How can I make Chrome allow access to a webcam over http (not https)?

Question

I am building a kiosk application using webrtc video. It is only served on the internal network and I would like to be able to always allow the webcam for my site over http. Using ssl isn't that important and is just an extra expense for a cert.

Is there any way to do this or am I stuck?

Answer 1

Yes, an admin can override the prompts with a policy.

VideoCaptureAllowedUrls

Patterns in this list will be matched against the security origin of the requesting URL. If a match is found, access to audio capture devices will be granted without prompt. NOTE: This policy is currently only supported when running in Kiosk mode.

On Windows, you create registry entries using regedit.

Software\Policies\Chromium\VideoCaptureAllowedUrls\1 = "http://www.example.com/"
Software\Policies\Chromium\VideoCaptureAllowedUrls\2 = "http://[*.]example.edu/"

On Linux you write the policies in a file:

mkdir -p /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed
touch /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/test_policy.json

In test_policy.json:

{
  "VideoCaptureAllowedUrls": ["http://www.example.com/", "http://[*.]example.edu/"]
}