Options - System

LANG_DEFAULT - ZoneMinder allows the web interface to use languages other than English if the appropriate language file has been created and is present. This option allows you to change the default language that is used from the shipped language, British English, to another language.

OPT_USE_AUTH - ZoneMinder can run in two modes. The simplest is an entirely unauthenticated mode where anyone can access ZoneMinder and perform all tasks. This is most suitable for installations where the web server access is limited in other ways. The other mode enables user accounts with varying sets of permissions. Users must login or authenticate to access ZoneMinder and are limited by their defined permissions. Authenticated mode alone should not be relied up for securing Internet connected ZoneMinder.

AUTH_TYPE - ZoneMinder can use two methods to authenticate users when running in authenticated mode. The first is a builtin method where ZoneMinder provides facilities for users to log in and maintains track of their identity. The second method allows interworking with other methods such as http basic authentication which passes an independently authentication ‘remote’ user via http. In this case ZoneMinder would use the supplied user without additional authentication provided such a user is configured ion ZoneMinder.

AUTH_RELAY - When ZoneMinder is running in authenticated mode it can pass user details between the web pages and the back end processes. There are two methods for doing this. This first is to use a time limited hashed string which contains no direct username or password details, the second method is to pass the username and passwords around in plaintext. This method is not recommend except where you do not have the md5 libraries available on your system or you have a completely isolated system with no external access. You can also switch off authentication relaying if your system is isolated in other ways.

AUTH_HASH_SECRET - When ZoneMinder is running in hashed authenticated mode it is necessary to generate hashed strings containing encrypted sensitive information such as usernames and password. Although these string are reasonably secure the addition of a random secret increases security substantially.

AUTH_HASH_IPS - When ZoneMinder is running in hashed authenticated mode it can optionally include the requesting IP address in the resultant hash. This adds an extra level of security as only requests from that address may use that authentication key. However in some circumstances, such as access over mobile networks, the requesting address can change for each request which will cause most requests to fail. This option allows you to control whether IP addresses are included in the authentication hash on your system. If you experience intermitent problems with authentication, switching this option off may help.

AUTH_HASH_LOGINS - The normal process for logging into ZoneMinder is via the login screen with username and password. In some circumstances it may be desirable to allow access directly to one or more pages, for instance from a third party application. If this option is enabled then adding an ‘auth’ parameter to any request will include a shortcut login bypassing the login screen, if not already logged in. As authentication hashes are time and, optionally, IP limited, this can allow short-term access to ZoneMinder screens from other web pages etc. In order to use this, the calling application will have to generate the authentication hash itself and ensure it is valid. If you use this option you should ensure that you have modified the ZM_AUTH_HASH_SECRET to something unique to your system.

OPT_FAST_DELETE - Normally an event created as the result of an alarm consists of entries in one or more database tables plus the various files associated with it. When deleting events in the browser it can take a long time to remove all of this if your are trying to do a lot of events at once. It is recommended that you set this option which means that the browser client only deletes the key entries in the events table, which means the events will no longer appear in the listing, and leaves the zmaudit daemon to clear up the rest later.

FILTER_RELOAD_DELAY - ZoneMinder allows you to save filters to the database which allow events that match certain criteria to be emailed, deleted or uploaded to a remote machine etc. The zmfilter daemon loads these and does the actual operation. This option determines how often in seconds the filters are reloaded from the database to get the latest versions or new filters. If you don’t change filters very often this value can be set to a large value.

FILTER_EXECUTE_INTERVAL - ZoneMinder allows you to save filters to the database which allow events that match certain criteria to be emailed, deleted or uploaded to a remote machine etc. The zmfilter daemon loads these and does the actual operation. This option determines how often the filters are executed on the saved event in the database. If you want a rapid response to new events this should be a smaller value, however this may increase the overall load on the system and affect performance of other elements.

MAX_RESTART_DELAY - The zmdc (zm daemon control) process controls when processeses are started or stopped and will attempt to restart any that fail. If a daemon fails frequently then a delay is introduced between each restart attempt. If the daemon stills fails then this delay is increased to prevent extra load being placed on the system by continual restarts. This option controls what this maximum delay is.

WATCH_CHECK_INTERVAL - The zmwatch daemon checks the image capture performance of the capture daemons to ensure that they have not locked up (rarely a sync error may occur which blocks indefinitely). This option determines how often the daemons are checked.

WATCH_MAX_DELAY - The zmwatch daemon checks the image capture performance of the capture daemons to ensure that they have not locked up (rarely a sync error may occur which blocks indefinitely). This option determines the maximum delay to allow since the last captured frame. The daemon will be restarted if it has not captured any images after this period though the actual restart may take slightly longer in conjunction with the check interval value above.

RUN_AUDIT - The zmaudit daemon exists to check that the saved information in the database and on the filesystem match and are consistent with each other. If an error occurs or if you are using ‘fast deletes’ it may be that database records are deleted but files remain. In this case, and similar, zmaudit will remove redundant information to synchronise the two data stores. This option controls whether zmaudit is run in the background and performs these checks and fixes continuously. This is recommended for most systems however if you have a very large number of events the process of scanning the database and filesystem may take a long time and impact performance. In this case you may prefer to not have zmaudit running unconditionally and schedule occasional checks at other, more convenient, times.

AUDIT_CHECK_INTERVAL - The zmaudit daemon exists to check that the saved information in the database and on the filesystem match and are consistent with each other. If an error occurs or if you are using ‘fast deletes’ it may be that database records are deleted but files remain. In this case, and similar, zmaudit will remove redundant information to synchronise the two data stores. The default check interval of 900 seconds (15 minutes) is fine for most systems however if you have a very large number of events the process of scanning the database and filesystem may take a long time and impact performance. In this case you may prefer to make this interval much larger to reduce the impact on your system. This option determines how often these checks are performed.

OPT_CONTROL - ZoneMinder includes limited support for controllable cameras. A number of sample protocols are included and others can easily be added. If you wish to control your cameras via ZoneMinder then select this option otherwise if you only have static cameras or use other control methods then leave this option off.

OPT_TRIGGERS - ZoneMinder can interact with external systems which prompt or cancel alarms. This is done via the zmtrigger.pl script. This option indicates whether you want to use these external triggers. Most people will say no here.

CHECK_FOR_UPDATES - From ZoneMinder version 1.17.0 onwards new versions are expected to be more frequent. To save checking manually for each new version ZoneMinder can check with the zoneminder.com website to determine the most recent release. These checks are infrequent, about once per week, and no personal or system information is transmitted other than your current version number. If you do not wish these checks to take place or your ZoneMinder system has no internet access you can switch these check off with this configuration variable

UPDATE_CHECK_PROXY - If you use a proxy to access the internet then ZoneMinder needs to know so it can access zoneminder.com to check for updates. If you do use a proxy enter the full proxy url here in the form of http://<proxy host>:<proxy port>/

SHM_KEY - ZoneMinder uses shared memory to speed up communication between modules. To identify the right area to use shared memory keys are used. This option controls what the base key is, each monitor will have it’s Id or’ed with this to get the actual key used. You will not normally need to change this value unless it clashes with another instance of ZoneMinder on the same machine. Only the first four hex digits are used, the lower four will be masked out and ignored.