Zoneminder Installation With Web Camera (Part 1 of 3)

This is a step by step instruction for installing Zoneminder onto Linux Mint 9. From picking a web camera, installing the software, setting up camera streaming to adding the camera to Zoneminder.

http://jasacomputers.com

Helpful Links:

Web Cameras on Linux:
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

mjpg_streamer:
http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Uvc

Streaming:
http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12082

Shared Memory:
http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ#What_does_a_.27Can.27t_shmget:_I....

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1521975

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• linux
• mint
• ubuntu
• zoneminder
• security
• surveillance
• apache2
• mysql
• mysql-server
• desktop
• computer
• software
• video
• instruction
• howto
• Logitech
• Web
• Camera
• motion
• detection

[axel1973w]

Nice Tutorial! However.. yet i was not able to find out WHERE ZoneMinder is storing/saving its video files and the video format it uses as when saved as file. Any tips?

[tryallanderror]

@axel1973w The events are stored under usr/share/zoneminder/events/..­.  There you should see folders for each one of your cameras and under that are a series of folders based on the date and time of the event. Each event is stored as a series of jpg images, not a video file. I believe the only way to get an event in a video format is to export them individually.

[McgregorKLB]

Hi I just checked all 3 of your video's about setting up Zoneminder and was very impressed. Looks like a great tool. ATM I am using YawCam on Win7 in combination with a DV firewire camara. It has a resolution of 720 x 576. I was wondering if Zoneminder has support for firewire camara's. Also, are there settings for interlaced or progressive ? Now i have photo's that are interlaces witch are not very clear. I am willing to switch to Zoneminder. Think it's awesome! Thanks you!!

[tryallanderror]

@McgregorKLB I don't know if i'll be much help here. I think the question is how to stream the video from the firewire camera? Mjpg_streamer i don't believe supports this. Did some searching but did not come up with anything. If you can get it to stream in a web browser then it should work in Zoneminder. Sorry, have not seen anything on interlaced versus progressive and not very familiar with it.

[RomeoGoesRetro]

Great vids. Thanks! Can you provide any help on setting up email alerts, perhaps using the box itself as an smtp server?

[tryallanderror]

@RomeoGoesRetro I've been attempting to setup email alerts for a while now and have not had any luck. Here is a link that I have been working off (replace spaces with "."):

zoneminder com/wiki/index php/Ubuntu_9.04_server_32bit

Keep in mind that you have to install Postfix and Mail (to mail from a command line). I still have not got it to work but it is not a problem with Zoneminder but a problem with the mail server configuration and relaying messages to my stmp server.

[TheQedqubit]

i find it strange the zoneminderwiki has no "camera settings"-topic where working configs can be posted. zmu -d /dev/video0 -q is the command to query device settings, but the terminal answers"use apt get to install zoneminder"(it's already running !) and v4l-info for the philips740 gives yu12 but it isn't in the list but y420 works~....how get my dv cam working is still a mystery

cant use 4 cams on a usb-pci card, the data streams choke the usb controller: 2 cams max

~~still having fun though

[johnsonld123]

add script in startup apps and reboot

[johnsonld123]

This all worked out great. tryallanderror even helped me with multiple webcams...

I still ran in to memory issues error

Oct 22 07:45:39 m0nster zmwatch[1593]: ERR [Can't get shared memory id '7a6d0001', 1: No such file or directory]

Zoneminder starts but my cams wouldn't. urgh

Which required me to manually start both cams after booting up.

after trying all the numbers I could find in forums for memory errors I stuck with

[McgregorKLB]

@leeroybrowns Thanks! I will definitively test this. YawCam is running for 150+ days without problems. It's not the best program but it does the job. Zoneminder would be the best choice but I spend a lot of time to try combining it with the Firewire camare.. without luck though.. Thanks for your tip!

[danielcaraj]

Hello: to fix the problem wit your camera do this:

Edit zmdc.pl

We need to edit zoneminder source to point the video driver.

Open file ” /usr/bin/zmdc.pl” (the location on some machine, might be different)

and add this code, right before the “my @daemons =….” (about line 64). $ENV{LD_PRELOAD} = ‘/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so­’;

[McgregorKLB]

@tryallanderror The DV Camera is a Panasonic Camcorder NV-GS11. Witch is supported by Linux UVC. I have the webinterface running and i could add camera's. In gucview the firewire camare does not work, but in Kino it shows up under capture. I checked the command "dmesg" and tried to use /dev/fw0 as input in ZM, but that did not work. A usb Microsoft webcam does work in gucview, but not jet in the browser.. I will play with it some more. If i do get the answer, i will respond to you! Thanks again!