Zoneminder is an open-source video camera security application that supports multiple cameras, motion detection, and events triggered based on such detections. It's commonly used in home security systems, office security, etc. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Zoneminder on Arch Linux.
Before we begin, make sure that you have the following:
Start by updating your Arch Linux system to the latest version.
sudo pacman -Syu
Zoneminder requires a variety of dependencies to function correctly. Run the following command to install them:
sudo pacman -S apache mariadb php php-apache php-gd php-mysql php-intl ffmpeg libevent
Zoneminder requires a web server to run. In this tutorial, we will use Apache, a popular open-source web server.
To install Apache, run the following command:
sudo pacman -S apache
After installing Apache, enable and start it using the following command:
sudo systemctl enable httpd.service
sudo systemctl start httpd.service
There are two ways to install Zoneminder on Arch Linux. One is to install from the Arch User Repository (AUR), and the other is to compile from source.
To install Zoneminder from AUR, you will need to install an AUR helper. Yay is a popular AUR helper for Arch Linux, so we will use it in our installation.
First, install Yay:
sudo pacman -S yay
Then, run the following command to install Zoneminder:
yay -S zoneminder
To compile Zoneminder from source, you will need to download the source code from the official Zoneminder website. To download, use the following command:
wget https://github.com/ZoneMinder/zoneminder/archive/1.35.17.tar.gz
Then, extract the source code:
tar -xvf 1.35.17.tar.gz
Next, install the dependencies:
sudo pacman -S gcc make cmake pkg-config git
Navigate to the zoneminder-1.35.17 directory and run the following commands:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
After installation, you need to configure Zoneminder to start correctly.
Navigate to the Apache configuration directory:
cd /etc/httpd/conf
Edit the httpd.conf file using your favorite text editor:
sudo nano httpd.conf
Append the following lines at the end of the file:
LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
<Directory "/usr/share/zoneminder/www">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
Save and exit the file.
Initialize the database and start the MariaDB service using the following commands:
sudo mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
Then, create a new database, user, and grant permissions using the following commands:
sudo mysql -u root
CREATE DATABASE zm;
CREATE USER 'zmuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'zmpass';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON zm.* TO 'zmuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit
Next, configure Zoneminder using the following command:
sudo cp /usr/share/zoneminder/conf/zm.conf.example /etc/zm.conf
Edit the zm.conf file:
sudo nano /etc/zm.conf
Find the following lines:
ZM_DB_USER=zmuser
ZM_DB_PASS=zmpass
And replace them with:
ZM_DB_USER=<your_database_username>
ZM_DB_PASS=<your_database_password>
Save and exit the file.
Change the ownership of the /etc/zm.conf file to www-data user and group:
sudo chown www-data:www-data /etc/zm.conf
Restart the Apache web server using the following command:
sudo systemctl restart httpd.service
After configuring Zoneminder, you can access it using a web browser. Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost/zm/.
The default username and password are admin and admin respectively. After logging in, you can add cameras, configure motion detection, and set up alerts to receive notifications.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Zoneminder on Arch Linux.
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