Difference between revisions of "Debian 12 Bookworm with Zoneminder 1.36.x and 1.37.x"

Latest revision as of 16:34, 30 June 2025

Debian 12 with Zoneminder 1.36.34

Debian 12 has been released with Zoneminder 1.36.33 and as usual for Debian the zm database needs to be created manually. This is not user friendly. So we will be using the packages provided by the ZoneMinder development team hosted at zmrepo.zoneminder.com.

Note: Debian installs with a swap partition of 1 GB. This may not be large enough for a server or desktop running Zoneminder regardless of the ammount of installed RAM. You can add a swap file after install of Debian or a larger swap partition, equal to installed RAM recommended, at install via manual drive partitioning. Search the web for specific instructions for adding a swap file or installing with a larger swap partition.

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. Become root:

sudo su

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

timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

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

1. Install Apache2, PHP and your favorite database (Mariadb recommended). A quick way to install LAMP is:

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

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 12 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
# The key is stored in the deprecated keyring trusted.gpg.
# wget -O - https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
wget -O- https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmour -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/zmrepo.gpg
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 zoneminder --install-recommends -y
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

Debian 12 Bookworm is released with Zoneminder 1.36.33 and as usual for Debian the zm database needs to be created manually.

Note: This version has been verified with Bookworm Debian 12 official release. A few issues have been found and corrected. Zoneminder now opens in Firefox (Windows, Linux and Android), Edge, Chrome (on Android). ZmNinja on Android also works. If using ZmNinja you may have to clear the API cache. Please report other errors on the Zoneminder forum.

In time a version of Zoneminder for Bookworm will be made available in the zmrepo.

You will have to install sudo and add the user to the sudoers file.

Become root with

su

Install sudo

apt install sudo

Then add the user

/sbin/adduser username sudo

I recommend rebooting at this point but a log out and back in also works.

Become root

sudo su

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

timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

Of course use your timezone in place of America/New_York

Install Apache2, PHP and your favorite database (Mariadb recommended). A quick way to install LAMP is:

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

Add timezone to PHP (This may not be necessary but does not hurt and will allow the time of events to be displayed correctly)

nano /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini

Search for [Date] (Ctrl + w then type Date and press Enter) and make changes as follows for your time zone

[Date]
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
; http://php.net/date.timezone
date.timezone = America/New_York

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Restart Apache

service apache2 restart

or

systemctl restart apache2

Install Zoneminder

apt install zoneminder

Create Zoneminder database in MySQL (Note: this also creates the default Zoneminder user and permissions in MySQL) Use the server root password when prompted.

mysql -uroot -p < /usr/share/zoneminder/db/zm_create.sql

mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';"

mysqladmin -uroot -p reload

Set permissions

chmod 640 /etc/zm/zm.conf

chown root:www-data /etc/zm/zm.conf

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/cache/zoneminder/

chmod 755 /var/cache/zoneminder/

Replace zoneminder.conf

cp /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf.sav

rm /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf

nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf

Paste the following content into nano:

# Remember to enable cgi mod (i.e. "a2enmod cgi").
ScriptAlias /zm/cgi-bin "/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin"
<Directory "/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin">
    Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>


# Order matters. This alias must come first.
Alias /zm/cache "/var/cache/zoneminder"
<Directory "/var/cache/zoneminder">
    Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
        # Apache 2.4
        Require all granted
    </IfModule>
</Directory>

Alias /zm /usr/share/zoneminder/www
<Directory /usr/share/zoneminder/www>
  Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
  <IfModule mod_dir.c>
    DirectoryIndex index.php
  </IfModule>
</Directory>

# For better visibility, the following directives have been migrated from the
# default .htaccess files included with the CakePHP project.
# Parameters not set here are inherited from the parent directive above.
<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api">
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^$ app/webroot/ [L]
   RewriteRule (.*) app/webroot/$1 [L]
   RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app">
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
   RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
   RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app/webroot">
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
    RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

Enable Zoneminder service to start at boot

systemctl enable zoneminder.service

Add www-data to the sudo group (to enable use of local video devices)

adduser www-data video

Start Zoneminder

systemctl start zoneminder.service

Enable Zoneminder configuration in Apache.

a2enconf zoneminder

a2enmod rewrite

a2enmod headers

a2enmod expires

a2enmod cgi

service apache2 reload

Install complete. Open Zoneminder/Options and set the timezone in Options/System. Add cameras.

Debian 12 with Zoneminder 1.37.x

Install Zoneminder Development Branch 1.37.x on Debian 12