Debian

Easy Way: Debian Jessie

Step 1: Setup Sudo

By default Debian does not come with sudo. Log in as root or use su command. N.B. The instructions below are for setting up sudo for your current account, you can do this as root if you prefer.

apt-get update
apt-get install sudo
usermod -a -G sudo <username>
exit

Logout or try newgrp to reload user groups

Step 2: Run sudo and update

Now run session using sudo and ensure system is updated.

sudo -i
apt-get upgrade

Step 3: Install Apache and MySQL

These are not dependencies for the package as they could be installed elsewhere.

apt-get install apache2 mysql-server

Step 4: Edit sources.list to add jessie-backports

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following to the bottom of the file

# Backports repository
deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main contrib non-free

CTRL+o and <Enter> to save CTRL+x to exit

Step 5: Install ZoneMinder

apt-get update
apt-get install zoneminder

Step 6: Read the Readme

The rest of the install process is covered in the README.Debian, so feel free to have a read.

gunzip /usr/share/doc/zoneminder/README.Debian.gz
cat /usr/share/doc/zoneminder/README.Debian

Step 7: Setup Database

Install the zm database and setup the user account. Refer to Hints in Ubuntu install should you choose to change default database user and password.

cat /usr/share/zoneminder/db/zm_create.sql | sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf
echo 'grant lock tables,alter,create,select,insert,update,delete,index on zm.* to 'zmuser'@localhost identified by "zmpass";'    | sudo mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf mysql

** Step 8:** zm.conf Permissions

Adjust permissions to the zm.conf file to allow web account to access it.

chgrp -c www-data /etc/zm/zm.conf

Step 9: Setup ZoneMinder service

systemctl enable zoneminder.service

Step 10: Configure Apache

The following commands will setup the default /zm virtual directory and configure required apache modules.

a2enconf zoneminder
a2enmod cgi
a2enmod rewrite

Step 11: Edit Timezone in PHP

nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Search for [Date] (Ctrl + w then type Date and press Enter) and change date.timezone for your time zone. Don’t forget to remove the ; from in 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 then [Enter] to save

CTRL+x to exit

Step 12: Start ZoneMinder

Reload Apache to enable your changes and then start ZoneMinder.

systemctl reload apache2
systemctl start zoneminder

Step 13: Making sure ZoneMinder works

  1. Open up a browser and go to http://hostname_or_ip/zm - should bring up ZoneMinder Console

  2. (Optional API Check)Open up a tab in the same browser and go to http://hostname_or_ip/zm/api/host/getVersion.json

    If it is working correctly you should get version information similar to the example below:

    {
    "version": "1.29.0",
    "apiversion": "1.29.0.1"
}

Congratulations Your installation is complete