ZoneMinder

Zoneminder is a mature, Linux‑centric video surveillance stack that exposes a rich web interface and programmable APIs for capturing, analyzing, and storing camera feeds. At its core it treats each camera as a source that can be configured for motion detection, event triggering, and archival. The application is built to run on any system that supports the Video For Linux (V4L) API, making it compatible with USB webcams, BTTV cards, and a wide range of IP cameras via RTSP or HTTP streams. From a developer’s standpoint, the system is modular: camera drivers, event handlers, and storage back‑ends can be swapped or extended without touching the core engine.

Zoneminder’s architecture is a classic LAMP‑style stack with added real‑time components. The primary language is C++ for the core daemon (zm), which interacts with a MySQL/MariaDB database that stores camera metadata, event logs, and configuration. The web front‑end is written in PHP (currently PHP 7.x/8.x) and uses MySQLi or PDO for database access. Real‑time motion detection is handled by the zm daemon which streams frames to the Motion library or custom OpenCV filters, exposing event hooks via XML‑RPC and JSON endpoints. Docker images are maintained under the zmdockerfiles repository, allowing containerized deployments that map host camera devices (/dev/video*) or network streams into the container, while persisting MySQL data on a bind mount.

• Camera Management: Add, remove, and configure hundreds of cameras through a RESTful API (/api/v1/cameras) or XML‑RPC. Supports V4L, RTSP, MJPEG, and ONVIF.
• Event Detection: Built‑in motion detection, configurable thresholds, and optional integration with OpenCV for custom classifiers.
• Event APIs: Expose events via webhooks (/webhook/event) and a JSON feed (/api/v1/events), enabling third‑party services such as ALPR or object detection pipelines.
• Storage Flexibility: Recordings can be written to local disk, network shares (NFS/SMB), or cloud back‑ends via custom storage plugins.
• Extensibility: A plugin system allows developers to hook into the event lifecycle, add new camera types, or implement custom analytics modules. Plugins are simply shared libraries (*.so) loaded by the zm daemon.

Zoneminder is designed for self‑hosting on commodity hardware. Minimum requirements are a 2 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM for small setups, scaling to multi‑core CPUs and >8 GB RAM for large deployments. The Docker image supports Kubernetes via a Helm chart (zondream/zoneminder) that manages the MySQL StatefulSet, PersistentVolumeClaims for recordings, and exposes a NodePort or Ingress for the web UI. For bare‑metal deployments, the official package repositories (Ubuntu PPA, Debian repo, RPM Fusion) provide pre‑compiled binaries that automatically install required V4L drivers and systemd units. High availability can be achieved by running multiple zm instances behind a load balancer, sharing a single database cluster and recording storage.

Developers can extend Zoneminder in several ways:

• Webhooks: Configure URLs that receive JSON payloads on event start/end, allowing real‑time alerts or integration with home automation platforms.
• REST API: Programmatically query camera status, trigger recordings, or retrieve event lists. The API supports pagination and filtering by time range.
• Custom Plugins: Write C++ shared libraries that implement the ZMPlugin interface, then load them via /etc/zm.conf. This is ideal for adding new detection algorithms or custom analytics.
• Third‑Party Apps: The community has produced mobile clients (zmNinja), ALPR services, and object/person detection modules that hook into the event stream.

The documentation is hosted on ReadTheDocs, offering comprehensive guides for installation, configuration, and API usage. The source code is well‑structured with clear module boundaries, and the build system uses CMake for cross‑platform compatibility. Community support is robust: a dedicated Slack channel, Discord server, and an active GitHub issue tracker provide quick assistance. Licensing under GPL‑v3 ensures that any extensions or integrations remain open source, encouraging collaboration.

• Enterprise Security: Deploy a fleet of 200+ cameras across multiple floors, using the API to trigger automated ticketing in an ITSM system when motion is detected.
• Industrial Automation: Integrate OpenCV‑based defect detection with Zoneminder events to flag anomalies on a production line.
• Smart Home: Use the REST API to trigger a Raspberry Pi camera when motion is detected, then push a notification to a home automation hub.
• Compliance Monitoring: Store recordings on an encrypted NAS, leveraging Zoneminder’s event retention policies and audit logs for regulatory compliance.

Zoneminder offers unmatched flexibility: its native support for V4L and IP cameras eliminates vendor lock‑in. The performance of the C++ daemon ensures low latency motion detection even on modest hardware. Because it