What Is the State of Linux Security DVR Software? 112
Posted
by
timothy
from the peer-out-of-the-basement dept.
from the peer-out-of-the-basement dept.
StonyCreekBare writes "I am wondering what slashdotters have to offer on the idea of Linux based security systems, especially DVR software. I am aware of Zoneminder, but wonder what else is out there? Are there applications that will not only monitor video cameras, but motion sensors and contact closure alarms? What is state of the art in this area, and how do the various Linux platforms stack up in comparison to dedicated embedded solutions? Will these 'play nice' with other software, such as Asterisk, and Misterhouse? Can one server host three or four services applications of this nature, assuming CPU/memory/disk resources are sufficient?"
Direct tv uses Linux on there HD DVR's (Score:0, Informative)
Direct tv uses Linux on there HD DVR's
Ive tried them all (Score:5, Informative)
Zoneminder hands down is the best. I have tried several commercial apps and the couple of windows OSS/freeware ones and a linux box with zoneminder kicks their butt IF you have good hardware. If you thin you want to use the $9.95 ebay copies of the typical BT878 cards you will be in for pain and suffering.. Get a good 120fps 4 channel card and you will be very happy.
Zoneminder (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but... Zoneminder *is* the state of the art in Linux DVR software.
And for reference, having recently compared many different versions on different operating systems for a project at my company, Zoneminder IS the state of the art in all platforms of DVR software. It's one of the only systems that will work with many varieties of end-point hardware cleanly. Most dedicated embedded systems will only work with their brand of camera, or a single video protocol.
There are systems that will link motion sensors and contact alarms (Zoneminder can do that, too, though it takes some finangling). Again, most of these only work with *their* hardware.
The biggest things to keep in mind are bandwidth, storage consumption, and retention. A camera input card may have a very large 'potential framerate', but when you spread that among the 16 inputs you have coming in, things start to add up *very* rapidly. There are physical limitations on the hardware that you will run into if your deployment is of any large size. Our deployment is one of the largest, having 80 cameras currently (planning on adding another 16 before too long), and we have to spread the load out among 5 high-powered servers with relatively large amounts of RAM. Even with that, we still need to upgrade our switch infrastructure to gigabit in order to be able to view all the cameras simultaneously! We've got fiber to our SANs, though, so storage and later retrieval of footage is no issue.
The only downside is the lack of professional support - Management doesn't have anyone externally that they can point at if something breaks.
If you're a power Linux user, I'd recommend Zoneminder. If you have a few cameras for a small business and are not technically skilled, I'd recommend a pre-packaged solution - but expect to spend more for a similar sized installation. If you have a LOT of cameras (more than about 16) but are not technically skilled... I'd recommend finding a consultant who can deploy Zoneminder and contract long-term support with them.
Re:Zoneminder (Score:5, Informative)
The only downside is the lack of professional support - Management doesn't have anyone externally that they can point at if something breaks.
It seems the original developers are willing to provide this [zoneminder.com]:
Paid support is also available, please mail for rates and further details.
that doesn't sound very "state of the art" (Score:1, Informative)
On the other hand, I've done deployments numbering several hundred cameras using the Linux security-DVR software offered by Cisco: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9152/index.html [cisco.com].
It can handle a darn sight more than the 16 cameras per-server you needed. It does not support linking motion sensors or contact alarms to the cameras, but the record-on-motion capability gives similar functionality for most uses.
Linux surveillance software (Score:2, Informative)
Generalized software running on generalized hardware such as Linux on standard computer components will never have the same capabilities as an embedded solution that has been specifically engineered for said purpose. It would be unfair to compare them directly. The real question is how sophistcated do you want the system to be? If you just want quality information for law enforcement should something happen, just get a dedicated system and be done with it.
Typically when people want to explore solutions that are "outside the box" its because they want to showcase it to their buddies... "look how cool it is, I can zoom in on someones booger 300 yards down the road".
Zoneminder is one of the better ones. Have a look at iDVR.
An older /. post with similar interests: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/27/220254
DVRUSA.COM (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Zoneminder (Score:3, Informative)
It might be paid support, but unfortunately, it's not truly professional support - when I contacted them about it, they were unable to meet the 15 minute SLA response time and 24x7x365 support that our organization was looking for. And even hunting around the recesses of the internet, I have been unable to find anyone who has both experience with Zoneminder and the ability to provide those support terms.
Some people might consider those terms unreasonable. Our industry considers it a minimum. In the meantime, I'm getting stuck with being the 'first responder' for any problems with the system, 24x7x365.
Physical Security Systems (Score:5, Informative)
The fact is the most Linux systems are too complex for the majority of security applications. A lack of skills in maintenance of the OS, networking, and configuration mean that the vendor needs to provide a fully pre-configured kernal+apps which is then loaded on a server, and this means that most professional vendors offer Windows systems as the rule. SeeTec does allow for normal SuSe as the OS and then their application loads on top, but the reality is that 95% of end-users don't choose this because they are window's houses. This means SeeTec develop the Windows version as the priority.
There is also the politics to consider. The IT department and the Security dept. couldn't come from more disperate worlds. Generally speaking they don't like each other, and don't want to talk to each other, and no matter what the
The take-away is that as an IP guy, don't look for a pure Linux system if you are serious about security. Integration into Intruder, Access Control, Fire and Building Management (almost all of which are also Windows based systems) will require you to most likely stay on a Windows platform. If you're from the IT department you'll need A) a professional Integrator/Installer to recommend the right system and B) you'll need to remember you're no longer an expert. Security is not IT even though it might be loaded onto a Windows or Linux box. So please don't tell the Integrator what you "need". First get at least 2 opinions and then start to shape your requirements.
Re:Ive tried them all (Score:5, Informative)
http://store.bluecherry.net/Provideo_PV_149_p/pv-149.htm [bluecherry.net]
works great for me, but I also wont use anything less than a dual core processor for my recorder.
Re:Zoneminder (Score:1, Informative)
BlueCherry offers a stand alone zoneminder live disk that works great.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zoneminder-cd/
Re:Ive tried them all (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Physical Security Systems (Score:0, Informative)
The flip side to this is that most physical security experts I know lack any grounding in how to properly manage a computer system. No, a 6-way RAID 0 array isn't a good place for your DVR to save, and yes, POE switch you need for your cameras is different from the switch in your data closet.
Don't get burned (Score:3, Informative)
If you buy a security DVR system that is not based on free software, be very careful to check what you are buying. Check the software requirements very carefully. If it "requires Internet Explorer", find out why this is.
Many (most?) of the proprietary DVRs use ActiveX controls for remote access. These typically work only with IE6, so not only do you have to use Windows, but an old version at that. And no, this won't ever be fixed. You'll have to carry on using Windows 2000/XP for the lifetime of your DVR. Don't upgrade to IE7, because that will lock you out of the system.
I know of at least one person who was burned by this, and last year I spent some weeks trying to find a commercial DVR solution that didn't require ActiveX, without success. Zoneminder is miles ahead of the commercial systems in this regard.
Re:Motion (Score:3, Informative)
You mean Motion [lavrsen.dk]? It's ok for very low-end applications, but it doesn't handle things like motion detectors or alarm sensors, just cameras (and if they're USB, only one camera), and so it lacks the power that a lot of people would want in a security program.
Of course, I use it myself for a security camera, and have actually caught the person I suspected of stealing things from my office with it - having video proof is nice when you need to rat out the boss's pet for being slime.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Zoneminder (Score:2, Informative)
You misunderstand me: I wasn't able to find anyone who could provide those specifications, at *any* price level. I was saying, 'Here are our requirements, what will this cost?' And the answer I was getting back was, 'We can't meet your requirements, period. Ask someone else.' The word 'cheap' also never appeared in the specifications. :)
We could lower the requirements. However - in our industry, those requirements are not considered unreasonable. They are what we provide to our own customers. Or we face large contractual fines for failure to perform.
And to answer another poster's question here: the reason we were looking for an outside contractor was purely so that management would have someone to point fingers at when it fails. It's a legal/liability/compliance issue - with the contractual fines if we don't meet the 15 minute SLA. Having an outside contractor to draw on punts the liability to them, since we can say, 'We've contracted the third-party vendor on this issue' to our customers, and then THEY have to address it in a timely manner. Management just wants to be able to shift liability to an outside contractor.
I'm not an actuarial, so I don't know how much that's really worth. ;)
Re:Ive tried them all (Score:3, Informative)
Because you dont know how zoneminder works. If it were to record everything 24/7 blindly.. yes you are right almost zero processor used.. Zoneminder looks at every frame doing motion zones and detection. It's 1000% better than the best commercial DVR you can buy. Really it is. I have tried all them including the high dollar ones, Zoneminder kicks their butts hard.
Re:Ive tried them all (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, used the Vivotek VT-IP7130 (indoor) and VT-IP7330 (outdoor with IR flood) cameras. They have a built in web interface for configuration of the video stream.
I set up a landing page on the Zoneminder webserver that authenticates the user, then allows them to access either the normal ZM interface or the web interface of any camera using mod-proxy.
The cameras can do a much higher video quality then the server was capable of handling simultaneously (no fancy server, just a white-box Core2 system) but you are able to tune the stream bandwith settings till they are acceptable. IIRC I had to drop the framerate down from 30 to 15 which allowed decent playback while capturing from all cameras.
All in all, setup was pretty smooth, if you just set up the cameras once and forget about the mod-proxy customisations the whole thing is practically plug and play.
My experience (Score:3, Informative)
I tried a few things in our small business before settling on Zoneminder with a PV-149 8-port analog card & analog cameras. I have it running on a cheap Dell server (Pentium Dual Core, I think), and several weeks of events can be kept on the 80GB drive. It has been an extremely reliable setup for the last couple of years. If you use the Axis IP cameras with their own event triggering you can get away with a very low-powered machine, but the image processing otherwise means you want something at least halfway decent. If your box is powerful enough I can't see why Asterisk wouldn't run ok as well, but I haven't tried that yet. For a while I had it running with some cheap USB webcams, but they weren't as stable as the analog cams, and it's easy to get analog cams that switch over to IR in the dark.
not a big fan of zoneminder. motion ftw! (Score:1, Informative)
Zoneminder has what I consider nice "marketing". The website is relatively easy to navigate, the package is simple enough to install and the ui is easy enough to use without having to read a manual. I donated a couple hundred quid when I first started using it.
I deployed and used zoneminder in retail settings for a couple of years. The hardware was middle of the road, but the combination of 4 cameras recording at only at 3-6 fps and having constant motion (thus triggering events and recording) 12 hours a day/7 days a week made the system unusable. The use of mysql as the database to store millions of events caused the entire system to thrash disk nonstop once some threshold was reached. ugh. In practice, the UI makes trying to find a time or event an exercise in frustration.
I switched to motion http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome and haven't looked back. The motion package is not as easy to setup, nor is there a nice gui out of the box. My motion system is a custom mishmash of scripts that allow me to quickly access the day/time and camera as needed. I can even view the realtime images remotely using the built-in http server. There appear to be gui front-ends for the system, but I haven't used them, to be honest.
Now the disk never thrashes, the cpu usage is less than 20% versus regular 100% pegging by zm. And best of all, motion can save directly to video files, whereas zm had to save jpegs, then run a process to convert to video (this may have changed by now, since it's been a while since I've even looked at zm).
With some time and programming you can combine motion with some external sensors (2-wire) and have some pretty sophisticated home grown monitoring.
In my experience zm is only suitable for low freqency events and light duty applications.
Re:Zoneminder (Score:3, Informative)
You misunderstand me: I wasn't able to find anyone who could provide those specifications, at *any* price level. I was saying, 'Here are our requirements, what will this cost?' And the answer I was getting back was, 'We can't meet your requirements, period. Ask someone else.' The word 'cheap' also never appeared in the specifications. :)
Now to be totally honest, that was not what I said. I offered to architect a high availability solution that would eliminate single points of failure (other than the actual camera, but including cabling) and a best effort on repair, with 24x7x365 phone access. But occasionally I am in a car, and more than 15 minutes from the net. :) The problem is that those of us with the knowledge and the ability are geographically separate. Perhaps we should try and get together for shift exchanges...
:)
Bet you never thought I would see this...
Re:WTF? (Score:1, Informative)
Check out Linuxmce.org. It's constantly getting better and has all of that already cobbled together for you. it's a bit complicated but it works once setup.