XMDMS

Cross-platform desktop manager for Xiongmai (XM) NVR, DVR and IP camera devices. XMDMS talks to devices over the NETIP/DVRIP protocol and covers discovery, bulk provisioning, configuration, live view and maintenance in a single PySide6 UI.

Highlights

• Discover devices by UDP broadcast on a selected network interface.
• Inventory, sort, export and manually manage discovered devices.
• Provision IP addresses and change passwords in bulk.
• Edit network, system, video, camera, storage, user and serial/PTZ settings.
• Watch live video, listen to audio, record streams and save snapshots.
• Back up/restore configuration, inspect logs and run firmware utilities.
• English and Russian UI, light/dark themes and persistent preferences.

Discovery and inventory

• UDP broadcast discovery with a configurable timeout (1–600 s) and number of search attempts (probes). The search runs until stopped or the configured window expires.
• Device table with IP, MAC, serial number, firmware version, build date and host name. Columns are sortable and rows are selectable with checkboxes.
• Search again removes devices that no longer answer, while manual entries are kept.
• Double-click a row to connect. Right-click for copy, select all/deselect all, add, modify, delete and clear.
• Add devices manually by IP address and port, with per-device login and password.
• Export the current inventory to CSV.

Bulk operations

• Provision assigns consecutive IP addresses starting from the configured Start IP (automatically suggested as the selected device IP + 1). Each device gets two attempts with per-row progress and success/failure feedback.
• Change sets a new password on all checked devices, or on the selected device when nothing is checked.
• Digital channels manages downstream IP cameras on an NVR/DVR: search local NETIP/ONVIF cameras through the recorder, add all IPC, edit channel mappings and credentials, and provision IP addresses.

Configuration tabs

Tab	What it covers
Network	LAN address, subnet, gateway, DHCP/DNS, HTTP/TCP/RTSP/ONVIF ports, Wi-Fi scan and security, UPnP, SmartNet, PMS, VNIC, NAT/RPS, NTP, firmware upload and cloud upgrade.
System	Hardware/software/cloud ID, runtime age, channel count, device type, NAT status, TV standard, device language, restart schedule, time zone, date/time format, beeper, face/debug flags, audio input, cloud-ID QR code, time sync, reboot, config import/export/reset, device logs and firmware utilities.
Display	Video output resolution, GUI feature flags and window alpha.
Encode	Per-channel main stream and substream: H.264/H.265, resolution, FPS, CBR/VBR rate control, quality, bitrate, I-frame interval, smart H.265+/H.265AI, audio/video enable. Includes an all-channels editor.
Camera	Day/night mode, white balance, BLC, aperture, exposure, shutter, gain, AE sensitivity, day/night noise filters, IR-cut, DNC threshold, DWDR, flip/mirror, flicker rejection and white-light controls.
Storage	Disk list, read/write, read-only, redundant and snapshot modes, format and recover actions.
Users	User and group lists, add/modify/delete users and groups, and change user passwords.
RS232/485/PTZ	RS232 function and serial parameters, per-channel PTZ protocol/address/serial settings, and RS485 configuration.
Settings	Theme, language, password masking, search timeout and search attempts.

Configuration is loaded from the device when a tab is opened and applied with Save. Unsupported options depend on device firmware and may be rejected or ignored by the device.

Live view and media

• NETIP live video with selectable channel and Main/Sub stream.
• Video decoding through QtMultimedia/FFmpeg by default, with optional PyAV or a system ffmpeg fallback. Set XMDM_VIDEO_BACKEND=qt|av|ffmpeg to force a backend.
• G.711A audio playback with mute and volume controls.
• Raw stream recording to H.264, H.265, MJPEG or M4V files while watching.
• Snapshot popup with right-click Save image... (JPEG/PNG).
• RTSP URL copy/open for the selected channel and stream.

Maintenance and diagnostics

• View and erase device logs.
• Export/import device configuration files and reset selected configuration sections or perform a factory reset.
• Upload firmware from a local file, or start the device's cloud upgrade.
• Build an XM recovery image (.img) or a flat flash dump (.dump) from an XM firmware .bin package for offline recovery work.
• Inspect raw NETIP request/response traffic in the Query console.
• Synchronize device time, reboot devices and change passwords.

Settings

• Theme: Auto (follows the system color scheme), Light or Dark.
• Language: Auto, English or Русский. Auto follows the system locale.
• Password fields can be shown or masked.
• Search timeout (1–600 s) and search attempts (minimum 3) are editable and persisted.
• Preferences and last-used folders are saved with QSettings and restored on the next launch.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer for running from source (the Windows CI build uses Python 3.12).
• PySide6==6.9.*, psutil, cryptography and qrcode from requirements.txt.
• The required NETIP client dvrip.py must be supplied next to xmdms.py; it is not installed from PyPI.
• Optional: av for the PyAV video fallback, or a system ffmpeg executable for the external decoder.
• Network access to the device: TCP 34567 by default, UDP 34569 for discovery, and the configured HTTP/RTSP/ONVIF ports.

Run from source

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate        # Linux/macOS
# .venv\Scripts\activate         # Windows
pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 xmdms.py

Place dvrip.py in the same directory as xmdms.py before starting the application. Windows users can use py -3.12 instead of python3.

Build for Windows

PyInstaller cannot cross-compile; build on Windows (or let CI do it):

.packaging\build_windows.bat

The script creates a virtual environment, installs dependencies, generates the icon and produces a onedir build:

dist\xmdms\xmdms.exe

Requirements: Windows and Python 3.12 with the py launcher. The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/build-release.yml) builds Windows, Linux and macOS on every push and publishes releases from main.

Notes and limitations

• The device table and credentials are session-only; the app does not persist either. Use Export to keep an inventory. Manual entries are lost when the application closes.
• Available settings and actions depend on the device model and firmware.
• Linux/macOS packaging is not provided; run the source with a graphical Qt environment.
• If discovery finds nothing, select the correct interface, allow UDP 34569 through the firewall, and confirm the device is on the same subnet.
• If video fails to start, install a Qt multimedia backend or a system ffmpeg, or try XMDM_VIDEO_BACKEND=av/ffmpeg.

Safety

Use XMDMS only on devices you own or are explicitly authorized to manage. Changing network settings, provisioning addresses, upgrading firmware, resetting configuration and formatting storage can disconnect or erase data. Double-check the selected devices and keep configuration backups before performing destructive actions.