Build a Raspberry Pi Webcam Server using Motion

This tutorial is for a Raspberry Pi running the out of the box Raspbian OS.
Download and install the Motion package using the following command:
sudo apt-get install motion

Optional, but recommended if you are just starting out.  Make a backup of the out of the box configuration file.  Change to the motion directory with:

cd /etc/motion

and copy the default motion.conf file:

sudo cp motion.conf motion.conf.bak

Next we need to make some changes to the configuration file motion.conf.  The nano file editor comes pre-installed so we’ll use it:
sudo nano /etc/motion/motion.conf
Find the following lines and make the following changes.  (Ctrl+W is search in nano)

• daemon off -> daemon on (this will run allow the program to run as a service)
• stream_localhost on -> stream_localhost off (this will allow you to view the stream webpage from other computers)

Note: Change the following two lines from on to off if you’re having issues with the stream freezing whenever motion occurs.

• output_pictures off
• ffmpeg_output_movies off

Other optional/tweakable parameters:

• framerate 15 (changes the number of frames per second (fps) that are captured)
• width 640 (This changes the width of the images)
• height 480 (This changes the height of the images)
• target_dir /var/lib/motion (This is where Motion stores images and videos when it detects motion, this directory needs to be writable)

Optional (Don’t include the text in brackets)

• stream_maxrate 100 (This will allow for real-time streaming but requires more bandwidth & resources)
• framerate 100 (This will allow for 100 frames to be captured per second allowing for smoother video)
• width 640 (This changes the width of the image displayed)
• height 480 (This changes the height of the image displayed)

Save your changes
Now we need to enable the motion daemon by editing the motion file:
sudo nano /etc/default/motion
Make the following change:

• start_motion_daemon=no -> start_motion_daemon=yes

Next we need to make sure the motion capture directory is writable
sudo chmod 777 /var/lib/motion
Now make sure the camera is connected and start the service with the command:
sudo service motion restart
To stop the service, the command is:
sudo service motion stop
Now you can view the camera from a browser on the Pi (or other computer if stream_localhost was set to off) by connecting to your Pi’s IP address and Motion’s default port 8081
http://192.168.1.70:8081

To find your Pi’s IP address you can type the following in the terminal (also 5 Ways to Check the IP Address in Linux):

ip addr show

and look for the line that starts with inet

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Common errors

1. Webpage is not available or error connection refused.
   • Check to make sure you turned the localhost restriction off (stream_localhost off) in the motion.conf file.
2. The webpage crashes every time motion is detected.
   • Check to make sure the motion directory is writable, any external drives are plugged in and mounted.