Enable or Disable Camera in Ubuntu Linux

How to enable or disable the camera in Ubuntu Linux

As we’ve gone over, if you have administrator access, you can disable and enable cameras for everyone who uses the device.

Here’s how you can do that.

Find the Camera driver module

Right now, Ubuntu’s settings app doesn’t offer a way to toggle your camera on or off. So, until that changes, your best bet for disabling or enabling it is through the command line.

Most recent camera and webcam drivers in Ubuntu are UVC (USB Video Class) compliant, meaning they follow a standard for video devices. They’re supported by the generic uvcvideo kernel driver module.

You can check this with a command to list the uvcvideo kernel driver module:

sudo lsmod | grep 'uvcvideo'

If the commands return nothing, then Ubuntu doesn’t recognize the camera or hasn’t installed a driver for it. If a camera is identified and drivers are loaded, you should see lines similar to these:

uvcvideo              106496  0
videobuf2_vmalloc      20480  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_v4l2         32768  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_common       77824  4 videobuf2_vmalloc,videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_memops
videodev              258048  3 videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_common
mc                     65536  4 videodev,videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_common

If you don’t get a similar result, it might mean a different camera driver is installed. Check these sites here and here for additional driver information.

Remove camera drivers from Ubuntu

You can use a system driver from Ubuntu with the modprobe command. Run the commands below to remove the camera driver.

sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo

Remember to replace uvcvideo with any other driver names you found on your system.

If the camera is currently in use, you’ll see an error like this:

modprobe: FATAL: Module uvcvideo is in use.

First, close the application that’s using the camera, then run the commands again to disable it.

These commands remove the driver for now, but a reboot will bring it back.

If you want to remove it permanently, you’ll need to add it to a block list file. Run these commands to add the driver to the configuration file at ‘/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf’.

Drivers listed in this file are blocked indefinitely.

echo 'blacklist uvcvideo' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Once disabled, apps won’t be able to see your camera.

Enable camera in Ubuntu Linux

To re-enable the camera driver in Ubuntu, remove the corresponding line from the blocklist configuration file mentioned above. Then, run the commands below.

sudo modprobe uvcvideo

That should do it!

Conclusion:

• Enabling or disabling the camera in Ubuntu Linux requires administrator access
• The uvcvideo kernel driver module is commonly used for recent camera and webcam drivers in Ubuntu
• Removing a camera driver using the modprobe command may require exiting the app using the camera
• Re-enabling the camera driver involves removing the blocklist entry and using the modprobe command
• Once disabled, apps will not have access to the camera