ZoneMinder Forums

i generally use CentOS on my servers.
do i need a stand-alone server to run ZoneMinder, or can i run it on an already established server running CentOS 8? the machine is a Dell PowerEdge R710, with Intel Xeon CPU X5670 @ 2.93GHz, 12 cores (CentOS reports 24 cores, but i think that is not correct), 64GB ram, and about 5.7TB of storage. it is running my web server, email, and file storage.
i do have an old Dell PowerEdge 1950, but it is rather thirsty of electricity. it could be configured as a stand-alone, though.

i came here, as my current system is a cheap wal-mart Night Owl (8ch) system, and i would like to change to a network camera system using WiFi, or PoE cameras. i don't have any cameras yet, as i am still exploring my options here.

Thanks in advance for any help.

~Travis

Technically you can, but for practical purposes I would say it depends on how many cameras you have. 1-4 cameras, then go ahead and put it on the same server. For >10 cameras, you would want a dedicated server. There is a docker image you can try (I haven't used it in production).

Wifi cameras are not as good as wired, and they are generally recommended against here.

ok, thank you for your reply!

i will look into wired cameras, and i will use the older Dell PowerEdge 1950, though as it is a bit more power hungry, i will shop around for something newer and more efficient.

I look forward to getting rid of the old Night Owl DVR, and it's low resolution cameras.

~Travis

had a quick (i assume), somewhat related question... is there a way to output the camera grid/multiplex to a monitor (composite or HDMI)?

~Travis

To display to a monitor, is handled differently from traditional DVR boxes that have an HDMI output.

You can spin up a separate machine, and have that watch the screens from the LAN. One way is via https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Example_Camera_View_HTML

An admin of ZM has penned this page using Android and ZMNinja: https://zoneminder.blogspot.com/p/odroid.html

Essentially, you are viewing the streams over the LAN. It takes a bit more setup than a traditional DVR, but there are many ways to solve this, and once its setup, it works without issue.