ZoneMinder Virtual Appliance

ZoneMinder Virtual Appliance (also known as Zoneminder Appliance for VMware) is an open source turn-key appliance that helps you to deploy the ZoneMinder software in a virtual machine on an existing operating system (GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X).

Distributed as virtual appliance in the OVA file format

The project is distributed as a virtual appliance in the Open Virtualization Format, as an OVA file, designed to be imported in mainstream virtualization software, including Oracle VirtualBox and VMware. The current version is based on the 12.04 LTS release of Ubuntu, but you will be able to upgrade the distribution to the current 14.04 Long Term Support version.

How to use the OVA file

Download the OVA file from Softoware, open VirtualBox or VMware and import it using the respective “File” menu entry. On the Import Appliance dialog, browse to the location of the file and import it. The import process will take from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on how fast your drive is.

Passwords, lots of passwords

After import, a new entry will appear on the list of virtual machines of VirtualBox or VMware. Select it and press the “Start” button to power it up. You will see a GRUB menu with various boot options, which will automatically start the live system in approximately 2 seconds. Use the “zmadmin” username and “zmadmin” password to log in. In addition, the root password for the MySQL database is also “zmadmin,” the username and password combination for the web-based interface is admin/admin, and there’s no root password set for the Ubuntu system.

What’s in the package

The current version of the Zoneminder Virtual Appliance contains the ZoneMinder 1.25.0 software with all its requirements, the Apache 2.2 web browser, as well as the OpenSSH open-source Secure Shell server and MySQL database engine.