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SesamePortal

SesamePortal is a locally deployed video-surveillance web portal for SesameDVR installations.

If SesameDVR records, stores and serves video, SesamePortal provides the user and administration layer above one or multiple SesameDVR servers: users, groups, camera access, favorites, map view, mosaic view and playback authorization.

When you need it

SesamePortal is useful when the DVR server must be used by multiple operators, customers or user groups:

  • there are several DVR servers;
  • users must see only selected camera groups;
  • operators need camera access without management access to the DVR server;
  • a mosaic view, favorites and map of camera locations are required;
  • cameras can be connected directly, managed on a DVR, or delivered through edge agents;
  • SesameDVR playback must be protected by a central authorization backend.

Typical scenarios include corporate or site video surveillance, distributed installations with multiple DVR servers, customer/operator portals with limited camera access, and lightweight video-surveillance deployments with user and group management.

Key features

  • connection of multiple SesameDVR servers;
  • DVR health dashboard;
  • camera management;
  • three camera modes:
  • managed — the portal creates, updates or deletes the stream on SesameDVR via management API;
  • edge_agent — the portal creates a push stream on SesameDVR and links it to a remote agent/camera;
  • read_only — the portal uses an existing stream for preview, auth and playback;
  • admin and user roles;
  • access groups: users see only cameras assigned to their groups;
  • personal favorites;
  • camera mosaic with previews, all/favorites/group filters, search, pagination and a 2-6 cameras-per-row density switch;
  • configurable preview refresh interval, including an Off mode;
  • OpenStreetMap/Leaflet map with clustering, camera points, direction and view sector;
  • mobile-friendly interface;
  • optional per-camera HTML/CSS watermark with the current user's login over the Portal player;
  • authorization backend for SesameDVR playback tokens;
  • daily playback tokens with rotation overlap;
  • static integration tokens for external systems;
  • SQLite by default, with PostgreSQL/MySQL available for production deployments;
  • multilingual UI: Russian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Armenian.

Screenshots

SesamePortal camera mosaic

Camera mosaic with previews and quick access to live/archive playback.

SesamePortal camera map

Map view with camera locations, direction and view sector.

SesamePortal mobile player

Mobile-friendly player view for operators and users on the go.

Roles and access

Administrators manage DVR servers, users, groups, cameras, access assignments and the dashboard.

Regular users see only the cameras available to them, filter by groups, add favorites and open live/archive playback through authorized access.

If a group, user or camera is disabled, access disappears both from the interface and from SesameDVR playback authorization.

Installation and operations

SesamePortal has a one-command installer for Linux/nginx/php-fpm deployments. It can create the nginx site, initialize the database, create the first admin user and optionally issue a Let's Encrypt certificate.

For existing installations, repair/update runs back up the current release, nginx site, cron entry, config and SQLite data before applying changes, and restore them if a step fails.

Relationship with SesameDVR

SesamePortal stores DVR server settings and access rules for users, groups and cameras.

For playback protection, SesameDVR uses SesamePortal as an authorization backend: when a user opens a stream or archive, SesameDVR checks the user token with SesamePortal and receives the decision on whether this user may access the requested stream.

For managed cameras, SesamePortal can create, update or delete streams on SesameDVR through the management API. For edge-agent cameras, it creates a push stream and connects it to the selected agent camera.

Product positioning

SesamePortal does not record video itself — recording and playback are handled by SesameDVR.

It does not replace RBT/SmartYard as an intercom and resident platform. SesamePortal is a lightweight web video-surveillance portal for installations where you only need video surveillance with users, access groups, favorites, mosaic and map views. And because it is open source, you can brand it, adapt it and build your own cloud solutions on top of it.