bvr_chirp

BVR Chirp is a bridge between Blue Iris (MQTT) to send a messaging service (Discord/matrix).

THIS PROJECT IS IN ALPHA. It should work, but don't expect too much yet.

Installation

Installing from source

Ensure you have Rust installed: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch01-01-installation.html

git clone https://codeberg.org/CeeBee/bvr_chirp
cd bvr_chirp
cargo build

Running from release

Download the latest version from the releases page.

Extract archive to a location you want to run it from.

Configuration

You need to be running a separate MQTT broker. The one I personally use and tested with is rumqttd.

I found it easiest to use by running it with docker:

docker run -p 1883:1883 -p 1884:1884 -v /absolute/path/to/rumqttd.toml:/rumqttd.toml -it bytebeamio/rumqttd -c /rumqttd.toml

You need to configure a username and password for the rumqttd.toml file. It is also important that the max_payload_size in the rumqttd.toml file is set the same as the MQTT client max_packet_size (see below). You can see an example in the file rumqttd_example.toml

Once you have a broker setup, you need to configure bvr_chirp. The sample config looks like such

[mqtt_config]
host="127.0.0.1"
port=1884
max_packet_size=2048000
topic="BlueIris/alert"
device_id="BVR Chirp Bot"
username="YOUR_USERNAME"
password="YOUR_PASSWORD"

[messaging_config]
service_type="discord"
token="YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"
name="BVR Chirp Bot"
host="https://matrix.org"
username="YOUR_USERNAME"
password="YOUR_PASSWORD"
endpoint="http://<BLUE_IRIS_IP>:81"

Some notes:

• max_packet_size: must be set to a value higher than the largest image will be transmitted, otherwise MQTT will refuse the message for being too large
• topic: this can be anything you want, but you must make sure your sender (Blue Iris) and bvr_chirp are using the same topic
• service_type: for now this is only Discord, with matrix half implemented. Eventually I would like to have other services like Telegram, Signal, Whatsapp, or whatever users need/want
• token: this the auth token for the messaging service. For example, this would be your Discord bot API token
• host (under messaging_config): this is mainly needed for matrix to specify the homeserver for the bot
• endpoint: this is your Blue Iris URL

The links to Blue Iris in messages look like this:

http://192.168.1.10:81/login.htm?page=%2Fui3.htm%3Frec=@195238907624039%26cam=FrontDoor%26m=1

This will open the Blue Iris web UI directly to the alert in question, and will open it in fullscreen.

Running

Once built run it with:

cargo run bvr_chirp.cfg

If downloaded, run it with:

./bvr_chirp bvr_chirp.cfg

TODO:

• Get this code published
• Configurable version for the MQTT client (v3 or v5), right now it's hardcoded for v5
• Add more messaging services
• Web interface for configuration (don't hold your breath)

The Name

"BVR" is a recursive name for BVR Video Recorder. "Chirp" is a sound a beaver can make.

BVR will eventually be a project suite, but that's all I'll say for now.