Filters? how? where? Im lost.. new user.

[Inssomniak]

Hi all, I have set up a zoneminder system monitoring a camera, that was installed into a mail room of a local retirement complex that is prone to breakins, and it works well, except I cant figure out the filters for deleting oldest events when hard disk gets full. I am not even sure where to go to do it. I kinda need a hand holding, I have scoured the forums on how to do it, and found a few, but I still dont know where to go in zoneminder web interface to configure them.

the system was up and running last night, but was not recording because when the hard disk got full, it just showed a black image, and last night, the mail room got broken into, and I didnt record anything, right when I needed it the most.

So I just need help, on where to go to configure filters, and how I should configure filters to delete oldest events when full. I would appreciate it a lot.

Im using the zoneminder live CD, that I installed onto the hard disk.

[zoneminder]

Sorry to hear about your break in.

There is a purge when full filter installed by default (unless you have a really old version) but it is not enabled unless you tell it to do so.

To find it, choose one of the event counts from the console page, for instance events in the last hour for one of your monitors. This will bring up an event listing and a filter window. In the filter window there is a dropdown select box labelled 'Use Filter', that lets your select a saved filter. Select 'PurgeWhenFull' and it will load that filter. Make any modifications you might want, such as the percentage full you want it to kick in, or how many events to delete at a time (it will repeat the filter as many times as needed to clear the space, but will only delete this many events each time to get there). Then click on 'Save' which will bring up a new window. Make sure the 'Automatically delete' box is checked and press save to save your filter. This will then run in the background to keep your disk within those limits.

After you've done that, you changes will automatically be loaded into zmfilter within a few minutes. Check the zmfilter.log file to make sure it is running as sometimes missing perl modules mean that it nevers runs but people don't always realise.

I hope this helps you catch the perpetrators next time!

Phil

[Inssomniak]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I followed your instructions and found how/where to do the filters, part of my problem is firefox popup killer was killing the window

I think I may have accidentally deleted that filter purge when full. so if ya could tell me what the setings were for that one so I can put it back in also, does it just delete the oldest events? or does it delete ALL the events and start over with blank hard disk? thanks again

I have it set to "archives status" equal to "unarchived only" and disk percent equal to "90", click save, and then check, automatically delete events. Im not sure if that is how the purgewhenfull filter is supposed to be set.

I was also unable to locate the zmfilter.log file anywhere on the hard disk, is there a way to turn logging on/off?

[zoneminder]

You should also probably has 'Sort By' set to 'Id' and 'asc' to ensure the oldest ones get deleted first and also limit to 5 or 10 results.

Unless you have set the log directory elsewhere you might find the zmfilter.log file in /tmp. If you see other zm logs there but not zmfilter.log it may be that it isn't starting, check zmdc.log to be sure.

Phil

[Inssomniak]

Cool I found the log file, and ran a test to see if it worked, and it did! thanks!

uhm, I had another question, and I as well looked for this on the forums before I ask, but pertaining to the live CD, how do I get ZM to run in "secure" or "user" mode, requiring user to log into the system before changing options and other settings, basically I want regular users to just be able to view events and such, but not perform any system changes. I checked the live CD for maybe an answer, but couldnt find one. sorry if this answer is somewhere already and Im just asking again.

THanks!

[zoneminder]

The users and options is covered in the README which should be included in the LiveCd or can be had from various places on this site, include here.

Phil

[Eklectick]

Phil

This problem of not activating PurgeWhenFull has happend to me too on a couple of occasions and linux definitely gets a little angry when the disk fills up, so I was wondering, is there a reason you do not activate this feature by default?

I would activate it by default to some "safe" number like 90% of disk and a "sort" of older to newer and say 5 or 10 events. Even if these settings are not the best for a particular kind of setup, at least it would be there as a "safe net" before things go bad.

Im telling you, I was (and still are) so blinded by how good this program performs, that a couple of times have left the "what happens when full?" problem on the side until its too late

Regards!

[zoneminder]

The main reason I don't have it activated by default is that I don't want a mass of posts saying 'where have all my precious events gone?'. However I think perhaps I should highlight it in the docs a bit more so that nobody misses it's existence and the need to have it enabled if disk space is a concern.

Phil

[eddiefdz]

Hello,

I was setting the purge when full as i read in one of the prior posting but i seem to be having a problem. I took a look at my zmdc.log and i get the following error lines:


Starting pending process, zmc -m 7
'zmc -m 7' started at 05/04/14 07:31:32
'zmc -m 7' starting at 05/04/14 07:31:32, pid = 13716
Bogus marker length

and this error just repeats. Does anyone have any idea what this is??

Thanks,