1250 lines
73 KiB
Plaintext
1250 lines
73 KiB
Plaintext
ZONE MINDER v0.9.10
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===================
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Introduction
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============
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Welcome to ZoneMinder, the new all-in-one Linux GPL'd security camera solution.
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A few months back my garage was burgled and all my wine and power tools were
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nicked! I realised shortly after that if I'd just had a camera overlooking the
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door then at least I'd have know exactly when and who did the dirty deed. And so
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ZoneMinder was born. It's still a baby but hopefully it can grow up to be
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something that can be genuinely useful and maybe one day either prevent similar
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incidents or perhaps bring some perpetrators to justice.
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ZoneMinder is designed around a series of independent components that only
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function when necessary limiting any wasted resource and maximising the
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efficiency of your machine. A fairly ancient Pentium PC should be able to track
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one camera per device at up to 25 frames per second with this dropping by half
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approximately for each additional camera on he same device, additional cameras
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on other devices do not interact so can maintain this frame rate. Even
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monitoring several cameras still will not overload the CPU as frame processing
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is designed to synchronise with capture and not stall it.
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As well as being fast ZoneMinder is designed to be friendly and even more than
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that, actually useful. As well as the fast video interface core it also comes
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with a user friendly and comprehensive PHP based web interface allowing you to
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control and monitor your cameras from home or even at work or on the road. It
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supports variable web capabilities based on available bandwidth. The web
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interface also allows you to view events that your cameras have captured and
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archive them or review them time and again, or delete the ones you no longer
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wish to keep. The web pages directly interact with the core daemons ensuring
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full co-operation at all times. ZoneMinder can even be installed as a system
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service ensuring it is right there if your computer has to reboot for any
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reason.
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The core of ZoneMinder is the capture and analysis of images and there is a
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highly configurable set of parameters that allow you to ensure that you can
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eliminate false positives whilst ensuring that anything you don't want to miss
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will be captured and saved. ZoneMinder allows you to define a set of 'zones' for
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each camera of varying sensitivity and functionality. This allows you to
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eliminate regions that you don't wish to track or define areas that will alarm
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if various thresholds are exceeded in conjunction with other zones.
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ZoneMinder is fresh off the keyboard and so comes with no warranty whatsoever,
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please try it, send your feedback and if you get anything useful out of it
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please let me know.
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Requirements
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============
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ZoneMinder needs a couple of things to work. Firstly, it uses MySQL so you'll
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need that. In order to compile you need to make sure you have a development
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installation and not just a runtime, this is because it needs to use the MySQL
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header files. Next it does things with JPEGs so you'll need at least libjpeg.a
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which I think come as standard nowadays with most distributions. It also uses
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the netpbm utilities in a very limited way to generate thumbnails under certain
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circumstances though this can be modified. ZoneMinder can generate MPEG videos
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if necessary, for this you'll need the Berkeley MPEG encoder, if you don't have
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it don't worry the options will be hidden and you'll not miss much really. The
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web interface uses PHP and so you need that in your apache or other web server
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as well. There are also various perl modules that you may need that vary
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depending on which options you choose on installation.
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Finally, there is quite a bit of image streaming in the package so if you don't
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have Netscape or other browser that supports image streaming natively I
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recommend you get the excellent Cambozola java applet from
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http://www.charliemouse.com/code/cambozola/ which will let you view the image
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stream in Internet Explorer and others. Otherwise you're limited to just
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refreshing still images.
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Hardware-wise, ZoneMinder has been used with BTTV cards and USB cameras with the
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V4L interface. I don't have a lot of cameras so I've not had change to test it
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much. There will soon be a list of devices that are definitely known to work on
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the web site. Please let me know if your camera works or not. You do need to
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have Video 4 Linux installed. I've not got many machines so I've only really
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used it on RedHat, which does have everything there by default I think.
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Slackware does need a bit more tinkering than other distributions, there will be
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document on the web site describing what users have had to do to get it working
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with very soon, though I can email additional information if requested. Please
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give me feedback on other distributions.
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Building
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========
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The first thing you need to do is run the included configure script to define
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some initial configuration, just type
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./configure --with-mysql=<your MySQL root> --with-webdir=<your web directory> --
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with-cgidir=<your cgi directory>
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where --with-mysql identifies where you have installed MySQL (usually /usr), --
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with-webdir is the directory to which you want to install the PHP files, and --
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with-cgidir is the directory to which you want to install CGI files. These
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directories could be /var/www/html/zm and /var/www/cgi-bin for example. There
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are also two further arguments you can add if your web user and group are not
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both 'apache'. These are --with-webuser and --with-webgroup. Type
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./configure -help
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for details.
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That's the build configuration sorted out. The next thing you have to do is do a
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little more runtime specific configuration. ZoneMinder config is scattered
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around various files in the distribution so to make things easier for you there
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is a ZoneMinder configuration utility included. Type
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perl ./zmconfig.pl
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to get it started. It is an interactive utility and will prompt you by asked you
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various questions. For most questions typing '?' will give you additional help
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if you need it. Once you've answered all the questions it will write out a
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configuration file called 'zmconfig.txt' and then process various files to
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substitute the information in them. If you run it again it will remember your
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answers from before by reading 'zmconfig.txt' before it starts. You can also
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edit this file directly to change values. If you do you can run zmconfig in non-
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interactive mode by typing
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perl ./zmconfig.pl -noi
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which will just read your file and do the substations with no questions asked.
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Also if you are upgrading from version 0.9.7 (or later) you can copy your old
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zmconfig*.txt files into the current build directory before you run zmconfig.pl
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and it will use your preferences as a basis for generating the new ones.
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If you get errors such as 'Can't locate Term::ReadKey.pm' when trying to run
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zmconfig.pl then this module is missing from your system. See the
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troubleshooting section for details of how to install it.
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Among the first questions zmconfig.pl asks you are to do with the database and
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the next thing you should do is create it and the associated database users. You
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may notice that there are two sets of users and passwords. This is because the
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streaming server and utility binaries require only read access to the database
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so you may wish to create both a full access user and a limited access user. You
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can of course set both to the full access user. The included schema
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(zmschema.sql) can be used to actually create the tables required. The database
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is usually called just 'zm'.
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If you are upgrading from a previous version you can use zmalter-x.y.z.sql to
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upgrade your database and make the necessary changes where x.y.z identifies the
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version of ZoneMinder you had installed previously. So if you are going from
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version 0.9.7 to version 0.9.10 you would run the scripts for all intervening
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versions to get to the current one. For a new installation the simplest way to
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create your database and users is as follows,
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mysql mysql < zmschema.sql
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mysql mysql
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grant select,insert,update,delete on <your database name>.* to '<your first
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username>' identified by '<your first password>';
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grant select on <your database name>.* to '<your second username>' identified by
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'<your second password>'
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quit
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mysqladmin reload
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You may need to supply a username and password to the mysql commands in the
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first place to give yourself sufficient privileges to perform the required
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commands.
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Then just type 'make' and off you go.
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Installation
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============
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Once the build has completed you should have several shiny new binaries. I will
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now briefly describe what each of them do.
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zmc - This is the ZoneMinder Capture daemon. This binary's job is to sit on a
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video device and such frames off it as fast as possible, this should run
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at more or less constant speed.
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zma - This is the ZoneMinder Analysis daemon. This is the component that goes
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through the captured frames and checks them for alarming events. It generally
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keeps up with the zmc but if very busy may skip some frames to prevent it
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falling behind.
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zms - This is the ZoneMinder Streaming server. The web interface connects with
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this to get real-time or historical streamed images.
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zmu - This is the ZoneMinder Utility. It's basically a handy command line
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interface to several useful functions. Not really meant to be used by anyone
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except the web page (there's only limited 'help' in it so far) but can be if
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necessary, especially for debugging video problems.
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zmfix - This is a small binary that exists only to ensure that the video device
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files can be read by the main capture daemons. It is often the case that these
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device files are set to be accessible by root only on boot. This binary runs
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setuid and ensures that they have appropriate permissions. This is not a daemon
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and runs only on system start and then exits.
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As well as this there are the web PHP files in the web directory and some perl
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scripts in the scripts directory, only one of which may actually be used in a
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minimal installation. These scripts all have some configuration at the top of
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the files which should be viewed and amended if necessary and are as follows.
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zmpkg.pl - This is the ZoneMinder Package Control script. This is used by the
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web interface and service scripts to control the execution of the system as a
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whole.
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zmdc.pl - This is the ZoneMinder Daemon Control script. This is used by the web
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interface and the zmpkg.pl script to control and maintain the execution of the
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capture and analysis daemons amongst others. You should not need to run this
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script yourself.
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zmfilter.pl - This script controsl the execution of saved filters and will be
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started and stopped by the web interface based on whether there are filters that
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have been defined to be autonomous. This script is also responsible for the
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automatic uploading of events to a 3rd party server.
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zmaudit.pl - This script is used to check the consistency of the event file
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system and database. It can delete orphaned events, i.e. ones that appear in one
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location and not the other as well as checking that all the various event
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related tables are in line. It can be run interactively or in batch mode either
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from the command line or a cron job or similar. In the zmconfig.pl there is an
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option to specify fast event deletes where the web interface only deletes the
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event entry from the database itself. If this is set then it is this script that
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tidies up the rest.
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zmx10.pl - This is an option script that can be used to initiate and monitor X10
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Home Automation style events and interface with an alarm system either by the
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generation of X10 signals on ZoneMinder events or by initiating ZoneMinder
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monitoring and capture on receipt of X10 signals from elsewhere, for instance
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the triggering of an X10 PIR.
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zmwatch.pl - This is a simple script purely designed to keep an eye on the
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capture daemons and restart them if they lockup. It has been known for sync
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problems in the video drivers to cause this so this script makes sure that
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nothing important gets missed.
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zm - This is the (optional) ZoneMinder init script, see below for details.
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Finally, check zm_config.php in the web directory and amend any configuration
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necessary in there. Most will have already been done by the configuration
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utilities.
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At this stage typing 'make install' will install everything to the desired
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locations, you may to su to root first though. The installation routine will
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copy the binaries and scripts to your chosen install location, usually
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/usr/local/bin and then move zms to your cgi-bin area. It will then copy the web
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files to your chosen directory and ensure they have the right permissions.
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Finally it tries to link zm.php to index.php but will not overwrite an existing
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file if it exists.
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The 'zm' script does not get installed automatically as it is not necessary for
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the operation of the ZoneMinder setup per se. However if you want to ensure that
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the ZoneMinder daemons are started on reboot etc copy it to your init.d
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directory, usually something like /etc/rc.d/init.d and then add it by doing
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/sbin/chkconfig --add zm
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or similar command. ZoneMinder will then start up when your machine reboots and
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can be controlled (by the root user) by doing 'service zm start' or 'service zm
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stop' etc.
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Now start your web browser and point it at your zm.php and off you go.
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Tutorial
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========
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To start with you should see the ZoneMinder Console window, this will resize
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itself to avoid being too intrusive on your desktop. Along the top there are
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several informational entries like the time of the last update and the current
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server load. There will also be a 'start' or 'stop' link depending on the
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current state. Below that are various other links including a set allowing you
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to configure your bandwidth. This enables you to optimise your settings
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depending on where you are, the actual values relating to this are defined at
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the top of the zm_config.php file. If you are using a browser on the same
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machine or network then choose high, over a cable or DSL link maybe choose
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medium and over a dialup choose low. You can experiment to see which is best.
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This setting is retained on a per machine basis with a persistent cookie. Also
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on this line is a 'Report Bug' email link which you can use to easily report any
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problems (or successes!) and a couple of other links to the left which will be
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covered below.
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Defining Monitors
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-----------------
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To use ZoneMinder properly you need to define at least one Monitor. Essentially
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a monitor is associated with a camera and will continually check it for motion
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detection and such like. So, next click 'Add New Monitor' to bring up the
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dialog. You will see a bunch of things you have to fill in.
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To help you get started on the video configuration the best thing is to us a
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tool like 'xawtv' to get a picture you're happy with, and to check your camera
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works and then run 'zmu -d <device_no> -q -v' to get a dump of the settings. You
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can then enter these values into the video related options of the monitor
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configuration panel. Note that 'device_no' here is a number corresponding to the
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digit at the end of your device file, so /dev/video0 has a 'device_no' of 0 etc.
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If 'zmu' gives you an error related to permissions run 'zmfix -a' to make sure
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you can access all the video devices.
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The options explained in a little more detail are as follows,
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Name - First choose a name for it, anything you like.
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Function - This essentially defines what the monitor is doing. This can be
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'None' meaning the monitor is currently disabled, 'Passive' meaning you can
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watch the streams coming from the camera but no alarms or events will be
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generated, or 'Active' meaning all the images will be analysed as well as the
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stream being available to watch. If you have specified X10 support then X10 is
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also available as an option which means that the monitor is generally passive
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but may go active on receipt of X10 commands. Generally you'll want 'Active' but
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for now leave this at 'None'.
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Source Type - This determines whether the camera is a local one attached to a
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physical video or USB port on your machine or a remote network camera or
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similar. Choosing one or the other affects which set of three options are show
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next.
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Device Number/Channel - For a local camera enter the device number that your
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camera is attached to. If it is /dev/video0 enter '0' etc. Some video devices,
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e.g. BTTV cards support multiple cameras so in the Channel box choose the
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appropriate channel, or leave it at zero if you're using a USB camera or one
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without channels.
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Device Format - For a local camera enter the video format of the video stream.
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This is defined in various system files (e.g. /usr/include/linux/videodev.h) but
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the two most common are 0 for PAL and 1 for NTSC.
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Remote Host/Port/Path - For remote cameras use these fields to enter the full
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URL of the camera. Basically if your camera is at
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http://camserver.home.net:8192/cameras/camera1.jpg then these fields will be
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camserver.com, 8192 and /cameras/camera1.jopg respectively. Leave the port at 80
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if there is no special port required.
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Capture Width/Height - The dimensions of the video stream your camera will
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supply. If your camera supports several just enter the one you'll want to use
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for this application, you can always change it later. However I would recommend
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starting with no larger than 352x288 and then perhaps increasing and seeing how
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performance is affected. This size should be adequate in most cases.
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Capture Colour Depth - Finally for the video part of the configuration enter the
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colour depth. ZoneMinder supports both 8 bit greyscale and 24 bit colour, so
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choose one or the other here. Currently it doesn't support any of the more
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esoteric formats, like 15 bit etc.
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Timestamp Label Format - This relates to the timestamp that is applied to each
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frame. It is a sprintf style string. It is actually passed through sprintf and
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then through print to add the monitor name so a format of '%%s - %y/%m/%d
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%H:%M:%S' would be recommended though you can modify it if necessary. If you
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don't want a timestamp or have a camera that puts one on itself then leave this
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field blank.
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Timestamp Label X/Y - The X and Y values determine where to put the timestamp a
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value of 0 for the X value will put it on the left side of the image and a Y
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value of 0 will place it at the top of the image. A Y value of the height you
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supplied earlier minus 8 will place it on the bottom of the image.
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Image Buffer Size - This option determines how many frames are held in the ring
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buffer at any one time. The ring buffer is the storage space where the last 'n'
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images are kept, ready to be resurrected on an alarm or just kept waiting to be
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analysed. It can be any value you like with a couple of provisos, (see next
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options). However it is stored in shared memory and making it too large
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especially for large images with a high colour depth can use a lot of memory. A
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value of no more than 100 is usually ok.
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Warmup Frames - This specifies how many frames the analysis daemon should
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process but not examine when it starts. This allows it to generate an accurate
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reference image from a series of images before looking too carefully for any
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changes. I use a value of 25 here, too high and it will take a long time to
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start, too low and you will get false alarms when the analysis daemon starts up.
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Pre/Post Event Image Buffer - These options determine how many frames from
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before and after an event should be preserved with it. This allows you to view
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what happened immediately prior and subsequent to the event. A value of 10 for
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both of these will get you started but if you get a lot of short events and
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would prefer them to run together to form fewer longer ones then increase the
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Post Event buffer size. Both of these values added together should not exceed
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the ring buffer size.
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Maximum FPS - On some occasions you may have one or more cameras capable of high
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capture rates but find that you generally do not require this performance at all
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times and would prefer to lighten the load on your server. This option permits
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you to limit the maximum capture rate to a specified value. This may allow you
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to have more cameras supported on your system by reducing the CPU load or to
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allocate video bandwidth unevenly between cameras sharing the same video device.
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This value is only a rough guide and the lower the value you set the less close
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the actual FPS may approach it especially on shared devices where it is
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difficult to synchronise two different capture rates precisely. There is a
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global option in zmconfig.pl that allows you to turn this limiting off in the
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event of an alarm.
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FPS Report Interval - How often the current performance in terms of Frames Per
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Second is output to the system log. Not used in any functional way so set it to
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maybe 1000 for now. If you watch /var/log/messages (normally) you will see this
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value being emitted at the frequency you specify both for video capture and
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processing.
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Reference Image Blend %ge - Each analysed image in ZoneMinder is a composite of
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previous images and is formed by applying the current image as a certain
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percentage of the previous reference image. Thus, if we entered the recommended
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value of 10 here, each images part in the reference image will diminish by a
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factor of 0.9 each time round. So a typical reference image will be 10% the
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previous image, 9% the one before that and then 8.1%, 7.2%, 6.5% and so on of
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the rest of the way. An image will effectively vanish around 25 images later
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than when it was added. This blend value is what is specified here and if higher
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will make slower progressing events less detectable as the reference image would
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change more quickly. Similarly events will be deemed to be over much sooner as
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the reference image adapts to the new images more quickly. In signal processing
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terms the higher this value the steeper the event attack and decay of the
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signal. It depends on your particular requirements what the appropriate value
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would be for you but start with 10 here and adjust it later if necessary.
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X10 Activation String - This option is only available if you have specified X10
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support in the configuration. If you have then this contents of this field
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determine when a monitor starts and stops being Active if its function is set to
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X10. Basically what this means is that a monitor with a Function of X10 normally
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acts as it is Passive, i.e. you can watch the video stream but no analysis is
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done. On receipt of the appropriate X10 signal however it effectively changes to
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Active mode and starts to analyse images until an X10 signal changes it back to
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Passive again. The format of this string is as follows,
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n : If you simply enter a number then the monitor will be activated when
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an X10 ON signal for that unit code is detected and will be deactivated when an
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OFF signal is detected.
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!n : This inverts the previous mode, e.g. !5 means that the monitor is
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activated when an OFF signal for unit code 5 is detected and deactivated by an
|
|
ON.
|
|
n+ : Entering a unit code followed by + means that the monitor is
|
|
activated on receipt of a ON signal for that unit code but will ignore the OFF
|
|
signal and as such will not be deactivated by this instruction. If you prepend a
|
|
'!' as per the previous definition it similarly inverts the mode, i.e. the ON
|
|
signal deactivates the monitor.
|
|
n+<seconds> : As per the previous mode except that the monitor will
|
|
deactivate itself after the given number of seconds.
|
|
n- : Entering a unit code followed by - means that the monitor is
|
|
deactivated on receipt of a OFF signal for that unit code but will ignore the ON
|
|
signal and as such will not be activated by this instruction. If you prepend a
|
|
'!' as per the previous definition it similarly inverts the mode, i.e. the OFF
|
|
signal activates the monitor.
|
|
n+<seconds> : As per the previous mode except that the monitor will
|
|
activate itself after the given number of seconds.
|
|
You can also combine several of these expressions to by separating them with a
|
|
comma to create multiple circumstances of activation. However for now leave this
|
|
blank.
|
|
|
|
X10 Input Alarm String - This has the same format as the previous field but
|
|
instead of activating the monitor with will cause a forced alarm to be generated
|
|
and an event recorded if the monitor is Active. The same definition as above
|
|
apply except that for activated read alarmed and for deactivated read
|
|
unalarmed(!). Again leave this blank for now.
|
|
|
|
X10 Output Alarm String - This X10 string also has the same format as the two
|
|
above options. However it works in a slightly different way. Instead of
|
|
ZoneMinder reacting to X10 events this option controls how ZoneMinder emits X10
|
|
signals when the current monitor goes into or comes out of the alarm state. Thus
|
|
just entering a number will cause the ON signal for that unit code to be sent
|
|
when going into alarm state and the OFF signal when coming out of alarm state.
|
|
Similarly 7+30 will send the unit code 7 ON signal when going into alarm state
|
|
and the OFF signal 30 seconds later regardless of state. The combination of the
|
|
X10 instruction allows ZoneMinder to react intelligently to, and also assume
|
|
control of, other devices when necessary. However the indiscriminate use of the
|
|
Input Alarm and Output Alarm signals can cause some horrendous race conditions
|
|
such as a light going on in response to an alarm which then causes an alarm
|
|
itself and so on. Thus some circumspection is required here. Leave this blank
|
|
for now anyway.
|
|
|
|
Finally, click 'Save' to add your monitor.
|
|
|
|
On the main console listing you will now see your monitor and some of its vital
|
|
statistics. Each column is also a link and you get to other functions of
|
|
ZoneMinder by choosing the appropriate one. Describing them left to right, they
|
|
are as follows.
|
|
|
|
The first column is the Id, clicking on this gives you the opportunity to edit
|
|
any of the settings you have just defined your monitor to have.
|
|
|
|
The next column is the Name column, clicking on this will give you the watch
|
|
window where you can view a live feed from your camera. This is described more
|
|
fully below.
|
|
|
|
Following that is the Function and Source columns which may be represented in
|
|
various colours. Initially both will be showing red. This means that that
|
|
monitor is not configured for any function and as a consequence has no zmc
|
|
(capture) daemon running on it. If it were orange it would mean that a zmc
|
|
daemon was running but no zma (analysis) daemon and green means both are
|
|
running. In our case it is red because we defined the Monitor to have a Function
|
|
of None so no daemons are required. To get the daemons up and running you can
|
|
either click on the source listed in the Source column and edit the monitor
|
|
properties or click on the Function listed and change it to 'Passive' or
|
|
'Active', which will ensure that one or more appropriate daemons are started
|
|
automatically.
|
|
|
|
Having a device status of red or orange does not necessarily constitute an error
|
|
if you have deliberately disabled a monitor or have just put it into Passive
|
|
mode.
|
|
|
|
If you have several cameras (and thus monitors) on a device the device status
|
|
colour reflects all of them for the capture daemon. So if just one monitor is
|
|
active then the daemon is active for both even if all the other monitors are
|
|
switched off.
|
|
|
|
Once you have changed the function of your monitor, the main console window will
|
|
be updated to reflect this change. If your device status does not go green then
|
|
check your system and web server logs to see if it's something obvious.
|
|
|
|
You can now add further monitors if you have cameras set up to support them.
|
|
Once you have one or more monitors you may notice the '<n> Monitors' title
|
|
becomes a link which allows you to cycle through a shot from each of your
|
|
monitors (unless they are switched off) and get a streamed or still image from
|
|
each in turn. There may also be a link titled 'Montage' which allows you view
|
|
all your enabled cameras simultaneously. Be aware however that this can consume
|
|
large amounts of bandwidth and CPU so should not be used continuously unless you
|
|
have resource to burn.
|
|
|
|
Defining Zones
|
|
--------------
|
|
The next important thing to do with a new monitor is set up Zones for it to use.
|
|
By default you'll already have one created for you when you created your monitor
|
|
but you might want to modify it or add others. Click on the Zones column for
|
|
your monitor and you should see a small popup window appear which contains an
|
|
image from your camera overlain with a stippled pattern representing your zone.
|
|
In the default case this will cover the whole image and will be red. Beneath
|
|
that will be a table containing a listing of your zones. Clicking on either the
|
|
relevant bit of the image or on the Id or Name in the table will bring up
|
|
another window where you can edit the particulars for your Zones. As you can see
|
|
there are quite a few, so now is a good time to go through them. The options are
|
|
as follows.
|
|
|
|
Firstly the zone Name appears, you can change this to be more representative if
|
|
you like, though it isn't used much except for logging and debugging.
|
|
|
|
After that is the zone Type, this is one of the more important concepts in
|
|
ZoneMinder and there are four to choose from. The one you'll use most often, and
|
|
which will be set for your default zone, is 'Active'. This means that this zone
|
|
will trigger an alarm on any events that occur within it that meet the selection
|
|
criteria. The next two options I'll cover shortly but the one at the bottom is
|
|
Inactive, which is the opposite of Active. In this zone type no alarms will ever
|
|
be reported. Create an Inactive zone to cover any areas in which nothing notable
|
|
will ever happen or where you get constant false alarms that don't relate to
|
|
what you are trying to monitor. An Inactive zone can overlay other zone types
|
|
and will be processed first.
|
|
|
|
The next option is Inclusive and you'd use this zone type for any zones that you
|
|
want to trigger an alarm only if at least one other Active zone has already
|
|
triggered one. This might be for example to cover an area of the image like a
|
|
plant or tree which moves a lot and which would trigger lots of alarms. Perhaps
|
|
this is behind an area you'd like to monitor though, in this case you'd create
|
|
an active zone covering the non-moving parts and an inclusive zone covering the
|
|
tree perhaps with less sensitive detection settings also. If something triggered
|
|
an alarm in the Active zone and also in the Inclusive zone they would both be
|
|
registered and the resulting alarm would be that much bigger than if you had
|
|
blanked it out altogether.
|
|
|
|
The final zone Type is Exclusive, this means that alarms will only be triggered
|
|
in this zone if no alarms have already been triggered in Active zones. This is
|
|
the most specialised of the zone types and you may never use it but in its place
|
|
it is very useful. For instance in the camera covering my garden I keep watch
|
|
for a hedgehog that visits most nights and scoffs the food out of my cats bowls.
|
|
By creating a sensitive Exclusive zone in that area I can ensure that a hedgehog
|
|
alarm will only trigger if there is activity in that small area. If something
|
|
much bigger occurs, like someone walking by it will trigger a regular alarm and
|
|
not one from the Exclusive zone. Thus I can ensure I get alarms for big events
|
|
and also special small events but not the noise in between.
|
|
|
|
I mentioned above that Inactive zones may be overlaid on other zones to blank
|
|
out areas however as a general principle you should try and make zones abut each
|
|
other as much as possible and not overlap, to avoid repeated duplicate
|
|
processing of the same area. For instance an Inclusive zone overlaying an Active
|
|
zone when all other settings are the same will always trigger when the Active
|
|
zone does which somewhat defeats the object of the exercise.
|
|
|
|
The rest of the zone settings are slightly simpler to explain. The first is
|
|
Units which details whether certain of the following settings are in Pixels or
|
|
Percent of the frame. In general pixels is more precise whereas percentages are
|
|
easier to use to start with. If you change this setting all appropriate values
|
|
below are redisplayed in the correct context. A good tip would be to initially
|
|
enter the settings in Percent and then change to Pixels and refine any gaps.
|
|
Repeated flipping between the settings will cause rounding errors, as ZoneMinder
|
|
in general is not at home to Mr Floating Point for reasons of performance.
|
|
|
|
Following the units the next four settings define the bounds of the Zone in the
|
|
monitor frame and are self-explanatory with the exception of the fact that the
|
|
minima are at the top left of the frame and the maxima are at the bottom right
|
|
rather than Cartesian. The option after that allows you to specify what colour
|
|
you'd like any alarms this zone generates to be highlighted on images, pick
|
|
anything you like that will show up against your normal image background. This
|
|
and all following options are irrelevant for Inactive zones and you will be
|
|
prevented from setting them.
|
|
|
|
Motion Detection
|
|
-----------------
|
|
The options that follow are all related to motion detection and now would be a
|
|
good time to describe how that works. Once a stream of images starts coming
|
|
through the zma daemon will begin analysing them initially there will be a warm-
|
|
up period where it does nothing except start to build up a reference image. How
|
|
this is done was explained above.
|
|
|
|
So to go back to the settings, the next one is an alarm threshold; this
|
|
represents the difference in value between a pixel and its predecessor. For
|
|
greyscale images this is simple but for colour images the colours are averaged
|
|
first, originally this used an RMS (root mean squared) algorithm but calculating
|
|
square roots mugs performance and does not seem to improve detection. Using an
|
|
average does means that subtle colour changes without any brightness change may
|
|
go undetected but this is not the normal circumstance.
|
|
|
|
The following two settings define the minimum and maximum number of pixels that
|
|
exceed this threshold that would cause an alarm. If the units are Percent this
|
|
(and following options) refers to the percentage of the frame and not the zone,
|
|
this is so these values can be related between zones. The minimum value must be
|
|
matched or exceeded for an alarm to be generated whereas the maximum must not be
|
|
exceeded or the alarm will be cancelled. This is to allow for sudden changes
|
|
such as lights coming on etc, which you may wish to disregard. In general a
|
|
value of zero for any of these settings causes that value to be ignored, so you
|
|
can safely set a maximum to zero and it will not be used. The use of just a
|
|
number of pixels is however a very brute force method of detection as many small
|
|
events dispersed widely are not distinguished from a compact one.
|
|
|
|
To combat this ZoneMinder applies several other functions to the data to improve
|
|
its ability to distinguish interesting signals from uninteresting noise. The
|
|
first of these is a filter that removes any pixels that do not participate in a
|
|
contiguous block of pixels above a certain size. The options that control this
|
|
are the Filter Width and Height settings, which are always pixels and which
|
|
should be fairly small, and an odd number. Application of this filter removes
|
|
any tiny or discontinuous pixels that don't form part of a discrete block.
|
|
|
|
Following that are two further bounds that specify the limits of pixels that
|
|
would cause an alarm after this filtering process. As the filtering process only
|
|
removes pixels it makes no sense for the Minimum and Maximum Filtered Area to be
|
|
larger than the equivalent Alarmed Area and in general they should be smaller or
|
|
the same.
|
|
|
|
The next step in the analysis phase is the collation of any remaining alarmed
|
|
areas into contiguous blobs. This process parses the image and forms any pixels
|
|
that adjoin other alarmed pixels into one or more larger blobs. These blobs may
|
|
be any shape and can be as large as the zone itself or as small as the filtered
|
|
size. The Minimum and Maximum Blob Size settings allow you to define limits
|
|
within which an alarm will be generated. Of these only the Minimum is likely to
|
|
be very useful. Finally the Minimum and Maximum Blobs specify the limits of the
|
|
actual number of blobs detected. If an image change satisfies all these
|
|
requirements it becomes an alarm event.
|
|
|
|
Viewing Monitors
|
|
----------------
|
|
As this point you should have one or more Monitors running with one or more
|
|
Zones each. Returning to the main Console window you will see your monitors
|
|
listed once more. The columns not explored so far are the Monitor name, and
|
|
various event totals for certain periods of time. Clicking on any of the event
|
|
totals will bring up a variation on the same window but click on the Monitor
|
|
name for now. On doing so up will pop another window which should be scaled to
|
|
contain a heading, an image from your monitor, a status and a list of events if
|
|
any have been generated. Depending on whether you are able to view a streamed
|
|
image or not the image frame will either be this stream or a series of stills.
|
|
You have the option to change from one to the other (if available) at the centre
|
|
of the top heading.
|
|
|
|
The image should be self-explanatory but if it looks like garbage it is possible
|
|
that the video configuration is wrong so look in your system error log and check
|
|
for or report anything unusual. The centre of the window will have a tiny frame
|
|
that just contains a status; this will be 'Idle', 'Alarm' or 'Alert' depending
|
|
on the function of the Monitor and what's going on in the field of view. Idle
|
|
means nothing is happening, Alarm means there is an alarm in progress and Alert
|
|
means that an alarm has happened and the monitor is cooling down, if another
|
|
alarm is generated in this time it will just become part of the same event.
|
|
These indicators are colour coded in green, red and amber.
|
|
|
|
By default if you have minimised this window or opened other windows in front it
|
|
will pop up to the front if it goes to Alarm state. This behaviour can be turned
|
|
off in configuration if required. You can also specify a sound file in the
|
|
configuration, which will be played when an alarm occurs to alert you to the
|
|
fact if you are not in front of your computer. This should be a short sound of
|
|
only a couple of seconds ideally. Note that as the status is refreshed every few
|
|
seconds it is possible for this not to alert you to every event that takes
|
|
place, so you shouldn't rely on it for this purpose if you expect very brief
|
|
events. Alternatively you can decrease the refresh interval for this window in
|
|
the configuration though having too frequently refreshing may impact on
|
|
performance.
|
|
|
|
Below the status is a list of recent events that have occurred, by default this
|
|
is a listing of just the last 10 but clicking on 'All' will give you a full list
|
|
and 'Archive' will take you to the event archive for this monitor, more on this
|
|
later. Clicking on any of the column headings will sort the events
|
|
appropriately.
|
|
From here you can also delete events if you wish. The events themselves are
|
|
listed with the event id, and event name (which you can change), the time that
|
|
the event occurred, the length of the event including any preamble and postamble
|
|
frames, the number of frames comprising the event with the number that actually
|
|
contain an alarm in brackets and finally a score. This column lists the average
|
|
score per alarm frame as well as the maximum score that any alarm frame had.
|
|
|
|
The score is an arbitrary value that essentially represents the percentage of
|
|
pixels in the zone that are in blobs divided by the number of blobs and then
|
|
divided by the size of the zone. This gives a nominal maximum of 100 for a zone
|
|
and the totals for each zone are added together, Active zones scores are added
|
|
unchanged, Inclusive zones are halved first and Exclusive zones are doubled. In
|
|
reality values are likely to be much less than 100 but it does give a simple
|
|
indication of how major the event was.
|
|
|
|
Filtering Events
|
|
----------------
|
|
The other columns on the main console window contain various event totals for
|
|
your monitor over the last hour, day, week and month as well as a grand total
|
|
and a total for events that you may have archived for safekeeping. Clicking on
|
|
one of these totals or on the 'All' or 'Archive' links from the monitor window
|
|
described above will present you with a new display. This is the full event
|
|
window and contains a list of events selected according to a filter which will
|
|
also pop up in its own window. Thus if you clicked on a 'day' total the filter
|
|
will indicate that this is the period for which events are being filtered. The
|
|
event listing window contains a similar listing to the recent events in the
|
|
monitor window. The primary differences are that the frames and alarm frames and
|
|
the score and maximum score are now broken out into their own columns, all of
|
|
which can be sorted by clicking on the heading. Also this window will not
|
|
refresh automatically, rather only on request. Other than that, you can choose
|
|
to view events here or delete them as before.
|
|
|
|
The other window that appeared is a filter window. You can use this window to
|
|
create your own filters or to modify existing ones. You can even save your
|
|
favourite filters to re-use at a future date. Filtering itself is fairly simple;
|
|
you first choose how many expressions you'd like your filter to contain.
|
|
Changing this value will cause the window to redraw with a corresponding row for
|
|
each expression. You then select what you want to filter on and how the
|
|
expressions relate by choosing whether they are 'and' or 'or' relationships. For
|
|
filters comprised of many expressions you will also get the option to bracket
|
|
parts of the filter to ensure you can express it as desired.
|
|
|
|
There are several different elements to an event that you can filter on, some of
|
|
which require further explanation. These are as follows, 'Date/Time' which must
|
|
evaluate to a date and a time together, 'Date' and 'Time' which are variants
|
|
which may only contain the relevant subsets of this, 'Weekday' which as expected
|
|
is a day of the week. All of the preceding elements take a very flexible free
|
|
format of dates and time based on the PHP strtotime function
|
|
(http://www.zend.com/manual/function.strtotime.php). This allows values such as
|
|
'last Wednesday' etc to be entered. I recommend acquainting yourself with this
|
|
function to see what the allowed formats are.
|
|
|
|
The other elements you can filter on are all fairly self explanatory except
|
|
perhaps for 'Archived' which you can use to include or exclude Archived events.
|
|
In general you'll probably do most filtering on un-archived events. Once your
|
|
filter is specified, clicking 'submit' will filter the events according to your
|
|
specification. If you have created a filter you want to keep, you can name it
|
|
and save it by clicking 'Save'.
|
|
|
|
If you do this then the subsequent dialog will also allow you specify whether
|
|
you want this filter automatically applied in order to delete events or upload
|
|
events via ftp to another server and mail notifications of event to one or more
|
|
email accounts. This functionality is explained in more detail elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
Filtering is a powerful mechanism you can use to eliminate events that fit a
|
|
certain pattern however in many cases modifying the zone settings will better
|
|
address this. Where it really comes into its own is generally in applying time
|
|
filters, so for instance events that happen during weekdays or at certain times
|
|
of the day are highlighted, uploaded or deleted.
|
|
|
|
Viewing Events
|
|
--------------
|
|
From the monitor or filtered events listing you can now click on an event to
|
|
view it in more detail. If you have streaming capability you will see a series
|
|
of images that make up the event. You will also see a link to allow you to view
|
|
the still images themselves. If you don't have streaming then you will be taken
|
|
directly to this page. The images themselves are thumbnail size and depending on
|
|
the configuration and bandwidth you have chosen will either be the full images
|
|
scaled in your browser of actual scaled images. If it is the latter, if you have
|
|
low bandwidth for example, it may take a few seconds to generate the images. If
|
|
thumbnail images are required to be generated, they will be kept and not re-
|
|
generated in future. Once the images appear you can mouse over them to get the
|
|
image sequence number and the image score.
|
|
|
|
You will notice for the first time that alarm images now contain an overlay
|
|
outlining the blobs that represent the alarmed area. This outline is in the
|
|
colour defined for that zone and lets you see what it was that caused the alarm.
|
|
Clicking on one of the thumbnails will take you to a full size window where you
|
|
can see the image in all its detail and scroll through the various images that
|
|
make up the event. Should you determine that you don't wish to keep the event,
|
|
clicking on Delete will erase it from the database and file system. Returning to
|
|
the event window, other options here are renaming the event to something more
|
|
meaningful, refreshing the window to replay the event stream, deleting the
|
|
event, switching between streamed and still versions of the event (if supported)
|
|
and generating an MPEG video of the event (if supported).
|
|
|
|
These last two options require further explanation. Archiving an event means
|
|
that it is kept to one side and not displayed in the normal event listings
|
|
unless you specifically ask to view the archived events. This is useful for
|
|
keeping events that you think may be important or just wish to protect. Once an
|
|
event is archived it can be deleted or unarchived but you cannot accidentally
|
|
delete it when viewing normal unarchived events.
|
|
|
|
The final option of generating an MPEG video is experimental and not likely to
|
|
be highly useful. It uses the Berkeley MPEG encoder and will generate a short
|
|
video which will be downloaded to your browsing machine to view. Due to the
|
|
relatively slow frame rate that ZoneMinder will capture at and the high minimum
|
|
frame rate that the encoder uses, each image is included twice. This has the
|
|
useful effect of making the video watchable and not too quick while having the
|
|
unfortunate side effect of increasing file size and generation time.
|
|
|
|
Building an MPEG video, especially for a large event, can take some time and
|
|
should not be undertaken lightly as the effect on your host box of many CPU
|
|
intensive encoders will not be good. However once a video has been created for
|
|
an event it will be kept so subsequent viewing will not incur the generation
|
|
overhead. I will be the first to admit that this area of the package is not
|
|
particularly well implemented and needs work, and probably a better encoder.
|
|
|
|
That pretty much is it for the tour. You should experiment with the various
|
|
setting to get the results you think are right for your. Naturally letting
|
|
thousands of events build up is not good for the database or your file system so
|
|
you should endeavour to either prevent spurious events from being generated in
|
|
the first place or ensure that you housekeep them strictly.
|
|
|
|
Have fun, please report any bugs or features you'd like to see and hopefully
|
|
ZoneMinder can be your camera monitoring friend!
|
|
|
|
Philip Coombes (philip.coombes@zoneminder.com) - January 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
Troubleshooting
|
|
===============
|
|
|
|
Life eh? Nothing ever works first time does it? In case you are having problems
|
|
here are some things to try. If these don't work then feel free to get in touch
|
|
and I'll see if I can suggest something else. The best places to look for errors
|
|
are in your system error log (probably /var/log/messages on RedHat) and your web
|
|
server log (/var/log/httpd/error_log). There should be something in one of those
|
|
that gives you some kind of tip off.
|
|
|
|
Some things to check.
|
|
1. Device configuration. If you can't get your cameras to work in ZoneMinder,
|
|
firstly make sure that you have the correct settings. Use xawtv or something
|
|
like that to check for settings that work and then run zmu -d <device_no> -q -v
|
|
to get the settings. If you can't get them to work with that then the likelihood
|
|
is they won't work with ZoneMinder. Also check the system logs (usually
|
|
/var/log/messages) for any video configuration errors. If you get some and
|
|
you're sure they're not a problem then switch off ZM_STRICT_VIDEO_CONFIG in
|
|
zmconfig.pl and recompile and reinstall.
|
|
2. Start simple. Begin with a single monitor and single zone. You can run the
|
|
zmc capture daemon from the command line as 'zmc --device 0' (or whatever your
|
|
video device is). If it returns immediately there's a problem so check the logs,
|
|
if it stays up then your video configuration is probably ok. To get more
|
|
information out of it use debug as specified below. Also check that the shared
|
|
memory segment has been created by doing 'ipcs -m'. Finally beware of doing
|
|
tests as root and then trying to run as another user as some files may not be
|
|
accessible. If you're checking things as root make sure that you clean up
|
|
afterwards!
|
|
3. Web server. Ensure that your web server can serve PHP files. It's also
|
|
possible that your php.ini file may have some settings which break ZoneMinder,
|
|
I'm not a PHP guru but setting safe mode may prevent your PHP files from running
|
|
certain programs. You may have to set configuration to allow this. Also since
|
|
the daemons are started by your web server, if it dies or is shut down then the
|
|
daemons may disappear. In this version the daemons are run under the control of
|
|
a script which should trap expected signals but it is possible this doesn't
|
|
cover all circumstances.
|
|
4. One of the more common errors you can see in the log files is of the form
|
|
'Can't shmget: Invalid argument'. Generally speaking this is caused by an
|
|
attempt to allocate an amount of shared memory greater than your system can
|
|
handle. The size it requests is base on the following formula, ring buffer size
|
|
x image width x image height x 3 (for 24 bits images) + a bit of overhead. So if
|
|
for instance you were using 24bit 640x480 then this would come to about 92Mb if
|
|
you are using the default buffer size of 100. If this is too large then you can
|
|
either reduce the image or buffer sizes or increase the maximum amount of shared
|
|
memory available. If you are using RedHat then you can get details on how to
|
|
change these settings at
|
|
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/database/RHDB-2.1-Manual/admin_user/kernel-
|
|
resources.html
|
|
You should be able to use a similar process with other distributions to modify
|
|
the shared memory pool without kernel recompilations though in some cases this
|
|
may be necessary. Note, this error also sometime occurs if you have an old
|
|
shared memory segment lying around from a previous run that is too small. Use
|
|
the ipcs and ipcrm commands to check and remove it if necessary.
|
|
5. If you get odd javascript errors and your web console or other screens come
|
|
up with bits missing then it's possible that there is a problem with the PHP
|
|
configuration. Since version 0.9.8 ZoneMinder has used short PHP open tags to
|
|
output information, so instead of something like this '<?php echo $value ?>', it
|
|
will be something like this '<?= $value ?>' which is easier and quicker to write
|
|
as well as being neater. More information about this directive can be seen at
|
|
the following location,
|
|
http://www.php.net/manual/en/configuration.directives.php#ini.short-open-tag
|
|
However although by default most PHP installations support this form, some will
|
|
need to have it switched on explicitly. To do this you will first need to find
|
|
your php.ini file (do a 'locate php.ini' or 'find / -name php.ini'. Be aware
|
|
however that sometimes you might find more than one, so ensure you identify the
|
|
one that is actually being used. You will then need to find the line that starts
|
|
'short_open_tag = ' and change the Off value to On. This wil correct the
|
|
problem. However in some cases you may have explicitly switched it off, so that
|
|
XML compliant documents can be more easily served, or you may even not have
|
|
permission to edit the file. In this case you can go into the web directory of
|
|
ZoneMinder and run 'sh retag.sh' which will replace all the short open tags in
|
|
the files themselves with the longer variant. You will obviously have to
|
|
remember to do this for each subsequent version of ZoneMinder that you install
|
|
as well.
|
|
6. Use debug. ZoneMinder has various debug in it that by default will go into
|
|
your system log (via syslog). These will be of the form of
|
|
"Sep 14 14:50:11 localhost zma-0[1975]: INF [Front: 221000 - Processing at 4.26
|
|
fps ]"
|
|
where the zma-0 part identifies the daemon and the device it is running on.
|
|
Entries with INF in are informational and not an error, if you see ERR then it
|
|
is one, though not all are fatal. You can prevent this information from being
|
|
emitted by setting the DLVL_zmc environment variable to -1 or less once things
|
|
are working. If you want to run any of the daemons from the command line to
|
|
test, setting DBG_PRINT to 1 will output the debug on the console and setting
|
|
DLVL_zmc (or DLVL_zma etc) to a number between 0 and 9 will emit progressively
|
|
more debug though there's not a lot in there at present.
|
|
6. Paths. I admit it, the various paths in ZoneMinder are a bit of a nightmare.
|
|
Make sure that they are all correct and that permissions are such that the
|
|
various parts of ZoneMinder can actually run.
|
|
7. Missing perl modules. There are various perl modules used by the various
|
|
scripts. If you get errors about missing ones, the easiest way to install them
|
|
is to type the following (you will probably need to be root),
|
|
|
|
perl -MCPAN -eshell
|
|
|
|
this will then (eventually, after some configuration if it's your first time)
|
|
present you with a prompt. From there you can type install module, e.g.
|
|
Term::ReadKey and the rest should be more or less automatic as it will chase any
|
|
dependencies for you. There may be some initial configuration questions it might
|
|
ask you on startup if you've never run it before and to speed things up I would
|
|
not install a new Bundle at this point (it can end up building you a whole new
|
|
perl if you're not careful) if it asks you but everything else should be quite
|
|
straightforward.
|
|
8. Unsupported palettes. ZoneMinder currently is designed to use the simple
|
|
palettes of greyscale and 24 bit rgb. Some cameras refuse to use anything other
|
|
than more video oriented format such as YUV420 which ZoneMinder doesn't support.
|
|
This will often show up as the capture daemon being unable to set picture
|
|
attributes. I've now managed to get camera that supports YUV420 so support for
|
|
this will be forthcoming very soon however.
|
|
|
|
Also, if you are using IE under Windows and get lots of annoying clicks when
|
|
various windows refresh then you'll need to edit your registry and remove the
|
|
value for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.current
|
|
or download the registry script to do it for you from
|
|
http://www.zoneminder.com/downloads/noIEClick.reg
|
|
|
|
Whats New
|
|
=========
|
|
|
|
Release 0.9.10 - Many bug-fixes and major feature enahancements.
|
|
- Configure 'round' bug - Fixed a problem with the configure script that didn't
|
|
detect if the 'round' function was already declared before try to do it itself.
|
|
- Low event id bug - Fixed bug where events with an id of < 1000 were being
|
|
cleaned up by zmaudit.pl by mistake.
|
|
- Source file restructuring - The source files have been broken up and renamed
|
|
extensively to support the first stage of the code being straightened out.
|
|
Likewise the class structure has been rationalised somewhat. The php file names
|
|
have also changed in some cases so it might be best to delete all your php and
|
|
css files from the zone minder install directory first as the old ones won't be
|
|
overwritten and will be left behind.
|
|
- Streamed cycle view - The monitor cycle view (the one where each monitor is
|
|
displayed sequentially) now supports streams as well as stills.
|
|
- New 'montage' view - Added a montage view showing all your cameras
|
|
simultaneously either streaming or stills. The width of this window (in terms of
|
|
number of monitors) is a configuration option.
|
|
- Network camera support - A major change in this version is support for remote
|
|
or network cameras. This is currently implemented as series of http grabs of
|
|
stills rather than being able to break up motion jpeg streams. However frame
|
|
rates of from 2-10 should be achievable depending on your network proximity to
|
|
the cameras.
|
|
- Option BGR->RGB swap - Added the option to switch on or off the inversion of
|
|
RGB to BGR for local cameras. It is on by default to maintain compatibility with
|
|
previous releases.
|
|
- zmu suspend alarm option - Added new -n option to zmu to effectively suspend
|
|
alarm detection for a monitor. This is intended for short term use and to
|
|
support PTZ cameras where alarm detection is desired to be suspended while the
|
|
camera changes orientation or zoom level.
|
|
- FPS limiting - Added a new option to monitors to add a maximum capture rate.
|
|
This allows you to limit the amount of hits a network camera gets or to reduce
|
|
the system load with many cameras. It also works with multi-port cards and
|
|
limiting the capture rate on one camera allows the spare FPS to be allocated to
|
|
other devices. For instance with two cameras and no throttle, I get about 4FPS
|
|
each. Throttling one to 2FPS allows the other to operate at 6FPS so you can
|
|
allocate your capture resources accordingly. This limiting can be disabled while
|
|
alarms are occurring as a global option in zmconfig.pl.
|
|
- Alarm reference update - Added option to not blend alarmed images into the
|
|
reference image. See the help in zmconfig.pl for caveats.
|
|
- Disappearing monitors - Fixed the disappearing monitor problem in the console
|
|
view where monitors with no events were randomly not being shown.
|
|
- Clean and tidy - Cleaned up a load of compiler warnings and miscellanea to
|
|
ensure a cleaner happier build.
|
|
- Streamed image headers - Made all headers in streamed images have full CRLF
|
|
termination which will hopefully now prevent the problems with broken streams
|
|
that had existed mostly with Mozilla (and hopefully won't break anything else).
|
|
- Expire streams - Added expiry headers to streamed images so they will always
|
|
display fully.
|
|
- Event navigation - Added next, prev, delete & next, delete & prev navigation
|
|
to events to allow you to quickly review events in sequence as had been
|
|
requested by a number of people.
|
|
- USR blocking - The debug USR signals were not being blocked properly leading
|
|
to nasty effects in zmc mostly.
|
|
- zmfilter execution - Previously zmfilter execution was not synchronised with
|
|
the monitor state or the analysis daemon leading to it sometimes being run
|
|
unnecessarily. From now on the zmfilter process will only run when a monitor is
|
|
active and so actually potentially generating alarms.
|
|
- zmdc short statuses - Removed the logging of the short status values that
|
|
zmdc.pl returns to it's clients which had been clogging up the log file.
|
|
- Bugs and pieces - Fixed various bug(ettes) that I came across that that I
|
|
don't think had been reported or noticed so I don't think we need to talk about
|
|
them here do we.
|
|
|
|
Release 0.9.9 - Mainly bug-fixes and minor feature enhancements.
|
|
- Added zmu -q/--query option - There is now a new query option for zmu. When
|
|
combined with -d it gives the config of the device and when used with -m it
|
|
dumps the current settings for the monitor and zones. Mostly useful for bug
|
|
reporting. The previous version of zmu used with just -d gave this information
|
|
for a video device by default. This now requires the -q option also to bring
|
|
into line with it's -m equivalent.
|
|
- Added creation of events directory - Previously the 'events' directory was not
|
|
created on install, this has been fixed.
|
|
- Can now retag PHP files if necessary - Version 0.9.8 was the first version to
|
|
use short_open_tags in the PHP files. This caused grief to some people so this
|
|
script will put them back to the long verion.
|
|
- Frame and event lengths fractional - A new field has been added to the Frames
|
|
table. This is 'Delta' and is a fractional number of seconds relative to the
|
|
event start time. This is intended to support the real-time playback of events
|
|
rather than just 'as fast as possible' or with a configured delay as at present.
|
|
The event length is now also fractional.
|
|
- Corrected extraneous Width to be Height - The last version of zmu included a
|
|
Width comment which should have been height.
|
|
- Changed colour depth to bits - Having colour depths expressed in bytes has
|
|
caused no end of problems. This is now changed to be bits and can be changed via
|
|
a dropdown to limit what can be entered. Don't forget to run the zmalter script
|
|
to update your DB.
|
|
- Renamed terminate to zm_terminate - The use of 'terminate' in zmc.cpp caused a
|
|
conflict on some systems so renamed it to something more specific.
|
|
- Zone deletion problem - A problem was found such that when deleting zones the
|
|
appropriate daemons were not being asked to restart daemons correctly.
|
|
- Console changes - The current version number is now displayed in the console.
|
|
A refresh button has also been added along with a minor reorg.
|
|
- Added delete button enable to checkAll - Using the 'Check All' button in the
|
|
main monitor window previously did not enable the delete button. This is now
|
|
fixed.
|
|
- Reload on click - In previous versions the console window would reload if a
|
|
monitor window for example was clicked. Thsi was removed in the last version
|
|
which meant that sometimes the console never go refreshed as it's timing loop
|
|
was broken. This functionality has now been reinstated.
|
|
|
|
Release 0.9.8 - Several new features and bug-fixes
|
|
- Upgrade note - If you have installed 0.9.7 and wish to save your configuration
|
|
then copy your existing zmconfig.txt file over to your 0.9.8 directory and
|
|
before running zmconfig.pl.
|
|
- Added multiple options to zmu - You can now give multiple options to zmu and
|
|
get all the responses at once. However this is currently in a deterministic
|
|
order and not related to the order you give them.
|
|
- Added -v/--verbose option to zmu - Zmu has been made more human friendly
|
|
though it still remains primarily for daemon use. Giving the -v or --verbose
|
|
option prints out a bit more as a response to each command.
|
|
- Add -d/--device to zmu - This option is designed to allow you to get your
|
|
video device working with another application such as xawtv and then use zmu -d
|
|
to print out the settings it's using
|
|
(especially with the -v option). These options can then be used as a starting
|
|
point for your ZoneMinder configuration.
|
|
- Added FPS in status field - The status field in the web monitor views now
|
|
contains an FPS setting as well as the status.
|
|
- Zmconfig changes - zmconfig handles missing options better and rewrites config
|
|
file even in non-interactive mode.
|
|
- Fixed config problems in zmcfg.h - Some config was not being set up correctly
|
|
in zmcfg.h.
|
|
- Zmwatch now works on image delay and not fps - Previously the zmwatch daemon
|
|
detected capture daemon failure by trying to use the FPS setting. This was
|
|
imprecise and prone to false readings. It now uses the time delay since the last
|
|
captured image.
|
|
- Added zmpkg.pl and zm scripts - There are now two new scripts. zmpkg.pl is in
|
|
charge of starting and stopping ZoneMinder as a whole package and zm is designed
|
|
to be (optionally) installed into your init.d directory to use ZoneMinder as a
|
|
service.
|
|
- Fixed bug in Scan mode - The monitor cycle or scan mode had stopped working
|
|
properly due to images not being generated. This is now fixed.
|
|
- Revamped the console window slightly - The console window has now been
|
|
reformatted slightly to give more and better information including server load.
|
|
- Added email and messaging to filters - Filters now allow you to send emails or
|
|
messages (basically just short emails intended for mobile devices) on alarms.
|
|
The format and possible content for these emails is in zmconfig_eml.txt and
|
|
zmconfig_msg.txt.
|
|
- Made zmdc more aggresive in killing old processes - The zmdc.pl daeamon will
|
|
now kill any ZoneMinder processes it finds on startup or shutdown to prevent
|
|
orphans from being left around.
|
|
- Configuration changes - Previously there were a lot of files generated by
|
|
configure. Now only zmconfig.pl is generated this way and all the other
|
|
configuration files are created by zmconfig.pl (from .z files) to centralise
|
|
configuration more.
|
|
- Fixed cambolzola opt bug - There was a bug in the Cambozola options, I can't
|
|
remember what it was but it's fixed!
|
|
- Retaint arguments in zmdc.pl - In some installations zmdc was complaining
|
|
about tainted arguments from the socket. These are now detainted prior to
|
|
sending and after receiving.
|
|
- Forced alarms - You can now force alarms when looking at the monitor window
|
|
should anything catch your attention. You have to remember to switch them off as
|
|
well though.
|
|
- Looser video configuration - Some video configuration errors can now be
|
|
ignored via the STRICT_VIDEO_CONFIG option.
|
|
- Monitor window refresh on alarm - When the monitor window is active and an
|
|
alarm has occurred the most recent alarms list is immediately refreshed to show
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
Release 0.9.7 - Yes, a big jump in release number but a lot of changes too. Now
|
|
somewhat more mature, not really an alpha any more, and a lot of bugs fixed too.
|
|
- Added zmconfig.pl script to help with configuration.
|
|
- Revamped to work better with configure scripts
|
|
- Monitors now have more configuration options, including some that were
|
|
statically defined before such as location and format of the image timestamps.
|
|
- Removed Alarms table from schema as not required, never was actually...
|
|
- Added a number of new scripts, see the scripts directory
|
|
- Added Fast delete to PHP files. This allows the web interface to only delete
|
|
the event entries themselves for speed and then have the zmaudit script
|
|
periodically tidy up the rest.
|
|
- Added event filter to enable bulk viewing, upload or deletion of events
|
|
according to various attributes. Filter can be saved and edited.
|
|
- Added last event id to shared memory for auto-filtering etc.
|
|
- Changed zmu -i option to write to monitor named image file.
|
|
- Made shared memory management somewhat more sensible.
|
|
- Now stores DB times as localtime rather than UTC avoiding daylight saving
|
|
related bugs.
|
|
- Fixed bug with inactive zones and added more debug.
|
|
- Changed main functions to return int.
|
|
- Added help and usage to zmu.
|
|
- Fixed browser acceptance problem, more easily defaults to HTML.
|
|
- Split out the PHP files into a bunch with specific functions rather than one
|
|
monolithic one.
|
|
- Fixed NetPBM paths and changed _SERVER to HTTP_SERVER_VARS.
|
|
- Added HUP signal on zone deletion.
|
|
- Added NETPBM_DIR and conditional netpbm stuff.
|
|
- Removed hard coded window sizes, all popup window dimensions can be specified
|
|
in zmconfig.php
|
|
- Changed form methods to 'get' from 'post' to avoid resubmit warnings all the
|
|
time.
|
|
- Added conditional sound to alarm on web interface.
|
|
- Fixed syntax error when adding default monitor.
|
|
- Some of the web views have changed slightly to accommodate the separate events
|
|
view.
|
|
- And much much more, probably...
|
|
|
|
Release 0.0.1 - Initial release, therefore nothing new.
|
|
|
|
|
|
To Do
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Seeing as ZoneMinder is so young and has kind of evolved rather than being
|
|
planned there are a bunch of improvements and enhancements still to do, here is
|
|
just a sample.
|
|
|
|
1. Perhaps split out devices - I think devices should probably be a separate
|
|
table and class from monitors. Not critical but would represent a better model.
|
|
2. Comments - Needs many more, but that's just me I'm hopeless at commenting
|
|
things out. I'll get round to it soon though honest! You're lucky to even get
|
|
this document.
|
|
3. Optimised zones - The zones could do with being sorted out a bit to optimise
|
|
the processing of overlapping ones, at the moment you can waste resource unless
|
|
your zones are kept very tidy.
|
|
4. Create zones using server side image maps - This would make it easier to
|
|
precisely define and see where your zone is going to go. Not critical but handy
|
|
but a bugger to do.
|
|
5. Zone Definitions - Allow zones to be defined according to a colour coded
|
|
bitmap or as polygons. Currently all zones are rectangular this would add a bit
|
|
of flexibility. Would need a bit of a rewrite though. This will incur a slight
|
|
penalty on startup and a very slight one on processing for all reasonably shaped
|
|
zones.
|
|
6. Security - I think I need to give the php file a bit of a good going over as
|
|
I'm sure it's not done in the most secure way regarding passing things onto
|
|
command line, exposing file paths and other stuff. I'm a bit of a PHP novice, as
|
|
I'm sure you can tell so might need help here. I should have done it in perl!
|
|
7. Add support for other palettes to zmc even if all it does is convert them to
|
|
RGB before looking at them.
|
|
8. Mouseover help - A bit more help popping up when you mouseover things would
|
|
be handy. A bit more help full stop actually.
|
|
9. WAP interface - A bit of a crusade of mine I'm afraid. I'd like to put a WML
|
|
interface on to allow you to view event listing and perhaps the most significant
|
|
image from each event on your phone. Also simple management. From version 0.9.7
|
|
there is a very basic crude initial version that probably won't work with your
|
|
phone but its there as a testbed.
|
|
10. Automatic device configuration - Video 4 Linux supports various device
|
|
queries, it should be possible to get most of the device capability information
|
|
from the device itself. The zmu utility does this now but it's not yet
|
|
integrated into the web pages.
|
|
11. Extend the API. Well ok it's not really got an API yet but the image data is
|
|
held in shared memory in a very simple format. In theory you could use the
|
|
capture daemon to gab the images and other things could read them from memory or
|
|
the analysis daemon could read images from elsewhere. Either way this should be
|
|
done through an API, and would need a library I think. Also the zmu utility
|
|
could probably do a whole lot more to enable other things to manage when the
|
|
daemons become active etc.
|
|
12. Access control should probably be built in rather than relying on .htaccess
|
|
etc. This is a frequently requested feature (FRF) and must be done soon.
|
|
13. I've got lots of ideas for enhancing the motion detection part with optional
|
|
algorithms etc. Just got to find the time somewhere!
|
|
14. Create .rpm packages (as there can be several dependencies) and maybe other
|
|
types of packages also, e.g. for Debian distributions.
|
|
15. Allow ZoneMinder to 'train' itself by allowing the user to select events
|
|
that are considered important and to discard those that should be ignored.
|
|
ZoneMinder will interpolate, add a bit of magic, and recommend settings that
|
|
will support this selection automatically thereafter. The hooks for this are
|
|
already in to some extent.
|
|
16. Add quotes to all PHP array references. I should have done it in the first
|
|
place but I'm a perl person really and it kind of bugs me that you have to.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bugs
|
|
====
|
|
|
|
1. I'm not sure if this is a bug or by design but the timestamp is added to the
|
|
image by the capture daemon. I _think_ this isn't necessary as it may contribute
|
|
to alarms, plus the time is associated with the image anyway. So I think this
|
|
should be moved to the analysis daemon.
|
|
2. I suspect there may be a bug in zmaudit.pl if your monitor names have spaces
|
|
in them. I've not been able to reproduce it but to be on the safe side don't put
|
|
spaces in your Monitor names.
|
|
3. When opening a link to an event etc from a notification email the window that
|
|
is opened is just a regular browser window and not in the context of a proper
|
|
ZoneMinder web interface. Thus it comes up too big usually (not a major issue)
|
|
and also things like 'Delete' don't work as it wants to do things to its parent
|
|
(which is more of a major issue).
|
|
4. The .sock files used by the *nix sockets I suspect may have the odd
|
|
permission issue now and again. I think everything recovers from it but it needs
|
|
checking out.
|
|
|
|
Probably bucket loads more, just fire them at me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Non-Bugs
|
|
========
|
|
|
|
1. Yes, those are tabs in the indents; I like tabs so don't go changing them to
|
|
spaces or else. Also yes I also like my opening braces on their own line most of
|
|
the time, what's the point of brackets that don't line up?
|
|
|
|
Everything else that isn't definitely broken is probably deliberate, or was once
|
|
anyway.
|
|
|
|
|
|
License
|
|
=======
|
|
|
|
ZoneMinder is released under the GPL, see below.
|
|
|
|
ZoneMinder README, $Date$, $Revision$
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003 Philip Coombes
|
|
|
|
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
|
|
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
|
|
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
|
|
version.
|
|
|
|
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
|
|
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
|
|
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
|
|
|
|
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
|
|
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
|
|
Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
|
|
|
|
One of the main new features in ZoneMinder is the ability to use remote cameras.
|
|
Traditionally ZoneMinder had only been able to work with cameras that are
|
|
attached to the computer it is running on via USB or video connections. In this
|
|
release, you can use cameras that are accessible via are web or network
|
|
connection. Thus, you can use ZoneMinder to monitor either specialised network
|
|
cameras or image streams that are uploaded to other web sites.
|
|
|
|
The other major change in this release, is that the files have been split into
|
|
multiple header and source files. One per each class.
|
|
|
|
A further improvement is the ability to specify the maximum value for the frames
|
|
per second for capture by a camera. This allows you to allocate bandwidth and
|
|
resource from one camera to the other by reducing the requirements of specific
|
|
cameras or devices. Thus when several cameras share one device it allows those
|
|
cameras specified as less important to give up their bandwidth to their peers.
|