Debian 11 Bullseye with Zoneminder 1.36.x

Updated 19MAR23

Debian 11 with Zoneminder 1.36.x

Debian 11 Bullseye is being released with Zoneminder 1.34.23 and as usual for Debian the zm database needs to be created manually. This is not user friendly and 1.34 is considered old and unsupported. So we will be using the packages provided by the ZoneMinder development team hosted at zmrepo.zoneminder.com.

Note: We currently only package for amd64 and armhf so if your are running something else this won't work.

Debian, unlike Ubuntu, does not install sudo with the initial setup. While you can log in as root, a user with sudo authority is recommended.

To enable sudo: In a terminal,become root with su. Enter your root password. Install sudo with:

apt install sudo

Add the user account to the group sudo with:

/sbin/adduser username sudo 

where username is your user account. Exit root then log out and then log in with the same user.

Timezone: it is recommended you set your specific timesone with:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

Of course use your timezone in place of America/New_York.

1. Install Debian 11 (Bullseye), desktop or server version, along with Apache2, PHP and your favorite database (Mariadb recommended). A quick way to install LAMP is:

sudo apt install apache2 mariadb-server php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql lsb-release gnupg2

Secure MySQL or Mariadb, create root password et. al.

mysql_secure_installation

Mariadb additional settings The default values for the database are adequate for initial setup. However, I recommend you make these changes before installing Zoneminder. Note: If you have sufficient memory double the values below. Edit the Mariadb config file:

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Add the following in the [mysql] area:

innodb_file_per_table = ON
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 256M
innodb_log_file_size = 64M

CTRL+o then [Enter] to save

CTRL+x to exit

Reatart Mariadb:

sudo service mysql restart

I recommend you install mysqltuner and run it from time to time and adjust the database settings as the number of saved events grows. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

New install process with a shell script!

Become root with sudo su before running this!

Shell script file contents:

#!/bin/sh
clear
read -p "This script installs ZoneMinder 1.36.x on Debian 11 with LAMP (MySQL or Mariadb) installed...
This script must be run as root!
Press Enter to continue or Ctrl + c to quit" nothing
clear
apt install -y lsb-release gnupg2
echo "deb https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/release-1.36 "`lsb_release  -c -s`"/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zoneminder.list
wget -O - https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
read -p "Warning! Check above to insure the line says OK. If not the GPG signing key was not installed and you will need to figure out why before continuing. 
Press enter to continue" nothing
apt update
clear
apt install -y zoneminder
systemctl enable zoneminder
service zoneminder start
adduser www-data video
a2enconf zoneminder
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod headers
a2enmod expires
service apache2 reload
clear
read -p "Install complete. Open Zoneminder/Options and set the timezone. Press enter to continue" nothing
clear

Copy the contents of the script, open a terminal and run:

nano zm-install

Paste the contents of the script into Nano

Then:

Ctrl + o Ctrl + x

Next run:

chmod 755 zm-install

Start the script by entering:

./zm-install

Follow the prompts. Things are pretty simple. The timezone is now set in Zoneminder/Options.

Good Luck!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Old procedure retained for reference

2. Add Zoneminder's repo to your APT configuration:

echo "deb https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/release-1.36 "`lsb_release  -c -s`"/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zoneminder.list

3. Add Zoneminder's GPG signing key:

wget -O - https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

4. Update package indexes and install the package

sudo apt update 

sudo apt install zoneminder=1.36.31-bullseye1

5. Enable the systemd service and apache configuration

sudo systemctl enable zoneminder.service
sudo systemctl start zoneminder
sudo a2enconf zoneminder
sudo a2enmod rewrite headers expires
sudo service apache2 reload

6. Open Zoneminder http://(IP-Address)/zm

7. Change the Timezone in Options-Timezone

---

Debian 11 with NGINX and Zoneminder 1.36.x

Start with a basic Debian 11 install. You can use a server or desktop install. Do not install LAMP!

Debian, unlike Ubuntu, does not install sudo with the initial setup. While you can log in as root, a user with sudo authority is recommended.

To enable sudo: In a terminal,become root with su. Enter your root password. Install sudo with:

apt install sudo

Add the user account to the group sudo with:

/sbin/adduser username sudo 

where username is your user account. Exit root then log out and then log in with the same user.

Timezone: it is recommended you set your specific timesone with:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

Of course use your timezone in place of America/New_York. Become root

sudo su

Install Ngnix, Mariadb and PHP components

apt install nginx mariadb-server php-fpm php-mysql fcgiwrap

Secure the Mariadb server

mysql_secure_installation

Restart Mariadb

systemctl restart mysql

Edit the php.ini file (Change the PHP version as needed)

nano /etc/php/7.4/fpm/php.ini

Locate (Ctrl+w) cgi.fix_pathinfo=1 and change to

cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

Remember to remove the leading ;

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Restart php-fpm

systemctl restart php7.4-fpm

Add Repository

apt install -y lsb-release gnupg2

echo "deb https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/release-1.36 "`lsb_release  -c -s`"/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/zoneminder.list

wget -O - https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

"Warning! Check above to insure the line says OK. If not the GPG signing key was not installed and you will need to figure out why before continuing.

apt update

Install Zoneminder

apt install zoneminder

Create a new user if you plan to use local (USB or capture card) cameras.

adduser www-data video

Change the ZM_PATH_ZMS in the 01-system-paths.conf file to /cgi-bin/nph-zms by dropping the /zm/

nano /etc/zm/conf.d/01-system-paths.conf

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Enable and start Zoneminder

systemctl enable zoneminder

service zoneminder start

Edit the Ngnix default configuration.

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Locate the line "index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;" and add index.php

index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

In the "server" section after listen [::] :80 default_Server; add

include /etc/nginx/zoneminder.conf;

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Create a Zoneminder conf file

nano /etc/nginx/zoneminder.conf

Enter the following into the zoneminder.conf file (This file was improved by databoy2k) Change "php7.4-fpm.sock" to as neeeded.

location /cgi-bin {
auth_basic off;
        alias /usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin;     
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
        fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
}
location /zm/cache {
auth_basic off;
        alias /var/cache/zoneminder/cache;
}
location ~ /zm/api/(css|img|ico) {
auth_basic off;
        rewrite ^/zm/api(.+)$ /api/app/webroot/$1 break;
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
location /zm {
auth_basic off;
        alias /usr/share/zoneminder/www;
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args =404;    
        location /zm/api {
auth_basic off;
                rewrite ^/zm/api(.+)$ /zm/api/app/webroot/index.php?p=$1 last;
         }
                location ~ \.php$ {
                auth_basic off;
                        include fastcgi_params;
                        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
                        fastcgi_param HTTP_PROXY "";
                fastcgi_index index.php;
                        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
        }
    }

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Restart Ngnix

service nginx restart

Note: If Nginx gives you an error on restart go back one step and re-enter include /etc/ngnix/zoneminder.conf;

Create or edit the fcgiwrap:

nano /etc/default/fcgiwrap

and insert (with the number of children -c equal to the number of cameras) Note that you may need to have this value larger than the number if cameras. In my case I run "camera walls" from a custom web page that accesses the Zoneminder monitors. I have needed to increase the -c to include the number of cameras in the camera wall web pages.

DAEMON_OPTS=-c 10

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

then restart the fcgiwrap service.

systemctl restart fcgiwrap