Common Issues with Zoneminder Installation on Ubuntu
08AUG16
With some changes “in-the-works” for Ubuntu installs by the hard working volunteers who keep Zoneminder up-to-date, it was recommended that we post fixes/instructions for some issues that continue to surface. This document will likely grow over time but may become obsolete as procedures become better documented.
The upgrade procedures to 1.30.0 have not been fully tested for Ubuntu 15x but have been written with the knowledge of the behavior of the 1.30.0 install package. Post concerns or failures on the forum.
Zoneminder "Master" PPA This is to remind you that software installed from the iconnor zoneminder-master PPA is BETA software and NOT recommended for production systems! BETA software may have some features that do not work correctly!
Zoneminder Database
See Database Tips and Tricks for more topics: http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/General_Notes#Database_Tricks.2FTips
Enable and convert MySQL to innodb_file_per_table for Zoneminder
Note: You may wish to convert MyISAM tables to InnoDB tables before you proceed. Upgrading Zoneminder to 1.26 or newer should do this for you.
innodb_file_per_table is by default ON Mysql 5.6.6 and onwards. There is plenty of stuff on Google about pros & cons of innodb_file_per_table. This post details how to enable innodb_file_per_table on an existing database. Because innodb_file_per_table affects new tables only, created after innodb_file_per_table is enabled, we need to recreate old databases to force innodb_file_per_table on old tables and reclaim some disk space.
Become root
sudo su
Backup First Create a dir to take backups:
cd ~
Note: I found it helpful to create a file which contained the MySQL user and password. Otherwise you will have to enter the user and password for every operation.
nano .my.cnf
Enter this content
[client] user=root password=mysqlpass
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Make backup directory
mkdir backup
cd backup
Copy MySQL data files (raw) (If all goes well, we will not need this)
Stop Zoneminder
service zoneminder stop
If you have other services that use MySQL you will want to stop them and possibly Apache.
service mysql stop && cp -ra /var/lib/mysql mysqldata && service mysql start
Take mysqldump As soon as above line completes, take a mysqldump of all databases
mysqldump --routines --events --flush-privileges --all-databases > all-db.sql
Drop Databases Create a sql file to drop all databases EXCEPT mysql database
mysql -e "SELECT DISTINCT CONCAT ('DROP DATABASE ',TABLE_SCHEMA,' ;') FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA <> 'mysql' AND TABLE_SCHEMA <> 'information_schema';" | tail -n+2 > drop.sql
Verify if drop.sql has correct database names and then execute drop.sql queries.
mysql < drop.sql
Verify all InnoDB tables gone
SELECT table_name, table_schema, engine FROM information_schema.tables WHERE engine = 'InnoDB';
Remove InnoDB files Stop mysql server first
service mysql stop
Then
rm /var/lib/mysql/ibdata1 && rm /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0 && rm /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile1
At this point most likely you will have only /var/lib/mysql/mysql directory only.
Enable innodb_file_per_table
Open my.cnf file
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
Add following line after [mysqld]
innodb_file_per_table
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Time to import from mysqldump Start mysql server now
service mysql start
Run mysql import
mysql < all-db.sql
Force mysql_upgrade (to generate performance_schema)
mysql_upgrade --force
That’s All!
Restart Zoneminder (and any other services you have stopped)
service zoneminder start
Check for proper operation and that all your events are present.
When you are satisfied that all is worling well remove the backup directory and password filr=e
cd ~
rm -r backup
rm .my.cnf
You are finished!
This procedure has been adopted from https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/mysql/enable-innodb-file-per-table. Thanks to Rahul Bansal!
Adding Permissions to allow Database Upgrade
Versions of Zoneminder up to and including 1.28.1 in Ubuntu would automatically add the zm database to MySQL. Beginning about August 2015 the development version from the iconnor-master PPA omitted this step becoming like the Debian install process. Manually adding the database to MySQL will be necessary.
To install the zm database (after doing apt-get install zoneminder)
Create Zoneminder database in MySQL (Note: this also creates the default Zoneminder user and permissions in MySQL)
This next step creates a file which contained the MySQL user and password. Otherwise you will have to enter the user and password on the command line which is not secure!
Go to the root directory
cd ~
Create a hidden password file
nano .my.cnf
Enter this content (but use your MySQL root password!)
[client] user=root password=(mysqlpass)
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Create database permissions
mysql -e "grant select,insert,update,delete,create,alter,lock tables on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';"
Remove password file
rm .my.cnf
Continue with the Zoneminder installation
Upgrades
Ubuntu 14.04 with MySQL 5.6 and Zoneminder from PPA
This procedure starts with Ubuntu Server 14.04-3 with LAMP added. Zoneminder is not installed. It is possible to upgrade a system running Zoneminder but it is not covered in this procedure.
Become root
sudo su
Stop MySQL
service mysql stop
Remove MySQL
apt-get purge mysql
Install MySQL 5.6 (will upgrade the MySQL client)
apt-get install mysql-server-5.6
Note: You may need to edit my.cnf and change the value: sql_mode= to sql_mode=NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
Follow the install instructions: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Ubuntu_Server_14.04_64-bit_with_Zoneminder_1.29.0_the_easy_way
Ubuntu 14.04 - ZM 1.26.5 or later to 1.30.x or the latest PPA version
Note: this has been tested with ZM 1.30.2 RC1 11FEB17 using the repository ppa:iconnor/zoneminder-master
Become root
sudo su
Add Repository
Note: if you need to remove a repository use: add-apt-repository --remove ppa:iconnor/zoneminder
add-apt-repository ppa:iconnor/zoneminder
apt-get update
Stop Zoneminder
service zoneminder stop
Upgrade the installation
apt-get upgrade (may return nothing to upgrade)
apt-get dist-upgrade
You will be asked if you want to replace /etc/init.d/zoneminder. Choose "Y"
With ZM 1.30.3 the database will automatically upgrade.
Add back the delay to allow MySQL to start before Zoneminder
nano /etc/init.d/zoneminder
Add sleep 15 as shown:
start() {
sleep 15
echo -n "Starting $prog: "
And add the following after mkdir -p "$TMPDIR" && chown www-data:www-data "$TMPDIR" to allow the API to work
mkdir /tmp/zm/cache mkdir /tmp/zm/cache/models mkdir /tmp/zm/cache/persistent chown -R www-data:www-data /tmp/zm/cache
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Remove symbolic link
rm /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/zoneminder.conf
Set permissions of /etc/zm/zm.conf to root:www-data 740
chmod 740 /etc/zm/zm.conf
chown root:www-data /etc/zm/zm.conf
Enable Zoneminder and rewrite
a2enconf zoneminder
a2enmod rewrite
Start Zoneminder (Note: Zoneminder may have started automatically after the dist-upgrade)
service zoneminder start
Add timezone to PHP
nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
Search for [Date] 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
Open Zoneminder. Click on Options - Paths
Change PATH_ZMS to /zm/cgi-bin/nph-zms
Reboot the server to set the API tmp directories.
Ubuntu 16.04 - ZM 1.30.x Upgrade
Ubuntu 16.04 contains Zoneminder 1.29.0.
Note: 31MAR17 This was tested with ZM 1.30.2 from ppa:iconnor/zoneminder
To upgrade to Zoneminder 1.30.2
Become root
sudo su
Add Repository. Note:You may need to run: "apt install software-properties-common" if you did the minimal net install of Ubuntu.
add-apt-repository ppa:iconnor/zoneminder
Update package list
apt update
Stop Zoneminder
systemctl stop zoneminder.service
Note: It may be a good idea to backup your database. This procedure was tested with MySQL 5.7 but should work with Mariadb 10.
Upgrade the installation (Zoneminder will upgrade with the "apt upgrade" command. Your database will automatically be upgraded.
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade
Start Zoneminder if necessary
systemctl start zoneminder.service
Ubuntu 14.04 with ZM 1.29.0 from the PPA to Ubuntu 16.04
02MAY16 This upgrade procedure has been tested successfully! It may not be necessary to take a dump of your zm database but I did it just-in-case MySQL messed something up.
Make sure your install is up to date!
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reboot if needed
Login to a console and stop Zoneminder
sudo service zoneminder stop
Take a dump of the Zoneminder (zm) database (the zm.sql will be saved in your "home" directory)
mysqldump -u root -p zm > zm.sql
Drop the "zm" database
mysqladmin -uroot -p drop zm
Run the Ubuntu upgrade (note: the "-d" is required until Ubuntu 16.04-1 is released)
sudo do-release-upgrade -d
When prompted, overwrite the zoneminder configuration with the package maintainers version.
My upgrade informed me MySQL server upgrade failed. I had to continue and reboot (Ctrl+Alt+Del) the server manually.
Log in and become root
sudo su
Clean up packages that were not removed when the upgrade failed (may not be needed in the future)
apt-get autoremove
Install PHP7
apt-get install php php-gd libapache2-mod-php php7.0-mysql
Secure MySQL
mysql_secure_installation
Create Zoneminder (zm) database in MySQL
mysqladmin -uroot -p create zm
Import the zm database
mysql -uroot -p zm < zm.sql
Set permissions
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';"
To better manage the MySQL server I recommend you copy the sample config file and replace the default my.cnf symbolic link.
rm /etc/mysql/my.cnf (this removes the current symbolic link)
cp /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf
To change MySQL settings:
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
In the [mysqld] section add the following
sql_mode = NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Restart MySQL
systemctl restart mysql
Set the Timezone on PHP7
nano /etc/php/7.0/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
Fix Permissions
chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/zoneminder/
Fix to allow API to work
nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
Change "AllowOverride None" to "AllowOverride All" two places as shown below
<Directory /usr/share>
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Enable and start Zoneminder
systemctl enable zoneminder
service zoneminder start
Restart Apache
service apache2 reload
You should be able to connect to Zoneminder in your web browser!
Ubuntu with ZM 1.28.1 or Earlier Upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04
Upgrade Ubuntu running Zoneminder 1.28.1 or earlier.
05MAY16 This has been run on Ubuntu 14.04 with Zoneminder 1.26.5 and Ubuntu 15.10 with Zoneminder 1.28.1. You have two database options: (1)MySQL 5.7 or (2)Mariadb 10.1. Switching to Mariadb Server is a good thing as it seems to work smoother than MySQL 5.7.
Make sure your install is up to date!
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reboot if needed
Login to a console and stop Zoneminder
sudo service zoneminder stop
Take a dump of the Zoneminder (zm) database (the zm.sql will be saved in your "home" directory)You will need this if you choose Mariadb or if something goes wrong with the upgrade.
mysqldump -u root -p zm > zm.sql
Run the Ubuntu upgrade (note: the "-d" is required until Ubuntu 16.04-1 is released)
sudo do-release-upgrade -d
When prompted, overwrite the zoneminder configuration with the package maintainers version.
If, for some reason, you get an error message that MySQL did not upgrade, continue to reboot, manually if needed, and run on restart
apt-get autoremove
Log in and become root
sudo su
Install PHP7
apt-get install php php-gd libapache2-mod-php php7.0-mysql
Use the default MySQL 5.7
To allow the database upgrade to work you will need to edit one sql file
nano /usr/share/zoneminder/db/zm_update-1.28.99.sql
Search for [ALTER IGNORE TABLE] (Ctrl + w then type ALTER IGNORE TABLE and press Enter. Remove IGNORE then
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
To better manage the MySQL server I recommend you copy the sample config file and replace the default my.cnf symbolic link.
rm /etc/mysql/my.cnf (this removes the current symbolic link)
cp /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf
To change MySQL settings:
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
In the [mysqld] section add the following
sql_mode = NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Restart MySQL
systemctl restart mysql
Recommended: Secure MySQL.
mysql_secure_installation
Scroll down to Continue Installation and skip Mariadb
Replace MySQL 5.7 with Mariadb 10
apt-get install mariadb-server
Secure Mariadb (set root password in Mariadb and etc.)
mysql_secure_installation
Create Zoneminder (zm) database in MySQL
mysqladmin -uroot -p create zm
Import the zm database
mysql -uroot -p zm < zm.sql
Set permissions
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';"
Run the database upgrade
/usr/bin/zmupdate.pl
To better manage the MySQL server I recommend you copy the sample config file and replace the default my.cnf symbolic link.
rm /etc/mysql/my.cnf (this removes the current symbolic link)
cp /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf
When you want to change MySQL settings:
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
Continue Installation
Set permissions
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by 'zmpass';"
Run the database upgrade
/usr/bin/zmupdate.pl
Set the Timezone on PHP7
nano /etc/php/7.0/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
Fix Permissions
chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/zoneminder/
Fix to allow API to work
nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
Change "AllowOverride None" to "AllowOverride All" two places as shown below
<Directory /usr/share>
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Enable and start Zoneminder
systemctl enable zoneminder
service zoneminder start
Restart Apache
service apache2 reload
Connect to Zoneminder in your web browser, open Options and set PATH_ZMS to /zm/cgi-bin/nph-zms
Ubuntu 16.04 with ZM 1.30.4 Upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 with ZM 1.30.4
20APR18 As of this writing Zoneminder is not included in Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 and there is not a Bionic version of Zoneminder 1.30.4 in the PPA. I have repackaged a Zoneminder install for AMD64 processors that contains updates to work with PHP 7.2.
Do a release upgrade (do-release-upgrade -d) to upgrade your 16.04 to 18.04. Make sure your system is up to date first! Accept all defaults especially keeping the existing database my.cnf. Upon reboot Zoneminder should start but you will not be able to access it via the web gui.
Here is a link to a script that will do the upgrade process for you:
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Shell_script_zm-install-bionic#Script_to_patch_upgrade_from_Ubuntu_16.04_to_18.04._Works_with_MySQL_or_Mariadb_.28MySQL.29
Copy the contents to a file and make it executable then run it.
Or, follow these steps.
Become root
sudo su
Enable PHP 7.2
a2enmod php7.2
Add timezone to PHP
nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
Search for [Date] (Ctrl + w then type Date and press Enter) and make changes as follows for your time zone. Be sure to remove the ; before date.timezone
[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
systemctl restart apache2
At this point you can access the Zoneminder web gui. However, the API will not function. To correct this you will need to download and install a patched version of Zoneminder
Download Zoneminder;
wget --no-check-certificate 'https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1bZhVcBnlW46SwCnSnZ0sdZzwtOcCiisX' -O /tmp/zoneminder-1.30.4-bionic-amd64.deb
Install Zoneminder
apt install /tmp/zoneminder-1.30.4-bionic-amd64.deb
Make sure Zoneminder is enabled and start it:
systemctl enable zoneminder
service zoneminder start
Make sure Zoneminder is enabled in Apache
a2enconf zoneminder
Check permissions
chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/zoneminder/
Restart Apache
service apache2 reload
Ubuntu 17.10 with ZM 1.30.4 Upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 with ZM 1.30.4
I started with Ubuntu 17.10 and installed Zoneminder 1.30.4 per the WIKI instructions with the Zesty Zoneminder install package.
Become root
sudo su
Mark-hold the installed Zoneminder else it will be removed when the Ubuntu upgrade runs
apt-mark hold zoneminder
Upgrade Ubuntu
do-release-upgrade -d
Accept the defaults especially keep the installed my.cnf!
After reboot become root
sudo su
Disable PHP7.1 and enable PHP7.2
a2dismod php7.1
a2enmod php7.2
systemctl restart apache2
Add timezone to PHP
nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
Search for [Date] (Ctrl + w then type Date and press Enter) and make changes as follows for your time zone. Make sure to remove the ; from the front of date.timezone
[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
systemctl restart apache2
At this point Zoneminder will work accept for the API functions. Download and install the patched Zoneminder install for Bionic
wget --no-check-certificate 'https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1bZhVcBnlW46SwCnSnZ0sdZzwtOcCiisX' -O /tmp/zoneminder-1.30.4-bionic-amd64.deb
Install (downgrade) Zoneminder. Don't worry, you will not lose events
apt install /tmp/zoneminder-1.30.4-bionic-amd64.deb
That's it! Everything should now work!
Ubuntu upgrade Zonminder version prior to 1.32.x
We recommend you read the release notes to see what has changed in this version. The release notes can be found here: https://github.com/ZoneMinder/zoneminder/releases
Limited testing has been done upgrading Zoneminder 1.30.4 to the "Beta" version of 1.32.x on Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04 and 18.04. While there were no issues noted with the Beta version I will wait for the PPA to be populated with Zoneminder 1.32.x to write more. READ THE RELEASE NOTES before you upgrade! If you have a lot of events expect the database upgrade to take a while. See the Forum for mor information or to ask for help: https://forums.zoneminder.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=27502
18SEP18 Modify MySQL my.cnf
Versions of Zoneminder 1.30.4 and earlier that use MySQL required an entry to the my.cnf file. there were two recommended settings:
sql_mode = NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
and
init_connect = 'SET @@sql_mode = CASE CURRENT_USER() WHEN \'zmuser@localhost\' THEN \'NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION\' ELSE @@sql_mode END;'
either in the [mysqld]section.
Remove this entry for Zoneminder 1.32.x
Ubuntu Swap File
I have been puzzled for some time as to why Ubuntu will write to the swap file when there is plenty of RAM installed. I've discovered that writing to the swap file is controlled by the "swappiness" setting! By default, Ubuntu uses a swappiness value of 60 which means that when 40% of memory is used, the system will start swapping data from memory to the swap file. Here is some info you can use to check and/or change swappiness:
To check the swappiness value
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
To change the swappiness value A temporary change (lost on reboot) with a swappiness value of 10 can be made with
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10
To make a change permanent, edit the configuration file with your favorite editor:
sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf
Search for vm.swappiness and change its value as desired. If vm.swappiness does not exist, add it to the end of the file like so:
vm.swappiness=10
The more RAM your system has the lower the swappiness value can be. Possibly even "0" My production system with 16 GIG of RAM works well with a value of "10"
Save the file and reboot.
Use Systemd to Mount Internal Drive or NAS
Mount units with Systemd Ubuntu 16.xx or newer.
Thanks to knnniggett for the effort to make this work!
Background One of the first steps the end user must perform after installing ZoneMinder is to dedicate an entire partition, drive, or network share for ZoneMinder's event storage. The reason being, ZoneMinder will, by design, fill up your hard disk, and you don't want to do that to your root volume! The traditional method for accomplishing this is documented here, and that method continues to work well.
However, due to the mass adoption of Systemd we now have a new way to accomplish this, which happens to give us something the former method did not. Read on to learn more!
Systemd natively integrates all sorts of system admin functions that the legacy sys v init didn't have anything to do with. One of those functions is the ability to create mount points, much in the same way one would create a service (a.k.a. unit) file.
Note: This is especially easy on a new system. Just create your mount (/var/cache/zoneminder for Ubuntu) then install Zoneminder. How easy is that?
Collect Information We need to know the following before we get started:
Find the ZoneMinder events and images folders on your filesystem Determine the name of the web account user For local volumes, determine the device name of the volume For local volumes, determine the uuid of the volume For remote volumes, determine the sharing protocol to be used e.g. nfs, smb, etc For remote volumes, determine the share name
The location of the events and images folder will vary by Linux distro. You are looking for an actual folder, NOT a symlink! Debian (Ubuntu) distros prefer /var/cache/zoneminder. These folder locations are chosen by each distros' packaging guidelines.
On most Linux distros, you can view the uuid of each of your drives like so:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
On my system with two hard drives, the items above are as follows:
/var/cache/zoneminder www-data /dev/sdb1 7ec50da2-fc67-4ade-89c7-6047710afae2
Your configuration will be different. Options to connect to a network share will be noted herein.
Migrate existing data I'm not going to get into the details of this since the necessary steps will vary with each system. What you need to do is migrate whatever happens to be in the ZoneMinder events and images folders over to the new partition, disk, or network share. You do this by mounting the target from the command line via the normal fashion to a temporary folder, issue the appropriate move commands, and finally unmount the target.
This procedure has been modified for Ubuntu 16.xx and later
Log in and become root
sudo su
Stop Zoneminder
service zoneminder stop
Note: The next step will remove the Zoneminder events and images directories! This is safe to do if your system is new and you have not added cameras that have recorded events.
Remove or events and images directories
rm -r /var/cache/zoneminder/events rm -r /var/cache/zoneminder/images
If you have an operational system you may rename the directories (mv /home/user/oldname /home/user/newname) then move the data to the new drive directories.
mv /var/cache/zoneminder/events /var/cache/zoneminder/oldevents mv /var/cache/zoneminder/images /var/cache/zoneminder/oldimages
Create the first Systemd Mount Unit You will be creating a total of three mount units. The first mount unit mounts the drive or partition to your system. To do that create a new folder. I prefer to put mount points under /mnt and give the name of the subfolder the same name as the device or share. In my case, that would be sdb1.
mkdir /mnt/sdb1
When creating mount units with systemd, the filename describing the mount point has to be named in a specific manner. Since the folder I just created is at /mnt/sdb1, one has to name the mount unit mnt-sdb1.mount. Create that file in the /etc/systemd/system folder.
nano /etc/systemd/system/mnt-sdb1.mount
Note: the next step you use is dependent upon the use of an internal drive or a network drive. Read carefully!
Internal drive: add the following contents, changing the path and uuid to match that of your system:
# systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage [Unit] Description=systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage Before=zoneminder [Mount] What=/dev/disk/by-uuid/7ec50da2-fc67-4ade-89c7-6047710afae2 Where=/mnt/sdb1 Type=ext4 Options=defaults,noatime,commit=120,data=writeback [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the editor.
Go to *Next
Network drive/NAS SMB or CIFS Mount
Note: your network share must recognize symbolic links Add the following contents, changing the What= and Options= to match that of your system:
# systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage [Unit] Description=systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage After=networking.service Before=zoneminder [Mount] What=//192.168.50.4/zm Where=/mnt/sdb1 Type= Options=credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,uid=33,gid=33,rw [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the editor.
Install smbclient if you are mounting a Windows or SMB share
apt install smbclient cifs-utils
Create a file for your remote servers logon credential, This is the user and password you would use to access the Windows share and is located in the /root directory.
nano ~/.smbcredentials
Enter your Windows username, password and workgroup or domain in the file:
username=msusername password=mspassword domain=workgroup
Save the file, exit the editor.
Change the permissions of the file to prevent unwanted access to your credentials:
chmod 600 ~/.smbcredentials
- Next
Now enable and start the unit:
systemctl enable mnt-sdb1.mount systemctl start mnt-sdb1.mount
Make and Set Folder Permissions We've created our primary mount point, but we aren't done yet. First, let's create some folders and set the correct permissions:
mkdir -p /mnt/sdb1/zoneminder/events mkdir -p /mnt/sdb1/zoneminder/images chown -R www-data:www-data /mnt/sdb1/zoneminder
Remember that, if you are not running a Ubuntu distro, the web user account might be named something other than www-data on your system.
Create two Systemd Bind Mount Units With the events and images folders created, we want to create two mount units, which bind mount those folders into the desired places.
Create the file /etc/systemd/system/var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
nano /etc/systemd/system/var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
Next add the following content to it:
# systemd bind mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage [Unit] Description=systemd bind mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage After=mnt-sdb1.mount Requires=mnt-sdb1.mount [Mount] What=/mnt/sdb1/zoneminder/events Where=/var/cache/zoneminder/events Type=none Options=bind [Install] WantedBy=local-fs.target
Save and close the editor.
Now enable and start the unit:
systemctl enable var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount systemctl start var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
We now need to do the same thing to the images folder. Create the file /etc/systemd/system/var-lib-zoneminder-images.mount
nano /etc/systemd/system/var-cache-zoneminder-images.mount
Next add the following content to it:
# systemd bind mount unit for ZoneMinder image storage [Unit] Description=systemd bind mount unit for ZoneMinder image storage After=mnt-sdb1.mount Requires=mnt-sdb1.mount [Mount] What=/mnt/sdb1/zoneminder/images Where=/var/cache/zoneminder/images Type=none Options=bind [Install] WantedBy=local-fs.target
Save and close the editor.
Now enable and start the unit:
systemctl enable var-cache-zoneminder-images.mount systemctl start var-cache-zoneminder-images.mount
Now reboot and verify all three mount points were successful:
Bonus Points. Leverage the Power of Systemd If you recall, I mentioned that using systemd to manage your mount points has an advantage over the previous method. With your mount points configured with systemd, you can easily prevent ZoneMinder from starting, should the mount point fail for any reason. Anyone who has ever started ZoneMinder without realizing there was a problem reading from the events folder can tell you what happens when this occurs. You lose all your events, and yes this is by design.
To prevent that from happening we need to modify our zoneminder service file. But first make a copy just in case..
cp /lib/systemd/system/zoneminder.service /lib/systemd/system/zoneminder.service.sav
nano /lib/systemd/system/zoneminder.service
Add entries to the After= and Requires=
# ZoneMinder systemd unit file # This file is intended to work with Debian distributions [Unit] Description=ZoneMinder CCTV recording and surveillance system After=network.target mysql.service mnt-sdb1.mount var-cache-zoneminder-images.mount var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount # Remarked out so that it will start ZM on machines that don't have mysql installed #Requires=mysql.service Requires=mnt-sdb1.mount var-cache-zoneminder-images.mount var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount [Service] #User=www-data Type=forking ExecStart=/usr/bin/zmpkg.pl start ExecReload=/usr/bin/zmpkg.pl restart ExecStop=/usr/bin/zmpkg.pl stop PIDFile=/var/run/zm/zm.pid Restart=on-abnormal
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the editor.
Now issue a daemon reload to tell systemd to pick up the change:
systemctl daemon-reload
Should the mount point fail during startup, systemd will prevent the ZoneMinder service from starting with a message stating a failed dependency. Your events are saved from deletion!
Oh, restart Zoneminder
service zoneminder start
Zoneminder Multi Server on Ubuntu
10MAY18 - Tested this procedure with Ubuntu Bionic 18.04 with Zoneminder 1.30.4, Mariadb, Apache2 and PHP 7.2 installed per the WIKI instructions with the shell script.
I developed this procedure using two Ubuntu 16.04 servers set up with Zoneminder 1.30.4 per the instructions in the WIKI (https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Ubuntu_Server_16.04_64-bit_with_Zoneminder_1.30.4_the_easy_way). I used the default MySQL server but Mariadb can also be used with a couple of modifications.
For this procedure my servers were:
Name - u2 IP address 192.168.50.2 This is the storage and database server
Name - u3 IP address 192.168.50.3 This is the remote zoneminder server
It is possible to use a separate database server and a seperate storage server. Your storage server does need to have a Linux file system on it as Zoneminder uses symbolic links and a Windows (NTFS, FAT32) does not know about symbolic links. You can also use Samba to mount the storage drive but this is written to use NFS.
"Official" Multi Server Install is at: http://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/stable/installationguide/multiserver.html
I use Putty from a Windows PC to connect to the servers as I can copy the commands from this web page and paste them into Putty. This is the easy way for me!
Database and Storage Server
Stop the Zoneminder service
service zoneminder stop
Edit the my.conf. Change bind-address to: bind-address = 0.0.0.0
nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Restart MySQL
systemctl restart mysql
Grant remote user access (Note: for additional remote servers add them using their IP address)
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@192.168.50.2 identified by 'zmpass';"
mysql -uroot -p -e "grant all on zm.* to 'zmuser'@192.168.50.3 identified by 'zmpass';"
Install the NFS server
apt install nfs-kernel-server
Add the export directory
nano /etc/exports
Add to the end of the file (Note: for additional remote servers add additional lines using their IP address)
/var/cache/zoneminder/events 192.168.50.3(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Restart the NFS server
systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server
Edit the Zoneminder config file
nano /etc/zm/zm.conf
Change these two lines
ZM_DB_HOST=192.168.50.2
ZM_SERVER_HOST=u2
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Start Zoneminder service
service zoneminder start
Local Zoneminder Server(s)
If you have more than one remote server repeat this procedure on each one adjusting the host name for each.
Stop Zoneminder
service zoneminder stop
Edit the Zoneminder config file
nano /etc/zm/zm.conf
Change these two lines
ZM_DB_HOST=192.168.50.2
ZM_SERVER_HOST=u3
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Install NFS client
apt install nfs-client
modprobe nfs
echo NFS | tee -a /etc/modules
Create a systemd file for the mount
nano /etc/systemd/system/var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
Copy and paste everything between the lines into the systemd file
# systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage [Unit] Description=systemd mount unit for ZoneMinder event storage After=network.target Before=zoneminder [Mount] What=192.168.50.2:/var/cache/zoneminder/events Where=/var/cache/zoneminder/events Type=nfs [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Ctrl+o Enter to save
CTRL+x to exit
Save and start the mount
systemctl enable var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
systemctl start var-cache-zoneminder-events.mount
Start the Zoneminder service
service zoneminder start
In a web browser open Zoneminder on one of the servers. (Note: you may want to check all your servers to insure Zoneminder is started on each. You may have to reboot each server to get Zoneminder to start)
Click on Options - Servers - Add New Server
In the Name block add a name of one of your servers. In my example the first server name is u2.
In the Hostname block enter the IP address of the first server. In my example it is 192.168.50.2
Click Save
Add the rest of your servers in the same way. Close the Options window when your servers have been added.
When you add a camera make sure you select a server you want to add it to (Source - General - Server dropdown) All of your cameras can be managed and viewed from one server Zoneminder screen.
