ZoneMinder Forums

I plan on using an older system with a single core 2.5 Ghz processor to host Zoneminder. I I'm installing it through the GUI (Ubuntu 9.04), but I would like to be able to disable GDM so as to preserve resources. After all, I won't need to log into the computer. I'll just need the web GUI accessible. Can zoneminder work without the Desktop GUI?

Yes, I run three headless debian boxes running zm.

Hah, I was sure that the answer was going to be "no" because I thought that it would need the X, Y for video. This is great news! Thanks!

So, can I send a command from the command line to set a monitor Function to "Monitor", for example?
I want to make a script which I can run remotely, through ssh, to tell my all my monitors to go to Monitor mode or Modect mode.
What would that command look like? Is it /zm/index.php I call? And how would I format the information to pass to it?

you do relies that if you zoneminder box is headless any pc on the network can still access zoneminder the normal way.

so go to http://ipaddress-of-zm-server/zm

Yes, but I don't really want to open a browser. I just want to send a command through ssh. That way I can make a simple frontend which just sends "Set all monitors to Monitor" or "Set all monitors to Modect" command.
My ultimate goal is a remote switch(physical switch) which signals my server to send the commands.

I believe there is something in the documentation where it lists what each piece of zm does

I finally entered the proper set of terms into google to get info on zmu, which is how to send Zoneminder commands from the command line
Documentation is here, in the Wiki
http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.php/Zmu

In my case, it was located at /usr/bin/zmu, but it was already in my path.

To enable a monitor, this command
sudo zmu -m <monitor_id> -E -U<username> -P<password>

To disable a monitor,
sudo zmu -m <monitor_id> -D -U<username> -P<password>

The permissions on the zmu file seem to show executable by all, but if I don't use sudo, the command aborts immediately. That will be another hassle, but I think there's a way around it.

If localhost/zm does not work, and you are using Linux Beta on a Chromebook as I am, enter http://penguin.termina.linux.test/zm/

I'm not up and running, thanks to this thread!