The Zoneminder Alert Image Upload to Amazon S3 project was created to solve two simple problems:

1) Off site storage of alarmed images (those in which Zoneminder has detected motion) is a must-have
if your IP camera security system is to be of any real use in the event your home/business is
broken in to.

2) The upload must be FAST - so if (when) the intruder takes the PC running zoneminder (or the external
drive holding the images) some set of alarmed images will have already have been uploaded.

Essentially, I didn't want to spend time/energy figuruing out how to hid/secure the Zoneminder hardware and
opted instead to ensure any alarmed images were uploaded to a secure location.

About Zoneminder:

Zoneminder (http://www.zoneminder.com/) is a GPL licensed video camera security and surveillance solution.
It allows you to view, record and distribute video from any video surveillance cameras you may have in your
home/business.

Installation:

This document assumes you have a pre-existing Zoneminder installation. If you need help getting Zoneminder
working please see http://www.zoneminder.com

There are 3 basic steps:

1) Modify your Zoneminder database.
2) Configure the Zoneminder s3 Uploader.
3) Install and run the Uploader.

Modify the Zoneminder Database:

The included script zms3db.sql should be run on your Zoneminder database. It will create a table the Zoneminder
s3 Uploader will use to track which alarm images have been uploaded.

Configure the Zoneminder s3 Uploader:

There are two files which require some configuration. The core Zoneminder s3 Uploader configuration is found in
the zms3Config.example.js file. Make a copy of this file and name it zms3Config.js.
This file contains the information need to connect to your Zoneminder MySQL database,
how many images to process at once, logfile paths/names, etc.

Optionally, you can also store your logs and data about each file uploaded in a MongoDB database.

Please see the zms3Config.js file for specifics.

Additionally, your Amazon S3 credentials are stored in the zmAlarmImage/s3-client.js file. You'll need to add your
Amazon S3 Account key and secret in this file. By default it will use the security-alarms bucket - which can be
changed as needed.

Run The Uploader:

Install the required Node.js packages by running
npm update

The uploader should be run as a daemon (it runs continuously).

node /path/to/your/install/upload-zoneminder-alarm-frames.js >> /dev/null &


The log files generated will provide diagnostic information as needed.