1.25.0 - Ubuntu Desktop (11.10) - Install DVD (32 & 64-bit )

[elfking]

Hi All,
I have used Zoneminder for quite a few years now and its always been great. I normally just download someone's pre-made ISO or use a package file where available. However I had wanted to try out v1.25.0 and didn't see anything 'ready-to-go' with it. So I decided to make my own 'LiveDVD/InstallDVD' and thought I would try and 'give back' to the community.

Note: I have only used this with Axis IP Cameras and have not tried any analog capturing yet.

This is Ubuntu 11.10 (32-bit) Desktop Edition.
I compiled from source:
zoneminder
ffmpeg
264libs

Then once I had it playing nicely I used 'RemasterSys' (http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/) to make this LiveDVD.

At one point I am going to try and get together the same setup in 64-bit as well. I just haven't had the time to get around to it yet.

Use at your own risk, it works great for me but may not for you! I recommend testing it before putting into any kind of 'production' use. I'll try and help where I can but I unfortunately don't have a whole lot of free time to be 'supporting' this release by any means.

This is hosted from my own server and it gets hammered too much then I may have to take it down:
http://www.elfking.org/zoneminder/ubunt ... 1.25.0.iso

64-Bit Release:
http://www.elfking.org/zoneminder/ubunt ... 1.25.0.iso

Other quick notes:
1. Once installed, or running via LiveDVD open a web browser and go to http://ip-address-of-machine/ to find the zoneminder interface.
2. ZM files (events/images) are stored in their default location /var/cache/zoneminder/ so if you wish to have your own partition set it up accordingly if needed.
(I personally just use a dedicated machine so I just use the whole drive with / and be done with it )

Enjoy.

[geolinux]

Hi Id like to try this , but a few questions

What is the minimum spec for hardware needed?
or what are you running ?

Will any video card 4 channel do ?

This is a live cd that will run from the DVD ?

Thanks for now !

[joedee983]

Hi elfking,
Thanks for the livecd
Works "out of the box" no issues
Analog cameras worked fine.


joe

[elfking]

Hi Id like to try this , but a few questions

What is the minimum spec for hardware needed?
or what are you running ?

Will any video card 4 channel do ?

This is a live cd that will run from the DVD ?

Thanks for now !

Unfortunately I just moved and haven't had a chance to unpack my boxes (or locate even) the ones with my 4 port capture card. As far as which capture card would work there is a compatibility list I believe:

http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... ility_List

*HOWEVER: I haven't tried myself (capturing with an analog capture card), the kind poster above seems to have tried it with analog setup and says it works.*

I do have it running live off the DVD and capturing events, so that works. Though I recommend installing on a hard drive.

I have this running at home on an Intel Atom 510(?) CPU, with 1GB ram and 500GB hard drive. --- HOWEVER* I have it running with an Axis Video Server which is doing converting the Analog camera's to just an IP setup. Therefore the machine isn't doing as much in terms of capturing the images raw from the capture card and converting to Jpeg etc.

Another setup I have it running on is an old Shuttle PC (P4 CPU) with 1GB Ram and 400GB Hdd. Also running with digital IP cam's

Then one Core Duo Quad (Q6600) running 20 cams (all Axis IP cams) with 4GB Ram and 2TB hard drive.

Once I finish unpacking and have time I am going to set it up at home with my capture card for a while and see how it does...

If you are going to be using a capture card I recommend a Core Duo CPU or higher myself and 2GB if available.. but that may be just me.

Hi elfking,
Thanks for the livecd
Works "out of the box" no issues
Analog cameras worked fine.


joe

Thank you for testing that, I unfortunately didn't get time to before I moved and now all the capture cards / analog cam's are still packed up... so much appreciated...

I also noticed I typod 'Ubuntu' in the first splash screen on the livedvd.. whoops!

[Dazzawrx]

Hi elfking,
This install is great on an older P4 3.0Ghz 2Gig ram 500G HDD machine.
I'm using a "el-cheapo" china 8CH DRV card and all seems to be going well...
I have persisted through many other distros and even taken on a few complete installs myself from following the Wiki.
This certainly makes it a lot easier than having to do all that! So a big Thank You to you.
But...one common thing through all installs, including this one, is a problem while trying to view a single or montage view where one of the feeds locks up after 2 or 3 seconds. If i have 4 feeds displaying, 3 being an almost black image (night time) and 1 being inside with a bright light on, its the bright one that freezes? Interesting that when i change the inputs around, its still the bright image that freezes?
This only happens while streaming in Mpeg and i'm not sure if i'm missing something obvious or it could just be my setup. I have tried various hardware configs and even put the card into a higher spec machine, Quad core 4Gig etc. and still the same thing.

If anyone has some ideas for me to try that would be great!
I will persist on with this and eventually work it out one way or another i'm sure!

Once again, thanks for the nice an easy install DVD of 1.25

[bb99]

Limited testing tells me it should work just fine. Good news for all the Ubuntu posters. If bandwith usage is a problem post it at Linuxtracker.org; let me know and I'll support it over there also (or even post it if you say so). One suggestion is a readme that is on the desktop that as a minimum tells the user to use localhost/index.php for a url in firefox or most will think it's broken.

[shin234]

I am having 2 issues with your live dvd.other than that it is installed and working perfectly. I didn't know that events were stored in the root so my root partition is filling up. how to i move the events and images folders to my home partition. second i can access the web console from other machines within the network but not across the internet. any suggestions?

[elfking]

Hi elfking,
This install is great on an older P4 3.0Ghz 2Gig ram 500G HDD machine.
I'm using a "el-cheapo" china 8CH DRV card and all seems to be going well...
I have persisted through many other distros and even taken on a few complete installs myself from following the Wiki.
This certainly makes it a lot easier than having to do all that! So a big Thank You to you.
But...one common thing through all installs, including this one, is a problem while trying to view a single or montage view where one of the feeds locks up after 2 or 3 seconds. If i have 4 feeds displaying, 3 being an almost black image (night time) and 1 being inside with a bright light on, its the bright one that freezes? Interesting that when i change the inputs around, its still the bright image that freezes?
This only happens while streaming in Mpeg and i'm not sure if i'm missing something obvious or it could just be my setup. I have tried various hardware configs and even put the card into a higher spec machine, Quad core 4Gig etc. and still the same thing.

If anyone has some ideas for me to try that would be great!
I will persist on with this and eventually work it out one way or another i'm sure!

Once again, thanks for the nice an easy install DVD of 1.25

Glad to hear its working decently for other people then myself.. I am still living out of boxes currently but slowly getting settled.. I haven't seen the black image issue on any of my machines... maybe I don't leave the view up long enough...

I'll try and keep a montage view up and see if I see anything weird happening there..

Limited testing tells me it should work just fine. Good news for all the Ubuntu posters. If bandwith usage is a problem post it at Linuxtracker.org; let me know and I'll support it over there also (or even post it if you say so). One suggestion is a readme that is on the desktop that as a minimum tells the user to use localhost/index.php for a url in firefox or most will think it's broken.

Ah Yes! I had thought of that too after releasing this into the wild and forgot to mention the http://localhost/ or http://IP-of-zoneminder/ in a browser on the local network should bring it up (no /index.php needed on this release.. I just defined it as the default on the apache2 config ) So far I don't hear any complaints from my box hogging up the bandwidth so its fine where it is at the moment... but at some point I may shuffle it over there, not a bad idea at all.

I am having 2 issues with your live dvd.other than that it is installed and working perfectly. I didn't know that events were stored in the root so my root partition is filling up. how to i move the events and images folders to my home partition. second i can access the web console from other machines within the network but not across the internet. any suggestions?

Problem 1:
Yes, well to make things as simple as possible I left the configs 100% stock other then the compiles I did to make it run... so what you would need to do in your case is make a symbolic link. I have done this a few times on others releases...
Pretty much these steps:

1. Stop zm service.
2. Move the /var/cache/zoneminder/ and /var/www/zm/events directory to a partition of your choosing.
3. Make a symbolic link from the original location to the new location. (More details on a symbolic link here: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/understan ... links.html specifically the section that says how to make a symbolic link )
4. Start zm service.

That will have the events and everything in the data path go to the new location.

Problem 2:
Sounds like you need to do a 'port forward' on your router. In your routers configuration there's likely a port forward section where you can specify to forward the IP of the Zoneminder box with using port 80. A common issue is that routers sometimes use port 80 for remote access via the internet (or port 8080) If you go to your external IP from another box and get your routers config, then likely this is the case.

IF your router is using port 80 for the external interface sometimes you can change the port forward from you router say (zm box is 80 but outside (internet) is port 81 ) Or worst case you can change what port the web interface for zoneminder is using from the default.. in the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default file at the top it shows:

Code: Select all

<VirtualHost *:80>

You would change this to:

Code: Select all

<VirtualHost *:81>

then restart apache2 and make sure your port forward settings on your router reflect whatever port you use (in example here port 81)


Hope that helps.

[Dazzawrx]

Hi again, it's not black images but more so when a bright or daylight source on one of the channels (8ch dvr card using 8 saa7134 chips) is tried to be viewed either on its own or in a montage, it will freeze after 1-3 seconds!
I have a camera pointing outside, that at night (when the image is darkened) it will view fine and keep on going. But when i try to view this same camera during the daytime, it will freeze again??
I can't help but keep thinking its a memory issue but ive tried lots of settings to no avial. As stated i even tried the card in a high spec machine and still had the same problems. Maybe its the card thats at fault? What, if any, settings should i try or are a MUST HAVE based on this setup for memory, video settings, in the options screens?
I'm hooked on ZM now and determinded to get it going!! even if I do have to buy another card!

Thanks,
Darren.

[elfking]

Hi again, it's not black images but more so when a bright or daylight source on one of the channels (8ch dvr card using 8 saa7134 chips) is tried to be viewed either on its own or in a montage, it will freeze after 1-3 seconds!
I have a camera pointing outside, that at night (when the image is darkened) it will view fine and keep on going. But when i try to view this same camera during the daytime, it will freeze again??
I can't help but keep thinking its a memory issue but ive tried lots of settings to no avial. As stated i even tried the card in a high spec machine and still had the same problems. Maybe its the card thats at fault? What, if any, settings should i try or are a MUST HAVE based on this setup for memory, video settings, in the options screens?
I'm hooked on ZM now and determinded to get it going!! even if I do have to buy another card!

Thanks,
Darren.

Very strange, I unfortunately haven't come across anything like this yet to be of any use to debug... it almost seems like it might be the card.. I have seen some cards (cheap ones) which can't really pull the image fast enough all the time so you see dropped black frames from time to time when its ' switching' channels while capturing.

The only memory settings that I have played with in regards to zoneminder are the 'shared / mapped memory' issue which I have come across regarding higher resolution cameras. Normally when I have seen it happen it was not displaying the camera at all (showing red text in GUI) and had no output until I adjusted memory accordingly:

http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... solutions.

I took a peek in some of my camera events looking for ones that are outside, or pointing outside with a similar situation that you are describing but I don't have any hooked up with a capture card... they either are an IP cam, or using an Axis converter. If I do come across anything ill certainly post it up...

[Dazzawrx]

Hi, I seem to have solved all of my screen freeze problems with a simple change in the stream method, changed swf to asf in option/images and bingo! I have tried a few other changes, playing with memory settings in sysctl.conf and card settings in modprobe.d, but it's the stream method that makes it all work for me. Only thing I notice is that asf doesn't look as good as swf when viewed, ah well, can't have it all!
Thanks,
Daz.

[elfking]

Hi, I seem to have solved all of my screen freeze problems with a simple change in the stream method, changed swf to asf in option/images and bingo! I have tried a few other changes, playing with memory settings in sysctl.conf and card settings in modprobe.d, but it's the stream method that makes it all work for me. Only thing I notice is that asf doesn't look as good as swf when viewed, ah well, can't have it all!
Thanks,
Daz.

Ahh nice find, I remember playing with those settings way back when I tried to get ZM to work with an old Blackberry I had... but wouldn't have thought of that one.. Glad to hear you got it working...

[kfelgs]

Thanks Elfking for this distro. I've got it running on a a Atom D510 motherboard with 2gigs of ram, with a Kodicom 8800 8 channel capture card. Appears to working just great. You've spoiled us that are not familiar with compiling Zoneminder, giving us the latest working version of ZM.

[shin234]

thanks for the help i moved the folders and made the links but for some reason the system just keeps making new events and wont give them numbers it looks like they are being made in the events folder but not populating properly in the events log so i can view them

[shin234]

NVM notice wheni mv it reset permissions.
I ran

chown -R www-data:www-data "folder"
chmod -R 755 "folder"

and it works great now thanks again