Add capability to connect to FTP server as well as HTTP server

Description of Patch

At least one netcam (the Dlink-2000) does not allow fetching an image with the HTTP protocol, but does allow getting it with the FTP protocol. This patch adds a new source module (netcam_ftp.c) and enhances the existing netcam code to use it. The facility is activated by simply setting the configuration parameter "netcam_url" to be a URL starting with "ftp://".

The patch should be considered experimental at this time. It has very limited error handling capabilities at the moment, and in several places uses "blocking I/O", meaning that it can take a long time before timeout will occur. Also, there is no current facility for using a proxy server. On the other hand, it does provide a "proper" facility for fetching an ftp image. I shall continue working to improve the error recovery, but I hope than others can try it out and let me know of any other places which need to be enhanced.

I have attached a tarball containing replacement source files for netcam.c, netcam.h and Makefile.in (to allow the compilation of the new module netcam_ftp.c), and new source files netcam_ftp.c and netcam_ftp.h.

Installation of Patch

Download the attached file into the motion source directory and unpack it with

tar xzf netcam_ftp.tgz

Then re-build Motion and test the patch.

Note: you must re-run ./configure in order to generate a new Makefile which will include compiling the new source module netcam_ftp.c

Change History of Patch

• 1.0 Initial revision

Discussion and Comments

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Great work Bill.

I will consider integrating it in the next snap. I would like anyone having tested the patch to give feedback.

I am a bit hung up on work (the kind I am paid to do) including the weekend so I will wait a few days before you see this patch in a snap. But I 100% support the feature.

The implementation using ftp:// syntax is perfect. Intuitive and sensible.

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Sep 2005

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Integrated. Took me 8 hours to change all the camelCase to motion_code_standard and fix indentation. At tab setting 4 there was no indentation at all. I can see it must have been inherited from the nanoftp sources because the indentation so bad that many places even with tab setting 8 the indentation was either missing or completely wrong.

While doing the code editing I went through all the netcam code and changed the code lines that I found hard to read. Especially the lines that were broken into pieces to keep a 80 character line width. I think in 2005 we can expect all programmers to have at least 1024 pixel wide monitors - even on a labtop - so code lines round 100 is quite OK. I usually try to keep below 120 because that is 70% of the screen width on my 17" LCD monitor. And often I stay with 100-110 as maximum. Comments I try to keep shorter. But breaking at 80 makes the code so line-fragmented that it is hard to follow.

I also added some white spacing according to my personal taste where I felt it enhanced readability.

Make sure that further editing of the netcam files are done based on motion-3.2.4_snap4 or motion-20051010-051001 daily snap so my changes are not lost.

-- KennethLavrsen - 08 Oct 2005

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Asbjørn Pettersen sent some code enhancements for this patch , look at NetcamWithFtpEnhancements.

-- AngelCarpintero - 24 Oct 2005

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