ZoneMinder Forums

Hello - I just finished porting ZM Server and ZMEventnotifications to Termux running on a non-rooted Android phone. The purpose was to deploy a surveillance network in a location that only has access to mobile networks and to combine the functions of a mobile hotspot and stand-alone linux computer onto a single device. My network consists of a Samsung S9 with multiple esp32cams running rtsp streams, and is powered by an off-grid solar system. So now I can tunnel into the phone via ngrok and access ZM web pages or receive sms/email notifications when the event server detects specific objects, such as "person".

The distribution is simple to install into Termux as a backed up ubuntu tarball, although it is 2GB. Reinstalling everything from scratch into Termux was somewhat of a pain due to the need to install platform-specific python modules and a number of other random issues that were encountered.

I can think of a number of advantages to running ZM on a mobile device. If the cameras had their own uninterruptible power supply it would be difficult to defeat the surveillance network by cutting the power or internet connection. And of course, you could deploy the system anywhere that has mobile network access and it will run until the phone/camera batteries die. It is a rather inexpensive hardware platform if you were to obtain a cheap used phone.

Neat! Yeah I have a box f full of old phones that could be out to use.

Hi, nice to meet you iconnor and thanks for all your work in developing ZM!

I have ZM running on multiple phones on Termux. Here are a few notes on this Termux distribution:

There is currently only an Ubuntu tarbar for Termux running on aarch64. Other phones such as amd64 would need to have ZM reinstalled from scratch.

To install I do the following:

Install Termux from F-Droid instead of Play Store
Setup sshd to shell into the phone and continue the installation from a computer
Install Ubuntu with Termux proot-distro
Install the ZM Termux distro tarball for Ubuntu/aarch64

A few more notes:
The cameras connect to the phone through wifi tethering and alert messages are sent via mobile networks or wifi sta connection. It is also possible to write a script to send messages directly via sms instead of email to sms using the Termix Android API. The Termux Android API also supports taking snapshots from the built-in cameras, so it is possible to use the phone's cameras to generate a video stream.

Hi,

sounds really good.
Where do I find that ZM termux distro tarball?