lord_galathon
Well-known member
For the longest time I've seen/heard of been asked how to setup cameras to watch your home while you're away. I figured I'd make a dedicated thread about it so if anyone is thinking of setting up cameras to keep an eye out on their property, this is probably the right place.
First some background.
I used to have an old laptop (battery power for when there's a power failure) running Windows and a program called iSpy that would automatically record any movement in any of the cameras I have setup around the house. I've been running that setup with three cameras for about 5 years now.
http://www.ispyconnect.com/
I have one shit all-weather wi-fi+nightvision "Wanscam" branded camera from eBay - like 80$ - outside the shed keeping an eye on my patio door and carport.
I have one 60$ D-Link night vision indoor only camera at the bay window overlooking my front door.
I have an old Android phone running IP Webcam attached to a "car dash mount" onto a window keeping an eye on my driveway.
I have plans to setup another camera to keep an eye on my heating oil tank and propane tank, both of which are outdoors.
ISpy just wasn't cutting it anymore.
Now - and this is about to get a bit technical - if you want a real surveillance setup, the best FREE solution I've found without spending 500$+ on a complete DVR+Cameras system is called Zoneminder.
https://zoneminder.com/
Zoneminder does NOT run on Windows, but can be run on very light Linux distros like Ubuntu Server with LAMP (No GUI, just text and SSH) and only mySQL installed (or MariaDB depending.)
It's so easy to install I did it in one afternoon following the instructions found here:
He also provides links at the bottom for any downloads needed. What's nice is that you can run it in a VM on a free ESXi VMware farm on an old - yet higher end - PC you might have laying around.
Below are links to obtain free VMware licenses:
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6
http://www.virten.net/2016/11/free-esxi-6-5-how-to-download-and-get-license-keys/
In my case I have an old office PC that was headed for the recycling as the video card on the mainboard doesn't work properly, it will not come out of stand-by no matter what OS is installed on it, once it hits standby, the PC MUST be reset/hard booted for it to resume working. This does not prevent it from running ESXi properly, and since it's a 2nd Gen i7 (4 core hyperthread - total 8 threads) with 8Gb RAM, it is perfect for my needs.
I already had a dozen old HDD on a shelf at home - I slapped three in there, 1 for the ESXi boot + main datastore, and one each for the two other datastores. If you're going to run more than one VM on a "desktop" class machine like that, it's good practice to keep one VM per datastore otherwise it will be slower than Stephane Quintal on skates.
The real nice thing about Zone Minder is that it has plug-ins for Android, iOS, Kodi and is web-based once setup so you can access it from just about anywhere pending you correcly setup port forwarding on your router and know your external ISP provided IP address.
The best way to find that address without digging into your main router is to simply go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and look at the bottom left of the test graph. It will show up right there.
At any case, the required hardware is by no means an old high-end PC, zoneminder will happily run along fine on an old Core2duo class laptop with about 1Gb RAM and 60Gb HDD. It's just more cost effective to have a VM Farm like I do since I also run a basic "home" wiki (Atlassian Confluence) and a Plex server on the same physical machine.
All you need then are a few old android phones - we know we all have a few - an old PC, and about 4 hours to setup everything correctly.
I will write a more technical article about this on my blog, those who follow me on twitter will see it posted there once published. I might even provide a "vanilla" zipped VM file to download and install if I can find the appropriate storage online - the VM is about 60Gb but I think I can shrink it to like 16Gb providing a thin storage volume that anyone can then expand to whatever size they need.
Finally here's a demo of zoneminder:
Hopefully this can help and consolidate the "surveillance cameras" threads.
First some background.
I used to have an old laptop (battery power for when there's a power failure) running Windows and a program called iSpy that would automatically record any movement in any of the cameras I have setup around the house. I've been running that setup with three cameras for about 5 years now.
http://www.ispyconnect.com/
I have one shit all-weather wi-fi+nightvision "Wanscam" branded camera from eBay - like 80$ - outside the shed keeping an eye on my patio door and carport.
I have one 60$ D-Link night vision indoor only camera at the bay window overlooking my front door.
I have an old Android phone running IP Webcam attached to a "car dash mount" onto a window keeping an eye on my driveway.
I have plans to setup another camera to keep an eye on my heating oil tank and propane tank, both of which are outdoors.
ISpy just wasn't cutting it anymore.
Now - and this is about to get a bit technical - if you want a real surveillance setup, the best FREE solution I've found without spending 500$+ on a complete DVR+Cameras system is called Zoneminder.
https://zoneminder.com/
Zoneminder does NOT run on Windows, but can be run on very light Linux distros like Ubuntu Server with LAMP (No GUI, just text and SSH) and only mySQL installed (or MariaDB depending.)
It's so easy to install I did it in one afternoon following the instructions found here:
He also provides links at the bottom for any downloads needed. What's nice is that you can run it in a VM on a free ESXi VMware farm on an old - yet higher end - PC you might have laying around.
Below are links to obtain free VMware licenses:
https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6
http://www.virten.net/2016/11/free-esxi-6-5-how-to-download-and-get-license-keys/
In my case I have an old office PC that was headed for the recycling as the video card on the mainboard doesn't work properly, it will not come out of stand-by no matter what OS is installed on it, once it hits standby, the PC MUST be reset/hard booted for it to resume working. This does not prevent it from running ESXi properly, and since it's a 2nd Gen i7 (4 core hyperthread - total 8 threads) with 8Gb RAM, it is perfect for my needs.
I already had a dozen old HDD on a shelf at home - I slapped three in there, 1 for the ESXi boot + main datastore, and one each for the two other datastores. If you're going to run more than one VM on a "desktop" class machine like that, it's good practice to keep one VM per datastore otherwise it will be slower than Stephane Quintal on skates.
The real nice thing about Zone Minder is that it has plug-ins for Android, iOS, Kodi and is web-based once setup so you can access it from just about anywhere pending you correcly setup port forwarding on your router and know your external ISP provided IP address.
The best way to find that address without digging into your main router is to simply go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and look at the bottom left of the test graph. It will show up right there.
At any case, the required hardware is by no means an old high-end PC, zoneminder will happily run along fine on an old Core2duo class laptop with about 1Gb RAM and 60Gb HDD. It's just more cost effective to have a VM Farm like I do since I also run a basic "home" wiki (Atlassian Confluence) and a Plex server on the same physical machine.
All you need then are a few old android phones - we know we all have a few - an old PC, and about 4 hours to setup everything correctly.
I will write a more technical article about this on my blog, those who follow me on twitter will see it posted there once published. I might even provide a "vanilla" zipped VM file to download and install if I can find the appropriate storage online - the VM is about 60Gb but I think I can shrink it to like 16Gb providing a thin storage volume that anyone can then expand to whatever size they need.
Finally here's a demo of zoneminder:
Hopefully this can help and consolidate the "surveillance cameras" threads.
