Cheap and Dirty Security Camera

When we recently opened of a satellite office and the question of site security came up.  We decided as part of our security solution to install security cameras at each door.  After careful consideration we chose the Axis M1031-W Network Camera.  This camera was relatively cheap (~$260) and allows us great flexibility in how we handle security.  We can stream directly to a centralized computer, we can take snapshots based on detected movement, we can take snapshots based upon PIR sensor movement (passive infrared..aka movement in the dark) or we can simply chose to stream based upon a set schedule.  There are a multitude of options on this camera including a blinding light to illuminate the area if movement is detected and two way audio to scare the jeepers out of someone walking by.  I choose to ftp snapshots to a Linux remote server.  I wrote a simple shell script to keep only a certain number of days of photos.  Here’s the script if you are interested:

#!/bin/bash
FTPDIR=”/home/camera”
DAYSOLD=90
find $FTPDIR –mtime +$DAYSOLD –exec rm  {} \;
#eof

Easy peasy. Schedule that pup up by editing your crontab (crontab –e) to run every day ( 0 0 * * 0-6 /usr/bin/cleanftp) and you’re all set.