Debian

Easy Way: Debian Stretch

This procedure will guide you through the installation of ZoneMinder on Debian 9 (Stretch). This section has been tested with ZoneMinder 1.32.3 on Debian 9.8.

Step 1: Make sure your system is up to date

Open a console and use su command to become Root.

apt update
apt upgrade

Step 2: Setup Sudo (optional but recommended)

By default Debian does not come with sudo, so you have to install it and configure it manually. This step is optional but recommended and the following instructions assume that you have setup sudo. If you prefer to setup ZoneMinder as root, do it at your own risk and adapt the following instructions accordingly.

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

Now your terminal session is back under your normal user. You can check that you are now part of the sudo group with the command groups, “sudo” should appear in the list. If not, run newgrp sudo and check again with groups.

Step 3: Install Apache and MySQL

These are not dependencies for the ZoneMinder package as they could be installed elsewhere. If they are not installed yet in your system, you have to trigger their installation manually.

sudo apt install apache2 mysql-server

Step 4: Add ZoneMinder’s Package repository to your apt sources

ZoneMinder’s Debian packages are not included in Debian’s official package repositories. To be able to install ZoneMinder with APT, you have to edit the list of apt sources and add ZoneMinder’s repository.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following to the bottom of the file

# ZoneMinder repository
deb https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/release stretch/

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

Because ZoneMinder’s package repository provides a secure connection through HTTPS, apt must be enabled for HTTPS.

sudo apt install apt-transport-https

Finally, download the GPG key for ZoneMinder’s repository:

wget -O - https://zmrepo.zoneminder.com/debian/archive-keyring.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Step 5: Install ZoneMinder

sudo apt update
sudo apt 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.

zcat /usr/share/doc/zoneminder/README.Debian.gz

Step 7: Enable ZoneMinder service

sudo systemctl enable zoneminder.service

Step 8: Configure Apache

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

sudo a2enconf zoneminder
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod cgi # this is done automatically when installing the package. Redo this command manually only for troubleshooting.

Step 9: Edit Timezone in PHP

Automated way:

sudo sed -i "s/;date.timezone =/date.timezone = $(sed 's/\//\\\//' /etc/timezone)/g" /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini

Manual way

sudo nano /etc/php/7.0/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 10: Start ZoneMinder

Reload Apache to enable your changes and then start ZoneMinder.

sudo systemctl reload apache2
sudo systemctl start zoneminder

You are now ready to go with ZoneMinder. Open a browser and type either localhost/zm one the local machine or {IP-OF-ZM-SERVER}/zm if you connect from a remote computer.

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://archive.debian.org/debian/ jessie-backports main contrib non-free

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

Run the following

echo 'Acquire::Check-Valid-Until no;' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99no-check-valid-until

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.

zcat /usr/share/doc/zoneminder/README.Debian.gz

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: Please check the configuration

Zoneminder 1.32.x
  1. Check path of ZM_PATH in ‘/etc/zm/conf.d/zmcustom.conf’ is ZM_PATH_ZMS=/zm/cgi-bin/nph-zms
    ::

    cat /etc/zm/conf.d/zmcustom.conf

  2. Check config of /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/zoneminder.conf has the same ScriptAlias /zm/cgi-bin that is configured in ZM_PATH. The part /nph-zms has to be left out of the ScriptAlias

    ScriptAlias /zm/cgi-bin “/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin” <Directory “/usr/lib/zoneminder/cgi-bin”>

    ::

    cat /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/zoneminder.conf

Step 13: Start ZoneMinder

Reload Apache to enable your changes and then start ZoneMinder.

systemctl reload apache2
systemctl start zoneminder

Step 14: 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