Home Alert

An open source security system powered by a low cost distributed iot system.

Prerequisites

Some steps must be taken on each host that is going to have home alert software installed on it.

1. Setup passwordless sudo for a user:

• $ sudo usermod -aG sudo user
• Add the line user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL to /etc/sudoers

2. Ensure that the host used to deploy the installation can ssh into each of the users of the target hosts via ssh keys.
3. Install ansible and python

• $ sudo apt-get install ansible python

Installation

To install the home alert security system software on your own hosts, first copy and modify the example configuration yaml file.

git clone https://github.com/necrosato/home-alert /tmp/home-alert
cd /tmp/home-alert
# Copy and modify config file ...
python3 install.py -c /path/to/config/file

Python modules needed to create playbook:

• Jinja2
• pyyaml

Dry Run

It is possible to execute a dry run installation with the --dry_run flag of the install script. All remote hosts must have the python-setuptools and python-apt packages installed.

$ sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools python-apt

Debug

Use the --debug flag when running the installation script to enable connection debugging and show full error tracebacks of the ansible-playbook run.

Hardware

Has been tested with Logitech USB webcams. Refer to this list and opt for a camera that works fine without a powered usb hub. https://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Webcams

Has also been tested with raspberry pi cameras.

Locations

A home alert node defines a location. These are logical identifiers for different pieces of the home alert network. Each location can be alarmed by a set of triggers.

Design Diagram