SMTP Alarm Receiver

Overview

The Edge Controller has a built in SMTP server that can be used to receive alarms from camera built in detection algorithms.

This is particularly useful for thermal and radar cameras that perform their own analytics.

Alarm flow

1. Alarms are generated on the camera and sent by SMTP to the Edge Controller. The email never leaves the local system network so no authentication or encryption is required. The camera is expected to attach at least 1 image to the email.

2. The Edge Controller receives the email and works out which camera it came from based on the IP address the email was sent from. If the email came from an IP address the Edge Controller does not recognise the email is discarded.

3. The Edge Controller parses the email to extract the timestamp and any snapshots.

4. The Edge Controller checks whether the system is armed. If it is not armed or alarms for the camera are disabled, the email is discarded.

5. Assuming the alarm has passed the checks, it is forwarded to Giraffe Cloud and any configured alarm states are triggered.

6. A 30 second video is exported and uploaded, 15 seconds either side of the timestamp of the initial snapshot.

Configuration

No specific configuration is required on the Edge Controller to enable the SMTP server other than reserving a static IP address for the Edge Controller in the DHCP server of the router.

The reserved IP address is required so you can enter the Edge Controllers IP into the cameras for their SMTP server hostname.

Alarm handlers

The Edge Controller uses the 'sender' (email from) information in order to find the best way to parse the email that is sent from the cameras. We currently support Hikvision, Dahua and Milesight.

The email sender address must be configured as below:

• hikvision@ (example: [e-mail])

• milesight@ (example: [e-mail])

The bit after the @ symbol is not important - it could be [e-mail]

If an unrecognised sender is configured, the email will be discarded.

Please contact Giraffe support team if you need support for another camera.

Event Mapping

When the Edge Controller receives an email from a camera, it is mapped to a Giraffe Cloud video event in the following way.

• the classification of the alarm is set to unknown object detected unless the alarm handler describes what sort of event it is (person or vehicle).

• the stream_id is set to 2. This is mapped to SD quality internally.

• the email body is parsed to try and find a timestamp. If no timestamp is provided, the timestamp at which the email was received is used as the event time. The timestamp is adjusted for the Edge Controllers timezone.

• the snapshots are sorted in ascending order based on their filenames

• if multiple snapshots are attached to the email, the timestamp of subsequent snapshots are incremented by 1 second if there is not a valid timestamp in the attachment's name.

Configuration examples

Hikvision

Troubleshooting

if the SMTP integration is not working as you expect, please configure the cameras to send directly to a mailbox (we like Mailtrap) and capture some emails. These can then be shared with the Giraffe support team.