Dummies Guide

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Install

Use the installation guides provided on the: Zoneminder Wiki: Contents

I've used trisquel and devuan.

Some installation guides omit the required dependencies for libvlc to work. Search forum if you need libvlc.

Here's a guide for using an external HDD: Using a dedicated Hard Drive

Make sure you add innodb_file_per_table=1 and ensure that the ZM database is InnoDB format, otherwise you may run into the issues described in MySQL.

Test out a Camera

Once you get ZM installed, you will want to test out a camera. You can do a webcam, or you can do an IP camera. See the Hardware Compatibility LIst

An Axis is a good start. They are well supported (though HD is expensive). Buy an old one for $10-20.


Follow the instructions in the Hardware Compatiblity List for parameters for setting up a camera the first time. If you have an error, look at the logs.

Resolution must be correct. Many other fields can be left at defaults.

If you can view the MJPEG or JPG url in your browser, you will be in good shape.

Obtaining more Cameras

In ZoneMinder, when you add a camera, you have a few options.

  • LOCAL Camera connected directly to computer (webcam, or analog camera thorugh bttv card)
  • REMOTE Grab mjpeg stream or rtsp (h264) stream from IP camera on the network
  • FILE Grab a jpeg file somewhere on the server and display that (you provide jpeg images that change from somewhere)
  • FFMPEG and LIBVLC use the respective libraries to pull a stream similar to REMOTE does for RTSP only.

Analog cameras are limited in resolution (about 700x400px). So called HD Analog cameras are not compatible with ZM. However analog cameras can use a network encoder to turn an analog stream into an IP Camera RTSP stream. After that you have FILE and REMOTE. I have not used FILE for anything but one off cameras. I will cover REMOTE.


REMOTE gives you the option of either RTSP (h264) or Mjpeg cameras. Both will work.


Mjpeg

These include Arecont Vision, Axis, Bosch, Foscam, Grandstream, Instar, Messoa, Zavio and others. The prices scale with features. Old Axis cameras at 480p resolution (no IR) can be found online easily for $10-50. New Foscams can be purchased at their online store for $80-130 with 1080p resolution (IR). Above that is beyond my budget. More pixels means higher cost.

Also see, SBC cameras.

RTSP

These cameras use h264 compression. However ZM decodes all incoming video to jpeg files, so it's not optimized. This requires libvlc, or ffmpeg to convert the video to jpegs for zoneminder. Same as MJPEG, the prices go up as you get more resolution. However it's easier to find a 1080p RTSP camera, for $70 vs. an 1080p MJPEG camera, generally.

Note: Exception is feature-h264-videostorage branch. This new branch takes h264 and writes it direct to an .mp4 container. Keep an eye on this branch.

Conclusion

Based on your needs you must choose either MJPEG, RTSP, or a mix. If you want a high quantity of cameras, it's more efficient to use all MJPEG cameras. If you have a small number, or If you want to purchase high-end server hardware, then it doesn't matter. With powerful enough server hardware, you will be able to run 10-20 HD cameras of either type without difficulty. In fact, a lot of my CPU usage comes from compressing the video (optional, see below).

Let me state again, high-end server hardware will perform better than desktop, or low end server hardware. I have seen this firsthand between two servers: KFSN4-DRE and the KGPE-D16. The latter runs ZM with 16 cameras, not breaking a sweat. The former reaches a limit at 10.

In my case, I needed the most affordable HD MJPEG cameras, so I searched and settled on the Foscam models. I'd also recommend used Arecont Vision cameras or Axis, if you can afford them. Beware that newer foscams do not have MJPEG streaming, and some firmware have issues with the stream not working. Read carefully on the foscam forums before purchasing. Or (better) use an SBC.

Watching the Cameras

Cameras can be watched from ZM web server. Montage view is good. See notes below for > 6 camera setups.

Another way is to make an html file on a remote machine with the following code embedded in an img tag. Adjust monitor ID as needed. How to stream from another ZoneMinder installation. Also an easy way to embed video in a website (img tag). It is possible to use FFServer as a server for a website. FFServer (part of FFMPEG project) will take the video feed, and offer it up to clients. I have used FFServer with Zmodopipe

Streaming in ZM, does not slow it down, in my experience.

If you embed the URL in an img tag, include http prefix or it wont work. 

img width="500px" height="500px" src="http://zmserveripaddress/zm/cgi-bin/nph-zms?mode=jpeg&monitor=#&scale=100&maxfps=30&user=username&pass=password"

Call it locally: 

abrowser file:///home/username/file.html

Recording in Zoneminder

You can record everything if you desire. However if you run into space issues, you should consider motion detection. Motion detection is a strong point of ZM.


Motion Detection

This is an option most people should use. Use a dedicated HDD, record on motion only, and you will retain sufficient history.


What's all this motion detection stuff, anyhow?

The strength of zoneminder lies in its motion detection (thus the 'zone' in zoneminder, being the motion detection zones). See: Understanding Zoneminder's Zoning system for Dummies

Start with the most sensitive settings, and make them less sensitive until no false alarms are recorded. Night IR detects more false events than daylight. Monitoring for all alarms can easily be done by $ tail -f /var/log/syslog in Devuan based distros. Or you can record everything, if modect isn't working. Mocord will combine both modect and record, having everything recorded, but making a graph where motion occurs (in show timeline). Mocord is the best, but uses more HDD. Beware of running into issues with PurgeWhenFull not able to keep up.


Why motion detection?

Using modect or mocord is recommended here. Because you are able to click from the main zm index - events - show timeline, and from there quickly review your modect events. Because you save HDD space. And SMS Notifications and ZMTrigger can be setup off of modect alarms (the latter requiring either modect, mocord, or nodect).

Any downsides?

The downside of modect is that zones must be tuned to be sensitive enough to see all events, but not so sensitive as to detect false alarms. This requires manual intervention, however carries a benefit, that you can easily identify when events occured (timeline). Zones should be as small as possible, and you should use as few zones per monitor, to lower CPU usage. If you see events with 1 or 2 alarm frames occuring, you can make a background filter to occassionally delete these. Aggressive Modect usage can run into issues with PurgeWhenFull.

Troubleshooting

  • Watch logs.
  • Use forum search.
  • Use web search.
  • If you click, 'component logs' in the options - logs section of zm, you will get log files in the /var/log/zm/ folder.
  • # tail -F /var/log/syslog
  • Beware of underlying hardware faults such as bad RAM.

Notes

  • Some cams will have two video streams (e.g. Hikvision). The resolutions/video type may or may not be the same. For example, there may be a low resolution mjpeg stream, and a high resolution RTSP stream.
  • I found it helpful to name the cameras after the monitor ID as you run into monitor ID in logs, often.
  • Proprietary cameras are known to report to outside IPs. Don't give them internet access. Only the server should be wan-accessible. Put all cameras on a physically separate network, or use VLANs.
  • Many cameras have default telnet passwords, in addition to the default web access passwords. Change these or keep cameras away from the wan. Cameras are common botnet targets.
  • With server motherboard hardware, you will be able to have more cameras (servers are more powerful, and better servers will have better performance).
  • I use ext4 filesystem for the HDDs. I had tried using ext2 filesystem for better performance, but the fsck time is prohibatively slow for ext2 (>24 hours for >2TB), therefore I do not recommend using it. Ext4 seems to work well. Older ext2, or ext3 fs can be upgraded to ext4.
  • If you are going to use a BT878 based card, you probably should add a heatsink onto the top of all *878 chips. This has been mentioned in the forums in various spots, and I noticed one of my chips out of the 3 on the board not working correctly after the first test. A heatsink with similar dimensions can be purchased from electronic stores such as digikey, mouser, adafruit, or sparkfun. Use a caliper or a ruler, and measure the dimensions in mm, then search for a similar heatsink. You will also need some kind of adhesive. I used an epoxy based thermal adhesive. A heatsink attached to the plastic of the IC, instead of the actual IC die is not ideal, but it will help.
  • Edit /etc/default/rcS and make sure auto FSCK is enabled. Failure to set this, will require manual intervention when the server is repairing the filesystem, requiring you to press a key.

See Also

  • Zmodopipe Is a tool that can tie an analog DVR system to Zoneminder, although it is far from perfect. I have documented it there, and recommend purchasing an analog network converter instead.
  • PurgeWhenFull requires configuration on larger systems, or systems where events are created at a pace faster than PurgeWhenFull can keep up. Failure to do so, will result in all events being blank.
  • ZMTrigger is a tool that can be used to take outside information and overlay it onto the camera display. For example, you might take the temperature, or wind speed, and overlay it on a camera. It also has other uses. Experience with microcontrollers such as AVRs, Pics, and the Arduino IDE are useful here.
  • MySQL can require some optimizing, and there are potential gotchas. Though newer releases of Zoneminder may have defaulted to innodb, I think.
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