seems to be in the same place according to what you said above (../etc/)

The MAC is all numeric, so no case issues.

Thanks for the help anyway, using it on Linux was a nice-to-have as the server is always on, but I'll have to settle for the Windows application as it's all I can get working.

[hacker]

Code: Select all

[root@greateek sbin]# ls -la iiid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 555871 Jun 14 11:56 iiid
[root@greateek sbin]# ls -la ../etc/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Jun 14 14:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 May 11 12:58 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  892 Jun 14 14:17 004433222112.conf
[root@greateek sbin]#

All seems to be in the same place according to what you said above (../etc/)

The MAC is all numeric, so no case issues.

Thanks for the help anyway, using it on Linux was a nice-to-have as the server is always on, but I'll have to settle for the Windows application as it's all I can get working.

Ah! Thanks for the illustration, the .conf file should go into etc/iii/ directory (I was explaining which etc, but I didn't mean to drop iii part).

P.S. I, personally, think that running the server that is always on is a must

[c-hri-s]

It didn't seem to help even when I placed a copy of the conf file in ../etc/iii/

I even tried spinning a fresh Ubuntu installation up and trying it, same problem.

(I also tried the python script on ubuntu as well, but got a 'no such command' in response to the 'twistd eyefi' despite the python setup.py install seeming to work correctly).

Seems I'm destined to use Windows. Argh!