DVR Status Dashboard

Real-time monitoring of Dahua DVRs via Easy4IPCloud, with a FastAPI backend and a static web UI. The app reads an Excel workbook of devices, periodically checks their online status through Dahua's cloud, exposes a REST API, and serves a simple dashboard.

DEMO 📽 🎥

DVR.mp4

Flow Diagram

Key features

• Excel-driven inventory: Loads devices from P2P1.xlsx with columns P2P NUMBER, SITE, STORE NAME.
• Background status scanner: Periodically probes devices via Easy4IPCloud and caches results in-memory.
• REST API: Query aggregate stats, list devices by status, search by site, export CSV, refresh scans, and update P2P numbers.
• Static web UI: If web/index.html exists, it is served at / with static assets under /static.

Repository layout

• server.py: FastAPI app, background scanner, REST endpoints, static file serving
• check_online.py: CLI for single-device or bulk (Excel) status checks
• helpers.py: Low-level UDP/WSSE protocol helpers for Easy4IPCloud
• P2P1.xlsx: Input Excel file of devices (not versioned typically)
• web/: Frontend assets (served if present)
• requirements.txt: Python dependencies

Architecture

Data ingestion

• On startup, server.py loads P2P1.xlsx. Column names are normalized to uppercase, and only P2P NUMBER, SITE, STORE NAME are retained.
• P2P serial values are normalized to strings; numeric cells like 123456.0 are converted to 123456.

Background scanning

• A daemon thread runs a loop that refreshes device statuses on a cadence (default ~10 seconds in current code). Results are cached in-memory, keyed by P2P NUMBER.
• Status lookups are executed concurrently using a thread pool to minimize total latency.

Online detection

• For each serial, the app resolves the target P2P service endpoint via GET /online/p2psrv/{serial} on www.easy4ipcloud.com:8800.
• It then probes and fetches device info via UDP-based requests; a device is considered online when a valid info response is returned.

Web/API

• FastAPI serves JSON endpoints under /api/* and optionally serves the static UI from web/.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Network egress to www.easy4ipcloud.com:8800
• An Excel workbook P2P1.xlsx placed in the project root with required columns

Installation

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the API server

python -m uvicorn server:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

• Open the UI at http://localhost:8000/ if web/index.html exists; otherwise the API root returns a basic JSON message.

CLI usage (quick checks)

Check a single serial:

python check_online.py <SERIAL>

Check from an Excel file and print offline entries:

python check_online.py --excel P2P1.xlsx

Excel file format

• The workbook must contain a sheet with the following columns (case-insensitive; they are normalized on load):
  • P2P NUMBER: Dahua device serial (string or number)
  • SITE: Unique site identifier
  • STORE NAME: Human-friendly store name
• Only these three columns are used by the backend; any extra columns are ignored when loading.

REST API

Base URL: http://{host}:{port} (default http://localhost:8000)

GET /api/stats

Returns aggregate counts and last update epoch.

{
  "total": 123,
  "online": 100,
  "offline": 23,
  "lastUpdated": 1712345678.123
}

GET /api/dvrs?status=all|online|offline

Returns device rows filtered by status.

{ "items": [ {"P2P NUMBER":"...","SITE":"...","STORE NAME":"..."} ] }

GET /api/search?site={SITE}

Finds a single row by exact SITE and includes computed status field.

{ "P2P NUMBER":"...","SITE":"...","STORE NAME":"...","status":"online" }

POST /api/update-p2p

Update the P2P NUMBER for a given SITE in both memory and Excel; invalidates cached status.

{ "site": "SITE-001", "p2pNumber": "NEW_SERIAL" }

Responses: { "ok": true } or 404 if site not found.

POST /api/refresh

Triggers an immediate rescan and returns updated stats.

{ "ok": true, "total": 123, "online": 101, "offline": 22, "lastUpdated": 1712345800.456 }

GET /api/download.csv?status=all|online|offline

Streams a CSV attachment of filtered rows with header: P2P NUMBER,SITE,STORE NAME.

cURL examples

curl -s http://localhost:8000/api/stats | jq
curl -s "http://localhost:8000/api/dvrs?status=offline" | jq
curl -s "http://localhost:8000/api/search?site=SITE-001" | jq
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/update-p2p \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"site":"SITE-001","p2pNumber":"ABC123456"}' | jq
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/refresh | jq
curl -OJ "http://localhost:8000/api/download.csv?status=offline"

Configuration

• Scanner concurrency: controlled internally by a thread pool (default up to 20 workers). Adjust in code if needed (scan_statuses(max_workers=...)).
• Scan interval: controlled in server.py scanner loop (default sleep ~10s between scans). Adjust as desired.
• CORS: permissive by default to simplify hosting UI separately; tweak in server.py middleware setup.

Dependencies

• FastAPI, Uvicorn, pandas, openpyxl, cryptography, xmltodict, aiofiles
• See requirements.txt for the exact list.

Security and privacy

• The low-level integration uses credentials/constants in helpers.py (e.g., username key material). Treat these as secrets and rotate/change handling if distributing publicly.
• The app does not persist PII beyond the contents of P2P1.xlsx. Handle the Excel file in accordance with your data policies.

Troubleshooting

• "Excel file not found": ensure P2P1.xlsx exists in the repository root.
• "Missing required columns": verify the sheet has P2P NUMBER, SITE, STORE NAME (case-insensitive).
• All devices show offline: check network/firewall egress to www.easy4ipcloud.com:8800.
• Slow scans or timeouts: reduce max_workers, increase socket timeout in helpers.py, or increase scan interval.
• Status doesn’t change immediately after updating a P2P number: invoke POST /api/refresh or wait for the next scheduled scan.

Development

• Linting/formatting/testing are not included by default; add your preferred tooling.
• The UI in web/ is served at / when present, and static assets are available at /static.