Unifi Protect Backup

A Python based tool for backing up UniFi Protect event clips as they occur.

The idea for this project came after realising that if something were to happen, e.g. a fire, or a burglary that meant I could no longer access my UDM, all the footage recorded by all my nice expensive UniFi cameras would have been rather pointless. With this tool, all motion and smart detection clips are immediately backed up to off-site storage thanks to rclone, and kept for the configured retention period.

• GitHub: https://github.com/ep1cman/unifi-protect-backup
• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/unifi-protect-backup/
• Free software: MIT

Features

• Listens to events in real-time via the Unifi Protect websocket API
• Supports uploading to a wide range of storage systems using rclone
• Performs nightly pruning of old clips

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Unifi Protect version 1.20 or higher (as per pyunifiprotect)
• rclone installed with at least one remote configured.

Installation

1. Install rclone. Instructions for your platform can be found here: https://rclone.org/install/#quickstart
2. Configure the rclone remote you want to backup to. Instructions can be found here: https://rclone.org/docs/#configure
3. pip install unifi-protect-backup
4. Optional: Install ffprobe so that unifi-protect-backup can check the length of the clips it downloads

Account Setup

In order to connect to your unifi protect instance, you will first need to setup a local admin account:

• Login to your Local Portal on your UniFiOS device, and click on Users
• Open the Roles tab and click Add Role in the top right.
• Give the role a name like unifi protect backup and give it Full Management permissions for the unifi protect app.
• Now switch to the User tab and click Add User in the top right, and fill out the form. Specific Fields to pay attention to:
  • Role: Must be the role created in the last step
  • Account Type: Local Access Only
• Click Add in at the bottom Right.
• Select the newly created user in the list, and navigate to the Assignments tab in the left-hand pane, and ensure all cameras are ticked.

Usage

⚠️ Potential Data Loss: Be very careful when setting the rclone-destination, at midnight every day it will delete any files older than retention. It is best to give unifi-protect-backup its own directory.

Usage: unifi-protect-backup [OPTIONS]

  A Python based tool for backing up Unifi Protect event clips as they occur.

Options:
  --version                       Show the version and exit.
  --address TEXT                  Address of Unifi Protect instance
                                  [required]
  --port INTEGER                  Port of Unifi Protect instance  [default:
                                  443]
  --username TEXT                 Username to login to Unifi Protect instance
                                  [required]
  --password TEXT                 Password for Unifi Protect user  [required]
  --verify-ssl / --no-verify-ssl  Set if you do not have a valid HTTPS
                                  Certificate for your instance  [default:
                                  verify-ssl]
  --rclone-destination TEXT       `rclone` destination path in the format
                                  {rclone remote}:{path on remote}. E.g.
                                  `gdrive:/backups/unifi_protect`  [required]
  --retention TEXT                How long should event clips be backed up
                                  for. Format as per the `--max-age` argument
                                  of `rclone`
                                  (https://rclone.org/filtering/#max-age-don-
                                  t-transfer-any-file-older-than-this)
                                  [default: 7d]
  --rclone-args TEXT              Optional extra arguments to pass to `rclone
                                  rcat` directly. Common usage for this would
                                  be to set a bandwidth limit, for example.
  --detection-types TEXT          A comma separated list of which types of
                                  detections to backup. Valid options are:
                                  `motion`, `person`, `vehicle`, `ring`
                                  [default: motion,person,vehicle,ring]
  --ignore-camera TEXT            IDs of cameras for which events should not
                                  be backed up. Use multiple times to ignore
                                  multiple IDs. If being set as an environment
                                  variable the IDs should be separated by
                                  whitespace.
  --file-structure-format TEXT    A Python format string used to generate the
                                  file structure/name on the rclone remote.For
                                  details of the fields available, see the
                                  projects `README.md` file.  [default: {camer
                                  a_name}/{event.start:%Y-%m-%d}/{event.end:%Y
                                  -%m-%dT%H-%M-%S} {detection_type}.mp4]
  -v, --verbose                   How verbose the logging output should be.

                                      None: Only log info messages created by
                                      `unifi-protect-backup`, and all warnings

                                      -v: Only log info & debug messages
                                      created by `unifi-protect-backup`, and
                                      all warnings

                                      -vv: Log info & debug messages created
                                      by `unifi-protect-backup`, command
                                      output, and all warnings

                                      -vvv Log debug messages created by
                                      `unifi-protect-backup`, command output,
                                      all info messages, and all warnings

                                      -vvvv: Log debug messages created by
                                      `unifi-protect-backup` command output,
                                      all info messages, all warnings, and
                                      websocket data

                                      -vvvvv: Log websocket data, command
                                      output, all debug messages, all info
                                      messages and all warnings  [x>=0]
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

The following environment variables can also be used instead of command line arguments (note, CLI arguments always take priority over environment variables):

• UFP_USERNAME
• UFP_PASSWORD
• UFP_ADDRESS
• UFP_PORT
• UFP_SSL_VERIFY
• RCLONE_RETENTION
• RCLONE_DESTINATION
• RCLONE_ARGS
• IGNORE_CAMERAS
• DETECTION_TYPES
• FILE_STRUCTURE_FORMAT

File path formatting

By default, the application will save clips in the following structure on the provided rclone remote:

{camera_name}/{event.start:%Y-%m-%d}/{event.end:%Y-%m-%dT%H-%M-%S} {detection_type}.mp4

If you wish for the clips to be structured differently you can do this using the --file-structure-format option. It uses standard python format string syntax.

The following fields are provided to the format string:

• event: The Event object as per https://github.com/briis/pyunifiprotect/blob/master/pyunifiprotect/data/nvr.py
• duration_seconds: The duration of the event in seconds
• detection_type: A nicely formatted list of the event detection type and the smart detection types (if any)
• camera_name: The name of the camera that generated this event

You can optionally format the event.start/event.end timestamps as per the strftime format by appending it after a : e.g to get just the date without the time: {event.start:%Y-%m-%d}

Docker Container

You can run this tool as a container if you prefer with the following command. Remember to change the variable to make your setup.

Backing up locally

By default, if no rclone config is provided clips will be backed up to /data.

docker run \
  -e UFP_USERNAME='USERNAME' \
  -e UFP_PASSWORD='PASSWORD' \
  -e UFP_ADDRESS='UNIFI_PROTECT_IP' \
  -e UFP_SSL_VERIFY='false' \
  -v '/path/to/save/clips':'/data' \
  ghcr.io/ep1cman/unifi-protect-backup

Backing up to cloud storage

In order to backup to cloud storage you need to provide a rclone.conf file.

If you do not already have a rclone.conf file you can create one as follows:

$ docker run -it --rm -v $PWD:/root/.config/rclone rclone/rclone config

Follow the interactive configuration proceed, this will create a rclone.conf file in your current directory.

Finally start the container:

docker run \
  -e UFP_USERNAME='USERNAME' \
  -e UFP_PASSWORD='PASSWORD' \
  -e UFP_ADDRESS='UNIFI_PROTECT_IP' \
  -e UFP_SSL_VERIFY='false' \
  -e RCLONE_DESTINATION='my_remote:/unifi_protect_backup' \
  -v '/path/to/save/clips':'/data' \
  -v `/path/to/rclone.conf':'/config/rclone.conf'
  ghcr.io/ep1cman/unifi-protect-backup

Credits

• Heavily utilises pyunifiprotect by @briis
• All the cloud functionality is provided by rclone
• This package was created with Cookiecutter and the waynerv/cookiecutter-pypackage project template.