TrueNAS set up issues

[bigdawg!]

I'm trying to set up a NAS on an old computer so that I could capture and save security video from my WiFi security camera. The current camera uses an SD card in the camera to store any motion detections. The camera manufacturer has a subscription service that I can pay for to store the video's in the clouds but would rather not trust the cloud or spend the money monthly to store them.
I used TrueNAS and all seemed to install correctly on the spare computer. I can access the NAS Dashboard from a browser. I may not have set up the NAS properly to accept videos from my security camera as the security camera NAS setup wants me to copy the "RTSP Stream link" (rtsp://192.168.X.XXX/live0) to the NAS configuration path. (The X's are to hide the actual link for this post). Where does this link go in the TrueNas settings? There are too many settings that I am not sure of. As you can tell, I'm a little over my head on all this.
The camera also has the ability to set it up to send the videos to a NAS but while I was going through the camera's wizard, it requires that I put the camera on a static IP address. Here are some additional problems.
My router (TP-Link AX3000) is not centrally located so I purchased a Ubiquity Access Point (AP) (Unifi AP-AC-LR) that is connected to the router by Cat5 cable (the TP-Link router's WiFi is turned off). The AP is centrally located for excellent coverage.
The Unifi app will not allow me to set my security camera to a static IP address saying that I needed to purchase and add a Unifi Security Gateway to my system to be able to accomplish this task.
Not wanting to do that, I was told by Ubiquity that I should go into my TP-Link router and put the camera on a static IP address there. I went into the router's settings and did find my camera there but am not sure of all the settings to make this WiFi camera keep a static IP. Plus I don't really understand how the router could override the AP's settings for the camera since it is a WiFi camera.
In addition, even if I was able to set up the security camera, I don't see where or how I can access the files on my PC, unless the reason is because of the RTSP Stream link that I haven't figure out where it goes.
I'm totally lost about all this so any guidance is immensely appreciated.
BD

 

[elvisimprsntr]

1. You can change each of your cameras to manually assign a static IP address, netmask, gateway. Or you can configure your router to reserve a static IP for each device MAC address and leave each client in DHCP mode. You can do this for both the NAS and video cameras, or any other device you want to have a static IP address. You would need to disable or forward the AP DHCP server (if it has one) to your router and configure DHCP on your router.

Address Reservation: An Easy Way to Configure Static IP Addresses - Home Network Community

TP-Link Community

community.tp-link.com

2. Once you have a static IP address for the NAS and video cameras, you have a couple of options to preserve camera video depending on the model of your video camera and its capabilities.

a. Depending on your cameras capabilities, you might be able to push video continuously or on motion events to your NAS, That would require your camera to have to ability to save video via FTP or some other protocol. That would require you to set up a share and that service on your TrueNAS server.

b. A very popular open source TrueNAS plugin is Zoneminder https://zoneminder.com to allow centralized video monitoring, which also has an excellent zmNinja client for various OS (although developer is ending support.) https://pliablepixels.github.io. This allows centralized video surveillance monitoring, events, recording, notifications, etc.

 

[bigdawg!]

Wow, great info.
I was able to go into the router and make my security camera's IP permanent. Thanks for that.
As far as 2A. My camera says it is best to set the video to continuous. So that was how it was set up.
I'm not sure about how to set up a "share" you spoke of. Is this where I would put in the rtsp://192.168.X.XXX/live0 that the camera set-up said I needed to add so the camera can send videos to the NAS?

 

[bigdawg!]

By the way, the actual words from the cameras set up are..."Copy the RTSP stream link to your NAS configuration path."
Is this done in the share section you spoke of?

 

[bigdawg!]

After spending the weekend on this, I think I set up TrueNAS Pool and Share correctly. I say "think" since I am basically flying blind but I now have a couple of folders that are on my desktop that correspond to what I did in the setup.
I then went to Plugins and saw a number of plugins preloaded. I did a search for ZoneMinder and it came up, but there were so many options to consider, I decided not to install it till I get more guidance.
This morning I decided to just install ZoneMinder and see if I could work through the settings, however, when I clicked on Plugins, I got an error message. See Attached.
I have no idea what happened or how to fix this.
Any ideas?

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Seems you don't have a DNS and/or Gateway routing issue on your TrueNAS server.

Check the Network Global Settings to make sure you have a DNS server and Default Gateway defined.

Then check the Network Summary page.

 

[bigdawg!]

Thanks for the fast reply.
Here are screenshots of the settings.
It's all over my head so I hope you can understand this and what needs to be done to fix it.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

You don't have a gateway or DNS server defined, as I suspected.

Are you assigning a static IP address to your NAS or letting it obtain an IP address automatically from your router?

Assuming dynamic IP address assignment from your router, it appears your router is at IP address 192.168.0.1.

If so,

Fill in default gateway: 192.168.0.1
Fill in two DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (both are Google DNS servers)

Once setup, re-attempt installing ZoneMinder

 

[bigdawg!]

"Are you assigning a static IP address to your NAS...."
Yes. I read where I should do that. Was that wrong advise?

 

[bigdawg!]

I saw that there were no settings for the DNS so I added that (see screenshot) but left the IP address of the NAS as static. Unfortunately, the Plugin still fails so I can't search for Zoneminder.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

You still need to enter a default gateway on Network globals. 192.168.0.1

 

[bigdawg!]

Thanks! That did it. I am now able to install ZoneMinder. However, there are a couple of questions.
1. I assume that since I have set up the security camera with a static IP address that I should uncheck the DHCP in the ZoneMinder setup. Am I correct?
2. It wants an IP4 interface. Is that the router IP address 192.168.0.1?
3. I assume the IP4 address it is asking for is the security camera's static address, not TrueNas? Correct?
4. I also assume the IP4 netmask is 24. Correct?
5. I can name anything I want and assume it doesn't have to be the name of the user, camera, etc. Correct?
6. I assume I don't need to put anything in the IP6 section. Correct?
7. Lastly, do I need to worry about the Advanced Plugin installation button?
Hopefully, with your help, I will, at last, be able to use my NAS.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[bigdawg!]

Well, I tried my settings mentioned above, but the install failed. See attached screenshot.
Obviously, they must not be correct but I don't know what I did wrong.
Sorry for continuing to ask for assistance but I feel that I'm close.

 

[bigdawg!]

I'm not sure why, but I tried to install the Zoneminder plugin again with the NAT box checked, and this time Zoneminder installed!
HOWEVER, I can't seem to find where the videos are being stored to review.
A Eufy file (the name I gave it) showed up in my Start list and has a number of files in this folder (see attached) but are all empty even though I confirmed that the security camera is set to "Continuous" and I can access the videos on the camera app as I could before.
My question is, even though I was told I could keep the SD card in the camera and have the video's stored on the SD card as well as the TrueNas computer hard drive, is the video I see through the camera's app coming from the TrueNas PC or from the SD card?
If what I see is the video's on the SD card, then where do I access the videos located on my TrueNas machine?
Do I have to go to the TrueNas Console or Dashboard to find the videos and if so where are they?
The attached file also shows the Pools that were created once the install went through, in case you need to see this.

 

[bigdawg!]

Never mind!
Woke up this morning and saw that the NAS had tried to reboot without any luck and now my hard drive in the NAS has become corrupt.
Tried to re-do it, and TrueNas sees the drive, but now the Dashboard says the drive is offline. Don't know why or what to do so at this moment I'm just giving up for now.
As a complete novice at this, I'm just flying blind when it comes to trying to figure out the proper settings for each section. This has been a week and a half journey that has led me to nowhere at this point.
Looks like I may have to blow it all up and try to start over...or just give up.
Thanks for trying to help.
BD

 

[bigdawg!]

I’ve been working with TrueNas for almost 3 weeks trying to solve a problem that I can’t seem to figure out, even with the great help from a contributor Blackdragon and elvisimprsntr. To recap, I am trying to set up an old computer as my NAS so that my security camera can send motion-detected videos to it. I set up my security camera for RTSP and gave it a static address. The instructions from the camera say that I need to copy the stream link "rtsp://192.168.0.115/live0" to the NAS configuration. Having never worked with a NAS nor TrueNas, I have no idea where this link should go, so as a guess, I put this link into Sharing/Windows SMB like this: /mnt/Eufy/Eufy Data/Eufy Dataset/Eufy videos/rtsp://192.168.0.115/live0 I don’t know if this is where this link is supposed to go or not or if there are other settings that are also not correct preventing my NAS from capturing the motion detected videos of my security camera. I do have a TrueNas icon in my Network and when I click on it, it opens a Eufy Dataset, but there is nothing in it. Is there anyone who can walk me through the different settings to make sure everything is set properly and where this link from my camera is supposed to be placed? Any help is greatly appreciated. Also, are there other plugins or software programs, similar to ZoneMinder that might work better than ZoneMinder?