ONVIF Time

Simple service to periodically synchronize the time of ONVIF compatible cameras with arbitrary NTP servers.

Motivation

Security cameras periodically synchronize their time with an NTP server, in order to always have an accurate time stamp in the recording.

If the camera is connected to a network without internet access, and if the NTP server used by the camera is hardcoded, the camera will fail to synchronize and its internal time will (not so) slowly drift away.

If the camera supports the ONVIF protocol, it could be possible to set the camera time through it.

This simple service does just that: it periodically gets the current time from a user provided NTP server, and then applies it to a list of user provided ONVIF compatible cameras.

The end result is that your cameras will always have accurate time, while still being completely prevented from accessing the internet.

Configuration

Below is an example configuration file:

{
  "ntp": {
    "host": "pool.ntp.org",
    "port": 123,
    "timeout": 5
  },
  "cameras": {
    "front_camera": {
      "host": "10.0.0.2",
      "port": 12345,
      "user": "user",
      "password": "password"
    },
    "back_camera": {
      "host": "10.0.0.3",
      "port": 12345,
      "user": "user",
      "password": "password"
    }
  }
}

Running

Docker Run

docker run --rm --init \
  -v /path/to/config.json:/config/config.json \
  -e TZ="America/New_York" \
  -e ONVIF_TIME_SCHEDULE="0 2 * * *" \
  ghcr.io/alesgenova/onvif-time:dev

Docker Compose

services:
  onvif-time:
    init: True
    image: ghcr.io/alesgenova/onvif-time:dev
    volumes:
      - /path/to/config.json:/config/config.json
    environment:
      TZ: "America/New_York"
      ONVIF_TIME_SCHEDULE: "0 2 * * *"
      ONVIF_TIME_STARTUP_SYNC: True
    restart: unless-stopped

Run once

To synchronize the time once and quit, run the container as follows:

docker run --rm \
    -v /path/to/config.json:/config/config.json \
    -e TZ="America/New_York" \
    ghcr.io/alesgenova/onvif-time:dev python3 /src/onvif_time.py

Environment Variables

TZ

Set the TZ variable to change the local time zone.

Default value is "UTC"

ONVIF_TIME_SCHEDULE

The script is run as a cron job. Set the ONVIF_TIME_SCHEDULE variable to tweak how often the time will be synchronized.

Default value is "0 2 * * *" (i.e. every day at 2 AM).

ONVIF_TIME_STARTUP_SYNC

Set the ONVIF_TIME_STARTUP_SYNC variable True to also synchronize the time when the container first starts.

Default value is True.

ONVIF_TIME_DRY_RUN

Set the ONVIF_TIME_DRY_RUN variable True to skip actually setting the time on the camera. Can be useful when testing the configuration.

Default value is False.