Debian 12 Bookworm with Zoneminder 1.36.x and 1.37.x

Debian 12 Bookworm is released with Zoneminder 1.36.33 and as usual for Debian the zm database needs to be created manually.

Note: This version has been verified with Bookworm Debian 12 official release. However, there may be issues that are unresolved until a version is made available on zmrepo. If using ZmNinja you may have to clear the API cache.

In time a version of Zoneminder for Bookworm will be made available in the zmrepo.

You will have to install sudo and add the user to the sudoers file.

Become root with

su

Install sudo

apt install sudo

Then add the user

/sbin/adduser username sudo 

I recommend rebooting at this point but a log out nad back in also works.

Become root

sudo su

Timezone: it is recommended you set your specific timesone with:

timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

Of course use your timezone in place of America/New_York

Install Apache2, PHP and your favorite database (Mariadb recommended). A quick way to install LAMP is:

apt install apache2 mariadb-server php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql lsb-release gnupg2

Secure MySQL or Mariadb, create root password et. al.

mysql_secure_installation

Add timezone to PHP (This may not be necessary but does not hurt and will allow the time of events to be displayed correctly)

nano /etc/php/8.2/apache2/php.ini

Search for [Date] (Ctrl + w then type Date and press Enter) and make changes as follows for your time zone

[Date]
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
; http://php.net/date.timezone
date.timezone = America/New_York

Ctrl+o Enter to save

CTRL+x to exit

Restart Apache

service apache2 restart

Install Zoneminder

apt install zoneminder

Create Zoneminder database in MySQL (Note: this also creates the default Zoneminder user and permissions in MySQL) Use the database password when prompted.

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

Set permissions

chmod 640 /etc/zm/zm.conf

chown root:www-data /etc/zm/zm.conf

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/cache/zoneminder/

chmod 755 /var/cache/zoneminder/

Replace zoneminder.conf

cp /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf.sav

rm /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf

nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/zoneminder.conf

Paste the following content into nano:

# Remember to enable cgi mod (i.e. "a2enmod cgi").
ScriptAlias /zm/cgi-bin "/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin"
<Directory "/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin">
    Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>


# Order matters. This alias must come first.
Alias /zm/cache "/var/cache/zoneminder"
<Directory "/var/cache/zoneminder"
    Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
        # Apache 2.4
        Require all granted
    </IfModule>
</Directory>

Alias /zm /usr/share/zoneminder/www
<Directory /usr/share/zoneminder/www>
  Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
  <IfModule mod_dir.c>
    DirectoryIndex index.php
  </IfModule>
</Directory>

# For better visibility, the following directives have been migrated from the
# default .htaccess files included with the CakePHP project.
# Parameters not set here are inherited from the parent directive above.
<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api">
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^$ app/webroot/ [L]
   RewriteRule (.*) app/webroot/$1 [L]
   RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app">
   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
   RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
   RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app/webroot">
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
    RewriteBase /zm/api
</Directory>

Enable Zoneminder service to start at boot

systemctl enable zoneminder.service

Add www-data to the sudo group (to enable use of local video devices)

adduser www-data video

Start Zoneminder

systemctl start zoneminder.service

Enable Zoneminder configuration in Apache.

a2enconf zoneminder

a2enmod rewrite

a2enmod headers

a2enmod expires

a2enmod cgi

service apache2 reload

Install complete. Open Zoneminder/Options and set the timezone in Options/System. Add cameras.