moonfire-nvr/guide/install.md

Downloading, installing, and configuring Moonfire NVR

This document describes how to download, install, and configure Moonfire NVR on a Debian-based Linux system (such as Ubuntu or Raspbian).

(In principle, Moonfire NVR supports any POSIX-compliant system, and the main author uses macOS for development, but the documentation and scripts are intended for Linux.)

Downloading

See the github page (in case you're not reading this text there already). You can download the bleeding-edge version from the commandline via git:

$ git clone https://github.com/scottlamb/moonfire-nvr.git

Building and installing from source

There are no binary packages of Moonfire NVR available yet, so it must be built from source. To do so, you can follow either of two paths:

• Scripted: You will run some shell scripts (after preparing one or two files, and will be completely done. This is by far the easiest option, in particular for first time builders/installers. Read more in Scripted Installation.
• Manual: see instructions.

Moonfire NVR keeps two kinds of state:

• a SQLite database, typically <1 GiB. It should be stored on flash if available.
• the "sample file directories", which hold the actual samples/frames of H.264 video. These should be quite large and are typically stored on hard drives.

(See schema.md for more information.)

By now Moonfire NVR's dedicated user and database should have been created for you. Next you need to create a sample file directory.

Dedicated hard drive seutp

If a dedicated hard drive is available, set up the mount point:

$ sudo vim /etc/fstab
$ sudo mkdir /media/nvr
$ sudo mount /media/nvr
$ sudo install -d -o moonfire-nvr -g moonfire-nvr -m 700 /media/nvr/sample

In /etc/fstab, add a line similar to this:

/dev/disk/by-uuid/23d550bc-0e38-4825-acac-1cac8a7e091f    /media/nvr   ext4    nofail,noatime,lazytime,data=writeback,journal_async_commit  0       2

You'll have to lookup the correct uuid for your disk. One way to do that is via the following command:

$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

If you use the nofail attribute in /etc/fstab as described above, your system will boot successfully even when the hard drive is unavailable (such as when your external USB storage is unmounted). This is convenient, but you likely want to ensure the moonfire-nvr service only starts when the mounting is successful. Edit the systemd configuration to do so:

$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/moonfire-nvr.service
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

You'll want to add a line similar to the following to the [Unit] section of the file:

RequiresMountsFor=/media/nvr

Completing configuration through the UI

Once your system is set up, it's time to initialize an empty database, and add the cameras and sample directories to moonfire. You can do this by using the moonfire-nvr binary's text-based configuration tool.

$ sudo -u moonfire-nvr moonfire-nvr init               # Initialize empty db
$ sudo -u moonfire-nvr moonfire-nvr config 2>debug-log # Configure cameras and storage

In the user interface,

1. add your sample file dir(s) under "Directories and retention". If you used a dedicated hard drive, use the directory you precreated (/media/surveillance/sample). Otherwise, try /var/lib/moonfire-nvr/sample. Moonfire NVR will create the directory as long as it has the required permissions on the parent directory.

2. add cameras under "Cameras and streams".

   • See the wiki for notes about specific camera models.

   • There's a "Test" button to verify your settings directly from the add/edit camera dialog.

   • Be sure to assign each stream you want to capture to a sample file directory and check the "record" box.

   • flush_if_sec should typically be 120 seconds. This causes the database to be flushed when the first instant of one of this stream's completed recordings is 2 minutes old. A "recording" is a segment of a video stream that is 60–120 seconds when first establishing the stream, about 60 seconds midstream, and shorter when an error or server shutdown terminates the stream. Thus, a value just below 60 will cause the database to be flushed once per minute per stream in the steady state. A value around 180 will cause the database to be once every 3 minutes per stream, or less frequently if other streams cause flushes first. Lower values cause less video to be lost on power loss. Higher values reduce wear on the SSD holding the SQLite database, particularly when you have many cameras and when you record both the "main" and "sub" streams of each camera.

3. Assign disk space to your cameras back in "Directories and retention". Leave a little slack (at least 100 MB per camera) between the total limit and the filesystem capacity, even if you store nothing else on the disk. There are several reasons this is needed:

   • The limit currently controls fully-written files only. There will be up to two minutes of video per camera of additional video.
   • The rotation happens after the limit is exceeded, not proactively.
   • Moonfire NVR currently doesn't account for the unused space in the final filesystem block at the end of each file.
   • Moonfire NVR doesn't account for the space used for directory listings.
   • If a file is open when it is deleted (such as if a HTTP client is downloading it), it stays around until the file is closed. Moonfire NVR currently doesn't account for this.

4. Add a user for yourself (and optionally others) under "Users". You'll need this to access the web UI once you enable authentication.

Starting it up

Note that at this stage, Moonfire NVR's web interface is insecure: it doesn't use https and doesn't require you to authenticate to it. You might be comfortable starting it in this configuration to try it out, particularly if the machine it's running on is behind a home router's firewall. You might not; in that case read through secure the system first.

The following commands will start Moonfire NVR and enable it for following boots, respectively:

$ sudo systemctl start moonfire-nvr
$ sudo systemctl enable moonfire-nvr

The HTTP interface is accessible on port 8080; if your web browser is running on the same machine, you can access it at http://localhost:8080/.

If the system isn't working, see the Troubleshooting guide.

Once the web interface seems to be working, read through securing Moonfire NVR.