Linphone and Raspberry Pi

Sylvain Berfini

2017/04/25 09:58
 Linphone.Linphone and Raspberry Pi - Linphone and Raspberry Pi

Table of Contents
Using the raspberry pi for video monitoring ............................................................................................................................ 3
Prequisites ............................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Using the python wrapper to develop a simple script ........................................................................................................... 3
Dependencies ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Code ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
How to use it ....................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Automatic start at boot ........................................................................................................................................................ 6
................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
Compiling linphone on the rasberry pi .................................................................................................................................. 7
Configuration ....................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Starting linphonec ................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Automatic start at boot ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
Common hardware problems .............................................................................................................................................. 9

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 Linphone.Linphone and Raspberry Pi - Linphone and Raspberry Pi

Contents
• Using the raspberry pi for video monitoring
• Prequisites
• Using the python wrapper to develop a simple script
• Dependencies
• Code
• How to use it
• Automatic start at boot
• Linphone and Raspberry Pi
• Compiling linphone on the rasberry pi
• Configuration
• Starting linphonec
• Automatic start at boot
• Common hardware problems

Using the raspberry pi for video monitoring

The Raspberry PI is a good hardware for making a simple video monitoring device, such as watching at any time what's
happening at home, if cats have enough to eat, chicken safe from fox attacks, or simply see at distance what's the weather
like. The linphone console tools (linphonec and linphone-daemon) can be used to automatically accept a SIP call with
video, so that it becomes possible from Linphone android or iOS app to call home at any time.
From a hardware standpoint, a raspberry pi2 is a minimum for a decent image quality. Indeed, video software
encoding is a cpu consuming task that a pi 1 can hardly achieve as it doesn't have the NEON (multimedia) instruction set.

The PI's camera has excellent quality, however plugging a USB camera can be more interesting as it will provide sound
recording thanks to its integrated microphone, which the raspberry doesn't have.

An ethernet connection is preferred, though wifi would work decently for video transmission as long as the raspberry is
not too far from the wifi router.

Displaying the video received by the raspberry is out of this article's scope : we will just focus on the capture, sound and
video, as well as the transmission via SIP to another SIP phone.

The following section explains how to setup the video monitoring on the raspberry pi. Several options are possible:

• compilation on the raspberry,

• cross-compilation,
• use of the python wrapper.

Prequisites
We recommend to use Raspbian, as a base installation to run linphone.

Since linphone heavily makes uses of dual-stack (ipv6 and ipv4) sockets, it is required to enable ipv6 on the raspberry by
doing

echo ipv6 >> /etc/modules

And reboot.

To be clear, there is absolutely no need to have an IPv6 connection, the concern is only to enable the IPv6 APIs of the
kernel (which are compatible with IPv4 operation of course).

Using the python wrapper to develop a simple script

First of all, you need to install the python wrapper for liblinphone API on your raspberry. You can follow the Linux
instructions (there are raspberry pi specifics) from this page.

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Here's a simple script (a bit more advanced than the sample from the Linphone Python Wrapper page).

Dependencies
In addition to the linphone python wrapper, this script uses daemon, so you'll have to install it first:

pip install python-daemon

Code
Here are the features:

• Obviously it will answer if it receives an incoming call from a whitelisted account ;

• If you send it a SIP message, it will take a capture from the camera and send it back to you as a message with an
attachement ;
• Everything will be logged into linphonecam.log.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import linphone
import logging
import signal
import time
import daemon
import os
import sys
class SecurityCamera:
def __init__(self, whitelist=[]):
self.quit = False
self.whitelist = whitelist
callbacks = linphone.Factory.get().create_core_cbs()
callbacks.call_state_changed = self.call_state_changed
callbacks.registration_state_changed = self.call_state_changed
callbacks.message_received = self.message_received
path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
logger = logging.getLogger()
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
self.logfile = logging.FileHandler(path + '/linphonecam.log')
logger.addHandler(self.logfile)
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, self.signal_handler)
linphone.set_log_handler(self.log_handler)
self.quit_when_registered = False
self.core = linphone.Factory.get().create_core(callbacks, path + '/config.rc', None)
self.path = path
def signal_handler(self, signal, frame):
self.core.terminate_all_calls()
self.quit = True
def log_handler(self, level, msg):
method = getattr(logging, level)
method(msg)
def registration_state_changed(self, core, proxy, state, message):
if self.quit_when_registered:
if state == linphone.RegistrationState.Ok:
print 'Account configuration OK'
self.core.config.sync()
self.quit = True
elif state == linphone.RegistrationState.Failed:
print 'Account configuration failure: {0}'.format(message)
self.quit = True
def call_state_changed(self, core, call, state, message):
if state == linphone.CallState.IncomingReceived:
if call.remote_address.as_string_uri_only() in self.whitelist:

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params = core.create_call_params(call)
core.accept_call_with_params(call, params)
else:
core.decline_call(call, linphone.Reason.Declined)
def message_received(self, core, room, message):
sender = message.from_address
if sender.as_string_uri_only() in self.whitelist:
capture_file = self.path + '/capture.jpg'
self.core.take_preview_snapshot(capture_file)
time.sleep(2)
content = self.core.create_content()
content.name = 'capture.jpg'
capture = open(capture_file, 'rb')
content.buffer = bytearray(capture.read())
msg = room.create_file_transfer_message(content)
room.send_chat_message(msg)

def configure_sip_account(self, username, password):

self.quit_when_registered = True

proxy_cfg = self.core.create_proxy_config()
proxy_cfg.identity_address = self.core.create_address('sip:{username}@sip.linphone.org'.format(username=username))
proxy_cfg.server_addr = 'sip:sip.linphone.org;transport=tls'
proxy_cfg.register_enabled = True
proxy_cfg.avpf_mode = 1
proxy_cfg.publish_enabled = True
self.core.add_proxy_config(proxy_cfg)
self.core.default_proxy_config = proxy_cfg

auth_info = self.core.create_auth_info(username, None, password, None, None, 'sip.linphone.org')

self.core.add_auth_info(auth_info)

def run(self):
while not self.quit:
self.core.iterate()
time.sleep(0.03)
if __name__ == '__main__':
cam = SecurityCamera(whitelist=[''])
if len(sys.argv) == 4 and sys.argv[1] == 'configure_account':
cam.configure_sip_account(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[3])
cam.run()
else:
context = daemon.DaemonContext(files_preserve = [ cam.logfile.stream, ],)
context.open()
cam.run()

How to use it
First of all, edit the script itself to set which account will be allowed to call your raspberry. For example, I'll allow myself:

cam = SecurityCamera(whitelist=['sip:[email protected]'])

The script simplifies the configuration of the Linphone SIP account you'll use to contact your raspberry-pi. To configure
the account, use the following command:

./linphonecam.py configure_account <username> <password>

If you don't have yet a Linphone SIP account, you can create one for free at https://www.linphone.org/free-sip-service.html

You're good to go, just call the account used to on the previous configuration step using a Linphone application (or
another SIP client) on which you have your whitelisted account configured on:

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Automatic start at boot

If you want your daemon to be started automatically when your raspberry pi boots, you can use the following script:

sudo cp linphonecam /etc/init.d/

Adjust the DIR accordingly (and possibly some other values depending on the name you gave the script):

# Provides: linphonecam
# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 016
# Short-Description: Surveillance camera using Linphone
# Description: Linphonecam allows you to use your device as a surveillance camera using Linphone
### END INIT INFO
# Change the next 3 lines to suit where you install your script and what you want to call it
DIR=/home/pi/linphonecam
DAEMON=$DIR/linphonecam.py
DAEMON_NAME=linphonecam
# Add any command line options for your daemon here
DAEMON_OPTS=""
# This next line determines what user the script runs as.
# Root generally not recommended but necessary if you are using the Raspberry Pi GPIO from Python.
DAEMON_USER=pi
# The process ID of the script when it runs is stored here:
PIDFILE=/var/run/$DAEMON_NAME.pid
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
do_start () {
log_daemon_msg "Starting system $DAEMON_NAME daemon"
start-stop-daemon --start --background --pidfile $PIDFILE --make-pidfile --user $DAEMON_USER --chuid
$DAEMON_USER --startas $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
log_end_msg $?
}
do_stop () {
log_daemon_msg "Stopping system $DAEMON_NAME daemon"
start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --retry 10
log_end_msg $?
}
case "$1" in
start|stop)
do_${1}
;;
restart|reload|force-reload)
do_stop
do_start
;;
status)
status_of_proc "$DAEMON_NAME" "$DAEMON" && exit 0 || exit $?
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$DAEMON_NAME {start|stop|restart|status}"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

Finally, apply the changes:

sudo update-rc.d linphonecam defaults

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Compiling linphone on the rasberry pi

This procedure assumes that the raspberry pi is installed with a Raspbian image.

• Install dependencies from raspbian repositories

sudo apt-get install automake autoconf libtool intltool libopus-dev libspeexdsp-dev antlr3 libantlr3c-dev libpolarssl-dev
yasm libxml2-dev libasound2-dev libpulse-dev libv4l-dev
• Compile and install from source a few dependencies that are not included in raspbian

libvpx video codec (the one from raspbian is outdated)

wget http://storage.googleapis.com/downloads.webmproject.org/releases/webm/libvpx-1.5.0.tar.bz2
tar -xvjf libvpx-1.5.0.tar.bz2
cd libvpx-1.5.0
CROSS=arm-linux-gnueabihf- ./configure --target=armv7-linux-gcc --enable-runtime-cpu-detect --enable-shared && make
-j4
sudo make install
cd ..

ffmpeg (the one from raspbian uses brings by dependency the outdated libvpx)

wget http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-2.7.1.tar.bz2
tar -xvjf ffmpeg-2.7.1.tar.bz2
cd ffmpeg-2.7.1
./configure --enable-shared && make -j4
sudo make install

Now, compile and install the linphone software suite:

bcunit

git clone git://git.linphone.org/bcunit.git

cd bcunit
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make
sudo make install
cd ..

bctoolbox

git clone git://git.linphone.org/bctoolbox.git

cd bctoolbox
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make
sudo make install
cd ..

belle-sip

git clone git://git.linphone.org/belle-sip.git

cd belle-sip
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make -j4
sudo make install
cd ..

oRTP

git clone git://git.linphone.org/ortp.git

cd ortp
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make -j4
sudo make install
cd ..

mediastreamer2

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git clone git://git.linphone.org/mediastreamer2.git

cd mediastreamer2
./autogen.sh && ./configure && make -j4
sudo make install
cd ..

linphone

git clone git://git.linphone.org/linphone.git --recursive

cd linphone
./autogen.sh && ./configure CFLAGS="-march=armv7-a -mfpu=neon-vfpv4" CXXFLAGS="-march=armv7-a -mfpu=neon-
vfpv4" --disable-gtk_ui --disable-x11 && make -j4
sudo make install
cd ..
Note the "-march=armv7-a -mfpu=neon-vfpv4" compiler options which are required to activate the NEON assembly
optimisations.

Everything compiled from source code was installed by default into /usr/local. By default, the raspbian OS doesn’t look
for libraries into this path.
Adding /usr/local/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH env variable will solve this, but to solve this issue permanently it is also
possible to edit /etc/ld.so.conf and add a single line « /usr/local/lib » into it, then run « sudo ldconfig ».

Now the software is ready to be used !

Configuration
First run linphonec once in order to configure your SIP account. We recommend to use our free sip.linphone.org service, on
which accounts can be created using this online form.

linphonec
linphonec> proxy add
<…enter sip account configuration, make sure it registers successfully
Don’t forget to specify the transport on the proxy address with a transport parameter if necessary.
ex: sip:sip.linphone.org;transport=tls >
quit

Open ~/.linphonerc file with an editor (vim, nano...) in order to tweak a few things:

• In section [sound], set

echocancellation=0

Indeed, echo cancellation is not needed, our raspberry pi has no speaker. No need to spend cpu cycles on this.

• In section [video], set vga video size to achieve decent quality, compatible with the pi's processing capabilities:

size=vga

720p is also possible but the pi2 cpu is a bit too slow for this image format with VP8 codec. svga tends to work not so bad as
well.

• Turn on ICE, in section [net] section:

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stun_server=stun.linphone.org
firewall_policy=3

Starting linphonec
You can then launch linphonec in daemon mode in order to autoanswer:

linphonecsh init -a -C -c ~/.linphonerc

To stop it, do:

linphonecsh exit

Automatic start at boot

In order to have linphonec automatically started when the raspberry boots: you can add this line to /etc/rc.local :

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
sudo -u pi linphonecsh init -a -C -c /home/pi/.linphonerc

You can now place calls from your favourite linphone app (mobile or desktop) to your raspberry !

Common hardware problems

Sadly, the raspberry loosing the network connectivity is a frequent occurrence. Unfortunately, all that NetworkManager stuff
included with Raspbian was designed for Linux workstation or servers, and is not robust to temporary network connectivity
losses. They happen quite frequently because of various reasons:

• The internet box looses DSL connection and reboots

• The wifi signal is lost temporarily due to interferences
• The wifi driver has bugs and looses connection after some hours
• The house general power shuts down and comes back due to a thunderstorm, but the raspberry starts faster than the
DSL box and will have no internet at boot time.

I recommend to plug the DSL box onto a programable power timer so that it is restarted every day : indeed it is not so rare
that a DSL box hangs forever and needs a manual reboot.

In order to force the raspberry to check the network periodically and force a re-connection, I suggest these two scripts,
that can be invoked periodically from cron daemon:

• The first one called "restart_wlan0_if_necessary.sh". It just tries a ping to linphone.org, and in absence of response,
trigers a shutdown/restart of the wlan0 network interface.
#!/bin/sh
date
if test -z "`ping -w 5 linphone.org |grep time`" ; then
echo "broken connection, restarting wlan0 now"
/sbin/ifdown wlan0
sleep 1
/sbin/ifup wlan0
echo "wlan0 restarted."
else
echo "Everything ok with network."
fi
• The second one, called "reboot_if_necessary.sh". Its goal is to reboot the raspberry if network is still not working,
which is the case when the wifi driver or hardware has entered an irrecoverabilly corrupted state.

Sadly, the wifi devices and drivers are generally so bad in terms of robustness, that this kind of trick is necessary.

#!/bin/sh
date
if test -z "`ping -w 5 linphone.org |grep time`" ; then

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echo "broken connection, rebooting now"

/sbin/reboot
else
echo "Everything ok with network."
fi

And here's the crontab file:

5 12 * * * /home/pi/reboot_if_necessary >> /home/pi/reboots.log 2>&1

0* *** /home/pi/restart_wlan0_if_necessary.sh >> /home/pi/restarts.log 2>&1

Use sudo crontab -e to write these lines aboves.

This will schedule restart_wlan0_if_necessary.sh every hour, and reboot_if_necessary every day at 12:05.

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