Setting up Zoneminder Multi Port with Nginx

Introduction

If you're using the Zoneminder-base Docker image to run Zoneminder, and you're interested in using Multi Port, you might find that the Zoneminder Wiki Instructions, nor the regularly shared Multi-Port, Storage Areas and more article, don't work/apply.

This is because the Docker container uses nginx/php-fpm (ref) and not apache.

In this article I'll explain what steps you need to take to make this work.

Caveats

This is not an article on how to set-up Zoneminder and assumes you are using the Zoneminder-base image. It may apply to other scenarios, but I haven't personally tested it.

Copy the contents of /etc/nginx

The first step is to copy the contents of /etc/nginx, so we can add our required additions. To do this run the following command:

docker cp zoneminder:/etc/nginx ./nginx

Replace ./nginx with whatever path you want to store it to.

Map the local nginx directory

Under your volumes section, map the local nginx directory to /etc/nginx in your docker configuration

volumes:
  # ...
  - /path/to/nginx:/etc/nginx

Enable Multi Port

Enable Multi Port via the Zoneminder UI (see Multi-Port, Storage Areas and more for further details).

Add the required nginx configuration

For each port configuration, add a new server block to nginx.conf. For example, I have MIN_STREAMING_PORT set to 30000 so for my camera an ID of 1, I add the following:

# Existing server block for port 80
server {
    listen 80;
    # ...
}

# The new server block to add
server {
    listen 30001;
    root /var/www/html;
    gzip off;

    location /cgi-bin/ {
      root  /zoneminder;
      fastcgi_pass  unix:/zoneminder/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
      include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
      fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME  $request_filename;
      fastcgi_buffers     64 4K;
    }
}

Map the required ports

Under your ports section, map each port in your docker configuration

ports:
  - 80:80
  - 30001:30001

Restart

Run docker compose up -d to add the new port configuration and reload the nginx configuration.

Your camera feed should now be viewable, using multi port.