Using Eye-Fi Card on Linux

Dmitri Popov

Productivity Sauce

Sep 24, 2009 GMT
Dmitri Popov

The Eye-Fi card is a nifty solution for adding wireless capabilities to virtually any digital camera, but it does have one serious drawback: the card relies on proprietary software that runs only on Windows and Mac OS X. Fortunately, the standalone Eye-Fi server written in Python will happily run on Linux, courtesy of the enterprising hacker Jeff Tchang. Better yet, the server is extremely easy to configure and run. You do need to have access to a Windows or Mac OS X machine to initialize your Eye-Fi card, though. This must be done in order to obtain the upload key required for the Eye-Fi server to function properly. On a Windows machine, install the Eye-Fi manager software and use it to configure your Eye-Fi card. Once you've done that, open the Settings.xml file (on Windows XP, it's located in the C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Eye-Fi directory) and note the UploadKey value.

Next, grab the latest version of the Eye-Fi server, unpack all files into a directory (/home/user/eyefiserver). Open then the DefaultSettings.ini file and replace the default UploadKey value with your own. Uncomment then the line that starts with DownloadLocation and specify the path to the directory where you want the server to download photos, for example:

DownloadLocation=/home/user/Photos

Save the file and your server is ready to go. In the terminal, switch to the eyefiserver directory and execute the following command:

python EyeFiServer.py -c DefaultSettings.ini

That's it. Fire up your camera, take a few shots, and the photos magically appear in the specified directory on your Linux machine.

Comments

  • wine

    regarding wine, forget it. hardware drivers do not run under wine.

    get virtualbox. get a windoze install cd image from gnutella.
    or just forget about setting up hardware that has a windows setup program. you're too pure.
  • Wrong key

    Unfortunately, eyefi-config -k prints "the card's unique key". This is not the "upload key" that we need.
  • eyefi-config -k

    Dave hansen's eyefi-config has a -k option to print the upload key of your card. Works well under linux.
  • xml file on Mac

    On the Mac the path is

    /Users/<username>/Library/Eye-Fi/Settings.xml
  • Eye-fi config in Linux

    You can use this to configure the card under Linux:
    http://sr71.net/projects/eyefi/
  • Don't buy this crap.

    Sorry guys, but why are you paying your hard earned cash to somebody that does not care about you, and createing yet another dependency on propietary, abusive software providers?

    It would be a neat gadget to have, the key could be printed on the card, or if it is too big, it could be store in a file in the card itself.

    There are ways this company could help people if they wanted to.

    Just don't buy this, after all how often you really need to o a wireless upload?
  • Use VirtualBox

    The client runs under VirtualBox running Windows which is how I got the key. Note that the python server requires that you have "Relayed Uploads" turned OFF. So you need to make sure of that in windows also.
  • Re: Read/Write

    @pgroven Nope.
  • Read/Write

    Can you write to the Eye/Fi card as well as read?
    in other words
    Can you do upload/download to the card?
  • Questions answered

    @Steever

    >Do you think we could run the the windows client under WINE?

    I don't think so. I tried it once and it didn't work.

    @Mike Calder

    >If not Wine, is there any other way of getting this key?

    I'm afraid not.

    @linux fan

    >Could you please mention what kind of camera support this functionality.

    Any camera that uses SD cards for storage will work with Eye-Fi.

    >Won't the camera need some wireless capabilities?

    No, otherwise what would be the point of Eye-Fi?
  • what kind of camera

    Could you please mention what kind of camera support this functionality. Won't the camera need some wireless capabilities?
  • Or any other way...

    I have no access to any Windows machine.

    If not Wine, is there any other way of getting this key?
  • WINE

    Do you think we could run the the windows client under WINE?
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