LightNVR

LightNVR is a lightweight Network Video Recorder built for low-resource hardware. It integrates go2rtc for restreaming and low-latency WebRTC/HLS live view, discovers ONVIF cameras, records continuously, and can run motion/object detection.

This add-on wraps the official multi-arch ghcr.io/opensensor/lightnvr image so you can run it directly from the Home Assistant add-on store instead of a separate Docker/Compose stack.

Installation

1. In Home Assistant go to Settings → Add-ons → Add-on Store.
2. Either:
   • Custom repository — click the ⋮ menu, Repositories, and add the dedicated add-ons repository URL (see the project README), or
   • Local add-on — copy the lightnvr folder into your Home Assistant /addons directory (via the Samba share or Advanced SSH & Web Terminal add-on). It then appears under Local add-ons.
3. Open LightNVR and click Install. The first build pulls the base image and layers a small wrapper on top (a minute or two, depending on your connection — no compilation).
4. Click Start, then Open Web UI.

First login

Default credentials are:

• Username: admin
• Password: admin

Change the password immediately from the LightNVR settings page — with host networking the Web UI is reachable from anywhere on your LAN.

Configuration

Option	Default	Description
web_port	7800	Host port for the Web UI (non-standard by default to avoid conflicts). Restart to apply.
max_streams	32	Camera stream slots to allocate (1–256). Restart to apply.
go2rtc_config_persist	true	Keep the go2rtc config between restarts.
onvif_network	(blank)	CIDR to scan for ONVIF cameras, e.g. 192.168.1.0/24. Blank = auto.
timezone	(blank)	Override the timezone. Blank inherits the Home Assistant timezone.

If you change web_port, the Open Web UI button (which is fixed to the default 7800) will point at the wrong port — browse to http://<host-ip>:<web_port>/ instead.

Networking

The add-on runs with host networking so that:

• ONVIF WS-Discovery and mDNS (both multicast) can find cameras on your LAN.
• go2rtc WebRTC candidates are directly reachable for low-latency live view.

The following ports are used on the host:

Port	Purpose
7800/tcp	Web UI (change via the web_port option)
8554/tcp	RTSP restream (go2rtc)
8555/tcp+udp	WebRTC
1984/tcp	go2rtc API

The Web UI defaults to the non-standard port 7800 to avoid clashing with other host services. If it still conflicts, change the web_port option.

Storage & backups

Data	Location	In HA backups?
Config + go2rtc config	add-on /data/config	✅ Yes
SQLite database	add-on /data/lib/database	✅ Yes
Detection models	add-on /data/lib/models	✅ Yes
Recordings	/media/lightnvr/recordings	❌ No (kept small)

Recordings are deliberately stored under the Home Assistant media folder so they are not pulled into every add-on backup (they can be huge), while your settings and database are backed up. Recordings survive add-on updates and even an uninstall; delete /media/lightnvr manually if you want to reclaim the space.

Manage retention (days / max size) from LightNVR's own Settings → Storage page.

Updating

Bump the base image tag in build.yaml (and version in config.yaml) and rebuild, or wait for a new add-on release. Your config, database and recordings are preserved across updates because they live on Home Assistant-managed storage.

Troubleshooting

• Cameras not auto-discovered: set onvif_network to your camera subnet in CIDR notation, then restart.
• Live view won't play: confirm ports 8555/tcp+udp are not blocked on the host firewall; check the add-on log for go2rtc errors.
• Add-on won't start after an update: check the Log tab. The launcher prints the resolved storage paths on start.

For NVR-level issues see the main project documentation and issue tracker at https://github.com/opensensor/lightnvr.