Frustration finding a straightforward install

[praxidice]

The following is intended as constructive feedback from a new ZoneMinder user, hopefully the development fraternity will recognize some of the difficulties experienced in userland and make appropriate changes. I've been attempting to install ZoneMinder using multiple installs of various operating systems, all of which involved insurmountable issues. For example, the apparently preferred CentOS proved to be a nightmare and among the worst arrangement I've ever encountered. There doesn't appear to be any documentation relating to ZoneMinder and Centos 7, and even that documentation for Centos 6 is way out of date since it entails essential downloads from websites that haven't existed for some time. Furthermore, the support in Centos and many other linux distributions for 32 bit operating systems is sadly lacking, despite the fact that many users probably wish to use older 32 bit hardware. None of the Ununtu variants are usable as they all demand non-existent username / password login credentials (numerous sites show this is an endemic problem that apparently nobody can resolve). Other linux distributions including the combined OS / ZoneMinder variants also proved unusable for one reason or another however I'm now looking at FreeBSD as I've used that successfully in webserver / mailserver environments for many years and generally found it vastly superior to any linux.

Might I suggest that a combined 32 bit minimal OS (ie DSL or Puppy) / ZoneMinder be developed and debugged so that it can be easily installed on older hardware by those new to ZoneMinder. The currently available options have more bugs than the Amazon which render them only usable by extremely experienced geeks, who probably aren't likely to be looking for a one size fits all solution anyway. Personally I've never had a hint of trouble with either DSL or Puppy on any hardware .. they simply work without any hint of hair-tearing-out hassles. There used to be a Watchdog version of ZoneMinder that was combined with DSL or Puppy but unfortunately that hasn't been around for yonks and the developer appears to have joined the (commercial) dark side if his website extolling the virtues of the impossibly parasitic Tel$tra is any indication.

[knight-of-ni]

I'm sorry you're frustrated. While your post does a good job describing your level of frustration with phrases like "insurmountable" , "nightmare", and "hair tearing-out hassles" they do absolutely nothing to tell us what went wrong. Zero. And that means there is no way for anyone to know what you think needs fixing. This post will simply sink through the forum with zero effect, and you will go off thinking zoneminder sucks.

If your intent here really was cosntructive, rather than a rant, then what is required is specific data. Your statement regarding no documentation for CentOS is completely false. During the process of installing zoneminder from zmrepo, you were notified in several places that you have to follow the steps in the README. If you are still using CentOS, this is where we need to start. Did you follow the README, and exactly what errors did you run into during the process? I build and install this every week and I know the steps work well based on the feedback of others.

[praxidice]

Problems with Centos included the lack of any documentation for 7. If indeed there is any, its not anywhere I could find it. Centos 6 documentation does not apply to 7 due to operating system changes which render Centos 6 docs irrelevant. Someone thoroughly conversant with Centos might have found the issues I encountered trivial, but the weirdness I encountered convinced me to look elsewhere. In any case the reference in Centos 6 documentation to downloading files from whatever repository is incorrect since that repository was reportedly discontinued sometime in the past and I was unable to locate any alternative repository. I didn't keep details of everything that didn't work ... after several attempts to deal with problems with a given operating system and not finding any way forward, I wrote those options off as lost causes and went on to something that I considered had a better chance of working. I guess in a perfect world, one could accurately document every failed attempt, but this project is merely one of numerous things I'm working on and my objective is simply to get it completed so I can move onto something else. Devoting significant time to a software project might be all very well for some, but unfortunately its not a possibility for me at present. Remember also that I did not expect to have the need to try so many things over a number of days, consequently it is unrealistic to expect me to recall the exact details of problems that occurred days ago. Whilst its not directly relevant to the issue at hand, I have primary production interests and also work on a purely voluntary basis at least 80 hours per week in an advocacy area, consequently time is a very precious commodity. The apparent lack of interest in support for 32 bit hardware (although that applies to most linux distributions as well as ZoneMinder) I found surprising as I suspect many potential ZoneMinder users would want to use older 32 bit hardware. You may well install ZoneMinder multiple times per week, but how many of those installs are on 32 bit hardware ?? For example, the Zmrepo package looks interesting, but from what I could find it depends on a 64 bit install of Centos 6, which raises the issue of non-existent repositories. Needless to say the system I am using is 32 bit. I also tried every Ubuntu option I could locate but the only one that installed properly was the combined Xubuntu / ZoneMinder (at least Xubuntu installed but ZoneMinder was nowhere to be found). I gather from forum posts that I'm not the only one to encounter that issue but I never did discover the solution. Next I tried a few different Ubuntu distributions but kept running into a weird username / password problem (reported in quite a few different forums with no solutions), so scratch Ubuntu and move onto FreeBSD, something I've used successfully in webserver / mailserver systems for many year. The first attempt failed due to inability of Unetbootin to put an img file on USB stick and Rufus borking it badly. I just ran out of time and patience to keep working with lost causes for a day, but a few minutes ago I had another failure with a FreeBSD iso putn on the memory stick with Unetbootin ... it starts booting but crashes immediately and repeats that cycle indefinitely. The previous FreeBSD attempt involved the memstick.img, something I've never used in the past and which it appears Rufus cannot handle properly. So far the only operating systems that acted nice were DSL and Puppy, although I don't believe there is a resource issue here as Windows Vista Business (a resource hog if ever there was one) works flawlessly on identical hardware.. I would have pursued the DSL / Puppy options if only there was a ZoneMinder package although compiling from source might be on the cards. In hindsight, I suspect there could be issues with install from memory stick although that doesn't explain every problem. That said, I wouldn't be in a hurry to mess with Centos again due to patchy documentation and apparent lack of interest in 32 bit hardware support. Both Ubuntu and FreeBSD have always played nice with CD / DVD installs but this is the first time I've attempted USB memory stick install. Next step will probably be a FreeBSD install from CD / DVD. At least I'm familiar with with FreeBSD documentation and how to get the best out of support which is more than I can say about Centos and Ubuntu.

[knight-of-ni]

Just what I thought. This isn't constructive at all, and really is a rant.
I stopped after I read the first line of your wall of text, as this tells me everything I need to know.

Did you even try to find the documentation before pushing buttons? You certainly didn't read it, as the answers to your questions are all there.

Start here:
https://zoneminder.com/downloads/

or if you happen to go through the wiki, start here:
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/CentOS

of if you happen to read the documentation on our readthedocs site:
https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/st ... repository

So there it is. Three places that tell you to go to the repo at zmrepo.zoneminder.com to get started. We've done everything possible to show you what to do except click the mouse for you.

Zmrepo has packages for centos 6, centos 7, fedora 24, and fedora 25 for three different architectures, including 32bit intel and even arm. It's all there. You simply have to read. The instructions shown on zmrepo, and in the README included with each package, are custom tailored to the specific distro version you are using. And these instructions are written such that all you have to do is copy and paste the commands straight into the command line, if you chose the default value.

I look forward to your reply, but I will tell you that, if you post another wall of text, rant, or continue to offer complaints which merely underscore your inability to follow documentation, your posts will be deleted and you will be banned from this site.

[rockedge]

I have constructed several re-masters of Puppy Linux Tahr 6.0.5 running ZoneMinder 1.29 , with Apache 2.4 and MySQL 5.5.53-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu) PHP 5.6 phpmyadmin. These versions of Puppy Linux with zoneminder included and configured were intended for those with old or new hardware and / or a need to run ZM from a USB thumbdrive and / or just want to turn it on and use ZoneMinder without having to install it. There wasn't much interest.
It is a bit tricky to install it in Tahrpup but totally possible with some manual intervention.

I may re-master a new version with ZM 1.30 or it is easy to upgrade using the Puppy Package manager.
I know good IT guys that struggle with installing ZM so it is easy to understand most computer users would not be able to successfully install and get ZM running relatively error free. That is just the facts. I got good at it trying to shoe-horn ZM into Puppy Linux on 10+ year old machines because I can get these for free saving them from the dumpster. I had a ZM server running for 411 days before I rebooted the machine to clean out the dust.
Hang in there it is what it is
I am grateful that there is a ZoneMinder at all and to the guys who toil with the code.

[praxidice]

I believe you are on the right track with Puppy, especially for non-professional users not using bees-knees hardware. Dunno why there wasn't much interest, but possibly ZoneMinder appeals more to those working full time in an IT professional capacity. Mind you if others have struck the same problems I have, its hardly surprising there are few non-professional users. Please keep me updated with what you are doing as I see a lot of value in a bare-bones operating system configuration that doesn't require the latest and greatest machinery. My office is currently half-full of assorted computers I inherited from a big company recently liquidated and I'd love to re-purpose those for needy causes. I have managed to get FreeBSD 11 installed from a USB connected CD drive which does suggest the pen drive installs, and / or the use of Unetbootin / Rufus might be factors in the weirdness I encountered. That said, I've had many years experience with FreeBSD and stuff-all with linuxen. We've had a number of FreeBSD servers running 24 x 7 x 365 for years without a hint of trouble even without updating anything although these days I tend to keep an eye on security issues. There has long been a disparity between those in any field who see themselves as superior to everyone else and immune to any criticism, and average users who don't have unlimited time and resources to devote to a project Then there are the sacred cows, for example the almost universal animosity between Windows, Unix, Linux and Apple fanatics, allowing little room for anything to be said that rocks the boat. Adequate documentation can bridge the gap, but what is considered adequate by an expert rarely suffices for the hoi polloi. Years ago when I really needed to get a handle on webserver / mailserver administration and was struggling to comprehend the then less than helpful FreeBSD documentation, I built my own documentation including screenshots of every stage to get around the problem whereby experts gloss over heaps of minor but critically important things. This was published as 'The Pedantic FreeBSD' and judging from the compliments it was very well received ... I've occasionally found old copies still lurking around. Shortly after that, the powers that be effectively copied my format and its considered mainstream today. In my opinion, far too many developers think documentation should be the province of high-end experts, but invariably these people neglect to mention zillions of things that make life a nightmare for others. My view since the Pedantic FreeBSD days has been that all documentation should at least be proofed by the most junior / inexperienced person available as only then will all the gotchas be included. Human nature however is a funny thing that creates virtual priesthoods, which is why for many years the Catholic Church insisted Mass be performed in latin (the peasants being considered too uneducated to interpret finer points) and even today we have all manner of experts effectively speaking in tongues.

I notice that despite mentioning several times that I'm using 32 bit hardware, there have been a few references to use of zmrepo, when as far as I can ascertain zmrepo is only available in 64 bit format for the current Centos 7 and for Fedora. Looking back at the zmrepo page I see that there are in fact 32 bit versions for the current Fedora although I didn't try that at the time. In hindsight, I don't think any documentation would have assisted with the problems I had with Centos as the root of the problems was probably the to do with the USB stick install. The stick itself is fine (a near new 32Gb Toshiba) but the fact of USB stick install being the single common factor in most problem I struck suggests to me there is something amiss with it. Why DSL and Puppy don't mind running off a USB stick and nothing else does is a question for another day. Now that I have FreeBSD 11 running and there is a ZoneMinder 1.3 port available, I'm inclined to work with that in the immediate future. If perchance it works as I expect, I'll probably do my own documentation in case others wish to follow. Some of the computers here look a bit long in the tooth however and they may well be recipients for your Puppy compilations. Where pray tell can I acquire a copy of what you prepared ??

[rockedge]

here is a link to the .iso file. burn to cd is an option or install to USB or the harddrive...play around see what works for you. let me know how you make out. There may be some adjustments needed!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By2RU ... W5FRFlxTVE

I have newer version which can be fairly easily upgraded from ZM v1.29 to 1.30 that is uploading. as soon as it is ready I will pass on the link. If it is something that works for you I could possibly construct a version with ZM 1.30. See how it goes....

[rockedge]

this is version with Tahr 6.0.5 Puppy Linux with ZM 1.29 which is easily upgraded to version 1.30 using the puppy package manager.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By2RU ... 1dIUVUtNEU

any trouble let me know.....
Good Luck.

[rockedge]

I have a friend who is a tech document writer for a company that constructs high end electronic control systems and harnesses for companies like OTIS Elevator....you know the guy who has to write all the docs about how the item is made, tested and used.....so later if they need to make more they'll know how. Hardest job in the plant. try dealing with engineers and documents that they create. Like my Dad teaching me math, there is a lot of assuming going on. But if you encounter problems and overcome them AND you are good a writing how you managed to do it and published these instructions, you would be a very valuable ZoneMinder contributer.

[quian]

Hi

I had a bit a time today...

I normally use Ubuntu but decided to give Centos a go.

Centos 7 minimal install

then...

1) sudo yum install wget
2) sudo systemctl disable firewalld
3) sudo systemctl stop firewalld
4) sudo yum install ifconfig (i am using dhcp so needed to check my ip)

then...

I Followed the steps from https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/

and did this...

Installation instructions for EL7 distributions (x86_64 architectures only)

wget http://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/el/7/x86_6 ... noarch.rpm
sudo yum install --nogpgcheck zmrepo-7-7.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install zoneminder


Then I did this..... (just used copy and paste) from (less /usr/share/doc/zoneminder-*/README.Centos7)

New installs
============

1. Unless you are already using MariaDB server, you need to ensure that
the server is configured to start during boot and properly secured
by running:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo mysql_secure_installation

2. Using the password for the root account set during the previous step, you
will need to create the ZoneMinder database and configure a database
account for ZoneMinder to use:

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

The database account credentials, zmuser/zmpass, are arbitrary. Set them to
anything that suits your environment.

3. If you have chosen to change the zoneminder database account credentials to
something other than zmuser/zmpass, you must now edit /etc/zm/zm.conf.
Change ZM_DB_USER and ZM_DB_PASS to the values you created in the previous
step.

This version of zoneminder no longer requires you to make a similar change
to the credentials in /usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app/Config/database.php
This now happens dynamically. Do *not* make any changes to this file.

4. Edit /etc/php.ini, uncomment the date.timezone line, and add your local
timezone. PHP will complain loudly if this is not set, or if it is set
incorrectly, and these complaints will show up in the zoneminder logging
system as errors.

If you are not sure of the proper timezone specification to use, look at
http://php.net/date.timezone

5. Disable SELinux

We currently do not have the resources to create and maintain an accurate
SELinux policy for ZoneMinder on CentOS 7. We will gladly accept pull reqeusts from anyone who wishes to do the work. In the meantime, SELinux
will need to be disabled or put into permissive mode.

To immediately disbale SELinux for the current seesion, issue the following
from the command line:

sudo setenforce 0

To permanently disable SELinux, edit /etc/selinux/config and change the
SELINUX line from "enforcing" to "disabled". This change will take
effect after a reboot.

6. Install mod_ssl or configure /etc/httpd/conf.d/zoneminder.conf to meet your
needs. This package comes preconfigured for HTTPS using the default self
signed certificate on your system. The recommended way to complete this step
is to simply install mod_ssl:

sudo yum install mod_ssl

y If this does not meet your needs, then read README.https to
learn about alternatives. When in doubt, install mod_ssl.


7. Now start the web server:

sudo systemctl enable httpd
sudo systemctl start httpd

8. Now start zoneminder:

sudo systemctl enable zoneminder
sudo systemctl start zoneminder


I then opened my browser and typed in the servers <ip address>/zm


And thats how easy it was 30 min later.

[praxidice]

Thanks for the Puppy iso. Finally found some time to look at it, found It runs beautifully (at least Puppy does) from the USB stick but when I try to get zoneminder running I get 'Unable to connect to ZM db.SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)
Fatal error: Call to a member function query() on a non-object in /usr/share/zoneminder/www/includes/config.php on line 150'

Apache and zoneminder appear to be running but apparently not mysql so I'll need to do some investigation of what is going on. As far as I can see, mysql isn't installed. I'll fix that then maybe need to check that config.php

An interesting funny, normally there is a command to install Puppy on the hard drive but its seems to be missing here. Not to worry, there will be a way around that.

Centos 7 isn't an option right now as I don't have a spare 64 bit system.

[praxidice]

The first of the Puppy files came with hard drive installer, so trying that now. I did have an issue with apache not running on the USB stick but rather than continue with that I'd prefer to get Putty on the hard drive first and sort out whatever needs fixing then.

[praxidice]

Looks like the dreaded USB stick gremlin is back because there is no way known the hard drive installer will run properly. I really need to attend to other issues right now but will burn a CD tomorrow and try again.

[quian]

Thanks for the Puppy iso. Finally found some time to look at it, found It runs beautifully (at least Puppy does) from the USB stick but when I try to get zoneminder running I get 'Unable to connect to ZM db.SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)
Fatal error: Call to a member function query() on a non-object in /usr/share/zoneminder/www/includes/config.php on line 150'

Apache and zoneminder appear to be running but apparently not mysql so I'll need to do some investigation of what is going on. As far as I can see, mysql isn't installed. I'll fix that then maybe need to check that config.php

An interesting funny, normally there is a command to install Puppy on the hard drive but its seems to be missing here. Not to worry, there will be a way around that.

Centos 7 isn't an option right now as I don't have a spare 64 bit system.

Centos 32bit can be downloaded from Centos website.

http://mirror.centos.org/altarch/7/isos ... l-1511.iso

[rockedge]

sorry! to fix this go to /var/run and create a directory called "mysqld" open a terminal in the directory and type:

Code: Select all

#chown -R mysql mysqld

goto /var/log and create a directory called "mysql"

open a terminal and type:

Code: Select all

#mysqld

close the terminal and try to run zoneminder by opening a new terminal and typing

Code: Select all

#zoneminder start

that should fix it.
save on reboot and now everytime the machine boots the usb drive the OS and ZoneMinder should start.

When you want to update ZM to v 1.30 I can give you some direction to use the puppy package manager to easily do it.