Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

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jsylvia007
Posts: 116
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:32 pm

Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

Post by jsylvia007 »

Howdy all!

I'm hoping that someone has accomplished this, or if they haven't hoping that @asker or @iconnor can help me out here.

I'd basically like to be able to reference a ZoneMinder monitor within a Grafana dashboard. I'd basically like to emulate what zmNinja does, but for the web. The reasoning behind this is because I have a display that sits on a wall and constantly flips between 3 displays (related to the hardware environment). If I were able to display the ZoneMinder monitors as part of the Grafana dashboard, then I could also have an always-on display of my ZoneMinder cameras as well...

I tried using a simple Grafana "Text" panel in HTML mode, and used the direct image address of a monitor (from view source), but I couldn't figure out dynamic resizing (I want it to auto-fit to the panel size), and I'm sure that the login info would eventually time-out and I'd need to do something to refresh it.

Any help would be appreciated.
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asker
Posts: 1553
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:12 pm

Re: Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

Post by asker »

Sure.
1. If you use "&user=xxx&pass=" instead of "&auth=" in your URL, the auth will never expire. The downsides are more frequent DB dips and password in clear text. But this is least complicated

2. If you use "&auth=" just keep using the "login.json" API once every hour to refresh the credentials (and use the returned credential value)

3. As far as fitting windows into the screen is concerned, it is a CSS issue and easily solved. Google for it. There are many approaches. Here is one
I no longer work on zmNinja, zmeventnotification, pyzm or mlapi. I may respond on occasion based on my available time/interest.

Please read before posting:
How to set up logging properly
How to troubleshoot and report - ES
How to troubleshoot and report - zmNinja
ES docs
zmNinja docs
jsylvia007
Posts: 116
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:32 pm

Re: Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

Post by jsylvia007 »

asker wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:52 pm Sure.
1. If you use "&user=xxx&pass=" instead of "&auth=" in your URL, the auth will never expire. The downsides are more frequent DB dips and password in clear text. But this is least complicated
Thanks!! Given that this is a local instance, I created a user that can only view, so it works like a charm. I might look into the auth piece later, but this was a clean drop-in fix.
asker wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:52 pm 3. As far as fitting windows into the screen is concerned, it is a CSS issue and easily solved. Google for it. There are many approaches. Here is one
'Doh! I was trying to wrap them in an iframe because that's what the grafana tutorial recommended. As soon as I dropped that and just used a simple img tag, it worked immediately also.

Now... Is there an EASY way to fix the concurrent connection limit? I have 9 cameras and I believe this will only allow 6 at a time.
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asker
Posts: 1553
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:12 pm

Re: Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

Post by asker »

jsylvia007 wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 2:25 pm Now... Is there an EASY way to fix the concurrent connection limit? I have 9 cameras and I believe this will only allow 6 at a time.
Switch to ZM's multi-port support. Will work on all browsers.
For an easier way, switch to Firefox - I believe it has a setting to increase it (you'll have to google for it)
I no longer work on zmNinja, zmeventnotification, pyzm or mlapi. I may respond on occasion based on my available time/interest.

Please read before posting:
How to set up logging properly
How to troubleshoot and report - ES
How to troubleshoot and report - zmNinja
ES docs
zmNinja docs
jsylvia007
Posts: 116
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:32 pm

Re: Setting up a zmNinja-like dashboard using Grafana?

Post by jsylvia007 »

asker wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 2:42 pm
jsylvia007 wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 2:25 pm Now... Is there an EASY way to fix the concurrent connection limit? I have 9 cameras and I believe this will only allow 6 at a time.
Switch to ZM's multi-port support. Will work on all browsers.
For an easier way, switch to Firefox - I believe it has a setting to increase it (you'll have to google for it)
Well that wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be either... Wow. Thanks!
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