Installing Obseron GUI on CentOS 7

21 July 2020

Guide CentOS

These instructions will help in installing Obseron with a GUI on a CentOS 7 platform. Obseron with a GUI will work as a viewing client and as a recorder. Installation may differ from the instructions due to different hardware used for servers. There are only a few mandatory steps, but all the suggested steps are very useful. These instructions should not be followed blindly but adjusted to fit your hardware (such as GPU and drivers for it).

Requirements

CentOS 7 GNOME Desktop (64-bit required)

Download link to CentOS 7 64-bit version

CentOS suggested partitions

Mountpoint	Size (GB)	Type
/	25	ext4
/swap	2	swap
/home	50	ext4
var/lib/obseron/capture/d	100	ext4
/var/lib/obseron/capture/e	all remaining space	ext4

The aboce partition table is a suggestion on how to partition your system when you have a single 1TB hard disk.

Install CentOS

    Add a new user for your CentOS installation. For example (obseron) and log in.

Install Obseron by entering the following inside a terminal

[obseron@localhost ~]$ su -
Password:

#(Install Obseron repository)
rpm -Uvh http://packages.ksenos.fi/centos/7/x86_64/ksenos-release-0.1-3.noarch.rpm

#(Install Obseron)
yum -y install obseron-gui

#(Set privileges for recording space for user "obseron")
chown -R obseron:obseron /var/lib/obseron/capture

Obseron Configuartion

Enter product key

Setup and define storage space for recording

Setup cameras and widgets

See the Quickstart guide

Suggested configurations and additional software

Update all packages. (root access required)

rpm --import http://elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-4.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
yum -y install epel-release
rpm -Uvh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-7.noarch.rpm

Install VLC media player to play back video clips. (root access required)

yum -y install vlc

Install additional repository for the packages in later suggestions. (root access required)

import http://elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-4.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
yum -y install epel-release
rpm -Uvh https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-7.noarch.rpm

Install NVIDIA drivers (if GPU is present).

yum -y install nvidia-detect && yum -y install $(nvidia-detect)

Configure OS for auto user login

gedit /etc/gdm/custom.conf

AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=obseron

Disable some selected system services. (root access required)

#(Firewall, keep it on if you plan on configuring it)
chkconfig firewalld off

#(kdump is for creating a crash dump from kernel crashes)
chkconfig kdump off

#(PackageKit is an auto-updater for CentOS and should be removed to avoid unexpected restarts)
yum -y remove PackageKit

Increase the maximum number of open file handles (root access required).

gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

obseron soft nofile 10000
obseron hard nofile 10000

Too many open file handles have caused some systems to malfunction when the default lower value is used.

gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

Set desktop attributes like the screensaver and automatic locking for the user.

[root@localhost ~]# exit

#(Disable screen shield/blank screen and screen locking)
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 0
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.lockdown disable-lock-screen true

Reboot is also suggested after all of these changes.

Before rebooting, make sure to doublecheck your NVIDIA driver (if you installed it) is the correct one.

Obseron can be manually started from the Applications -> Sound & Video menu.

Obseron VMS