Do you have a question about the QStor QMX 20 and is the answer not in the manual?
Questions and answers
Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel
Summary of Contents for Exus QStor QMX 20
Page 1
Q S t o r Q MX Ma n u a l P e r f e c t C o mb i n a t i o n V i d e o - S t o r a g e o p t i mi z e d f o r MO B O T I X - C a me r a s R e l e a s e : 1 .
THANK YOU Thank you for choosing the QStor QMX video storage appliance! This user manual provides detailed information on the setup and operation of your video recording & storage system. This manual will be your reference and help you to quickly become familiar with all functions of the QStor QMX.
Table of Contents User Manual QMX Series ......................1 THANK YOU ........................... 2 Table of Contents ........................3 Section 1: Overview of the QStor QMX ................... 7 1.1. Prominent Features ...................... 7 1.2. Technical Data ......................9 QStor QMX Standard ....................... 9 QStor QMX Pro ........................
Page 5
5.3. System Administration ....................36 5.3.1. Hardware Information ................... 36 5.3.2. Activation ......................37 5.3.3. Additional Licenses ....................38 5.3.4. Command Console ....................38 5.3.5. Backing Up System Settings ................39 5.3.6. Restoring System Settings ................... 39 5.3.7. Updating the System .................... 40 5.3.8.
Page 6
Section 6: Storage Management Menu ................. 51 6.1. Managing Network Shares ..................51 6.1.1. Network Shares ....................51 6.1.2. Network Shares Currently In Use ................. 52 6.1.3. Selecting the Logical Drive For Network Shares ..........52 6.1.4. Creating a Network Share ..................53 6.1.5.
Page 7
7.2.2. Local Group Administration .................. 72 Section 8: Network ........................ 75 8.1. Network ........................75 8.1.1. Network Status ..................... 75 8.1.2. Domain and Workgroup ..................75 8.1.3. TCP/IP Settings ....................78 8.1.4. DNS / WINS Settings ................... 79 8.1.5. Hosts File Editor ....................80 8.1.6.
Section 1: Overview of the QStor QMX 1.1. Prominent Features QStor QMX is the most reliable and, at the same time, the most technically advanced solution for storing high resolution video data in a network. QStor QMX offers many advantages: •...
Page 9
Optimal Support For Any Network: Individual IP Adress, NFS, SMB, • Bonjour QStor QMX supports all common network protocols: Scanning the network is done via Bonjour, writing is done via NFS and reading is done via SMB. Each video camera receives its own IP address in the network and is assigned its very own NFS share.
1.2. Technical Data QStor QMX Standard QStor QMX Standard Product Line QMX 20 QMX 40 QMX 45 QMX 1040 QMX 1045 QMX 2085 Model Cube Cube Cube 1 U Rackmount 2 U Rackmount Form Factor Number of Harddisk Capacity per 500 GB, 1 TB oder 2 TB Harddisk Number of...
Section 2: First Steps QStor QMX and Mobotix cameras integrate seamlessly into a self-contained system. In this system, the QStor QMX acts as the control center which controls all connected cameras. 2.1. Setting up and Connecting the QStor QMX Please follow these five steps to correctly configure the system: 1.
Page 12
4. After turning on the QStor QMX, its integrated console appears. It is used to configure all important network settings for the appliance. The console always displays the currently configured IP addresses for both network ports (1). Network settings can be changed via the menu in the bottom half of the screen (2).
2.2. Initial Setup via the Web GUI The Web GUI of the QStor QMX is used for the detailed system configuration. Cameras that are connected to the network can be attached to the server appliance via a Web GUI wizard. The Web GUI works on all major web browsers, for instance Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Page 14
to configure the cameras via the Web GUI is shown in the Quickstart Guide. Please consult the User Manual for help with all other configuration actions. Configuring a Swap Partition and a Network Share Prior to setting up the cameras via the wizard, both a swap partition and a network share should be configured.
Page 15
Configuring Cameras with the Camera Wizard Configuring new cameras can be easily done via the camera wizard. We will illustrate how this is done on the following pages. 1. In the main menu, click on the menu item ‚Mobotix‘ and then on the item ‚MX Config‘. The system now reads in the parameters of all connected cameras and displays them in a convenient table.
Page 16
3. The wizard now displays a list of newly detected cameras. If you want to prevent a camera from being imported, please deselect the check mark in the ‚Import‘ column on the respective camera line. Once you are done with this, click on ‚Import Selected Cameras‘.
Page 17
5. The camera wizard allows you to reconfigure the IP address range of your cameras. In this case, the wizard will assign a new IP address to each and every camera, not just to the ones selected in the previous step, and reboot them. Click on ‚Next‘ to configure new IP addresses.
Page 18
7. Do you want to configure the recording parameters of the cameras right here in the wizard? If so, the wizard allows you to do that and you can now enter important parameters such as image resolution, image quality, recording times and the maximum recording size.
Page 19
In order to enable that, enter the email settings that are valid within your network into the respective entry fields, then click ‚Next‘. If you want to opt out of receiving email notifications, click ‚Skip‘ instead. 9. In order for camera recordings to start and end at the precise time that has been configured, the cameras need to receive their time information from the QStor QMX appliance.
Section 3: The Web Interface The Web interface that is integrated into the QStor QMX is the ‚command center‘ of the appliance. Each and every system setting can be configured in detail here. One part of this is, for instance, camera installation and configuration, which is discussed in section 2. The web interface also allows configuration access to all settings that are relevant for a network storage appliance, such as storage management, access control, network configuration and querying system statistics as well as alert notices.
Page 21
For your initial Web GUI session, the defaults for user name and password are: User name: admin Password: Pressing the ‚Enter‘ key or clicking on ‚OK‘ will log you on. The browser now displays the main menu of the QStor QMX appliance. Here you can configure all system settings.
3.2. Menu Layout of the Web Interface The Web GUI of the QStor QMX is split into two sections: At the left side of the screen, the main menu appears. The contents of the currently selected submenu appear on the right side of the screen.
Page 23
All the functionality of the web interface is contained in the following five top level menus: Mobotix: This menu allows you to administer the Mobotix cameras. You can add • new cameras via a wizard, change camera settings, remove unneeded cameras from the camera list and even display the live video feed of each camera.
Section 4: The Mobotix Menu The ‚Mobotix‘ menu has a single, but rather important, submenu - ‚MX Config‘. It is used to manage all Mobotix cameras that are connected to the QStor QMX. You can also conveniently add new Mobotix cameras via a wizard. In order for the QStor QMX appliance to be able to interoperate with Mobotix cameras, it needs to ‚get to know‘...
4.1. Triggering Actions of Mobotix cameras The column ‚Action‘ allows you to trigger actions for each Mobotix camera. The web interface allows you to choose four actions: Play back a live video feed: Click on the ‚Play‘ icon to display the current •...
4.2. Adding a Mobotix-Kamera via the Camera Wizard You can conveniently add a new camera via the camera wizard of the ‚Mobotix‘ menu. We will now show you how. 1. Click on the ‚Camera Wizard‘ button. After clicking ‚Next‘, the server will scan the network for newly added cameras.
Page 27
4. The camera wizard allows you to reconfigure the IP address range of your cameras. In this case, the wizard will assign a new IP address to each and every camera, not just to the ones selected in the previous step, and reboot them. Click on ‚Next‘ to configure new IP addresses.
Page 28
5. Now configure a suitable IP address and target network share for the camera recording data. In case no network share has been configured yet, the field ,Target Network Share‘ will be empty. You can create a network share by selecting the menu item ‚Managing Network Shares‘...
Page 29
7. Depending on the scale of your camera deployment, it may take quite some time until the wizard has transmitted all entered setup parameters to each and every device. Hence, the second-to-final window of the wizard gives you the option whether you want to be notified of configuration start and configuration end by email.
Page 30
4.3. Add Mobotix Cameras Manually You can add a new camery manually in the menu ‚Mobotix’. Simply click on the item ‚add camera manually’ and follow the steps described below. 1. Provide the IP address of the Mobotix camera as well as the administrator account name and password.
Page 31
Note: • Select port 443 if you want to run an encrypted connection. • The administrator password for the Mobotix camera is always ’meinsm’. After having made the configuration changes click on ’save settings and restart camera’. Depending on the camera model it may take up to a minute until the camera will have restarted and be available in the overview.
Section 5: The System Menu Via the ‚System‘ menu you can view and modify all basic system settings of the QStor QMX. The menu allows you to view the system configuration, statistics and event logs. You can also shut down or reboot the QStor QMX via this menu. 5.1.
5.2. Basic Settings As suggested by its name, the ‚Basic settings‘ menu allows you to view and change basic system settings of the QStor QMX: The time, the hostname by which the QStor QMX will be seen in the network, as well as settings for password, swap partition and character set. By clicking on a menu item, the respective submenu will be displayed.
Time zone: Set the time zone of the system by clicking on the drop-down box and • selecting the appropriate time zone. Confirm your selection by clicking on ‚Save‘. • Time synchronization via NTP: This menu item allows you to specify a server for time synchronization, which will keep the system time of the QStor QMX synchronized down to about one millisecond.
5.2.3. Changing Passwords This menu allows you to change the password for the current user account as well as passwords for other users. Please see ‚section 7.2. Users and Groups‘ for information on how to administer existing user accounts and how to create new ones. The field ‚User name‘...
5.2.4. Setting up a Swap Partition For the QStor QMX to run at optimal performance, it is essential to specify a swap partition. This menu allows you to set up a swap partition by entering the size of the swap partition in Megabytes.
5.2.5. Selecting the Character Set This menu determines the character set that is used for network shares. For international customers, ‚UTF-8 (international)‘ is recommended. Customers in Germany may keep ‚ISO- 8859-15‘ instead, which is the factory default. By clicking on ‚Save‘, the setting will be stored. 5.3.
This menu enables you to activate the QStor QMX. Please note that the QStor QMX server appliance is already activated when you receive it. Another activation would only be necessary as part of restoring the system, when instructed to do so by Exus Technologies customer support.
Caution: This menu is labeled ‚Debug‘ for a reason. Please use this console only when instructed by Exus Technology tech support. Trying to input commands on your own may be detrimental to the operation of the QStor QMX and may even damage it or render it...
5.3.5. Backing Up System Settings This menu allows you to back up the system settings of the QStor QMX and download a copy via your web browser. Here’s how its done: First click on the button ‚ Create backup file‘. The QStor QMX server appliance generates a backup file with all system settings and lets you download this file.
The QStor QMX system is continuously being improved in order to provide the best performance and customer experience. Such improvements are bundled into firmware updates by the Exus Technology development team and you can download and install them via this menu.
Click on ‚Install manually‘ on the first screen. Copy the file containing the firmware update into the root directory of any network share. The server appliance will automatically recognize the firmware upgrade and display it in the menu. After clicking on ‚Select network share‘ and a final confirmation, the firmware update will be installed.
5.4.2. Boot Log You can view the boot log of the underlying Linux system via this menu. Should you no longer need the current boot log, you can erase it by clicking on ‚Delete all log entries‘.
Should your QStor QMX experience technical issues, this menu may help in resolving them. Clicking on ‚Generate Log Files‘ will generate a snapshot of all system settings and log files. You may be asked to email this file to Exus Technology technical support.
The file that is generated is always named ‚logfiles.tar.gz‘ and its file format is GZIP. Clicking on the file name will download this log file to your PC via your browser. 5.5. System Services In the menu ‚System Services‘ you can configure system services (demons) of the QStor QMX.
5.5.1. Email Notification In order to facilitate trouble-free and reliable operation, the QStor QMX is continuously monitoring the most important system parameters and can optionally email you periodic reports about the system status. Two reports are available: A report about the current RAID status messages and a report about synchronization activity.
5.5.2. Windows File Sharing This menu allows you to configure the Windows File Sharing service of the QStor QMX appliance. You can stop a running file sharing service as well as start a stopped one. In order to start or stop the service, click on the notification message – if the file sharing service is running, the message ‚File Sharing service is running.
5.5.3. NFS Server This menu allows you to start or stop the NFS server. Simply click on the word ‚here‘ in the status message to do that. 5.5.4. APC UPS Service This menu allows you to start or stop the service that receives notifications from an APC UPS.
5.6.2. Server Load This menu allows you to keep informed about various server load-related parameters. The graph shows RAM and swap space utilization as well as the load average. 5.7. Shutting Down / Rebooting This ‚System‘ menu item allows you to shut down or reboot the QStor QMX and optionally specify a daily shutdown time.
5.7.2. Rebooting the Server This menu allows you to reboot the QStor QMX. To do this, click on ‚Reboot‘. To abort, click on ‚Abort‘. This menu matches the menu ‚Reboot the Server‘ that can be reached via the menus ‚System‘ – ‚System Administration‘ (see section 5.3.9.) 5.7.3.
Section 6: Storage Management Menu Menu item ‚Storage Management‘ is all about the internal hard disks of the QStor QMX: You can set up network shares, initialize hard disks, set the RAID level and manage any supported RAID controller. 6.1. Managing Network Shares The menu ‚Manage Network Shares‘...
6.1.2. Network Shares Currently In Use Which Windows computer is currently using which QStor QMX network share? This menu of the Web GUI answers this question by displaying the currently active connections. Note: This list only shows Windows connections (SMB/CIFS). 6.1.3.
6.1.4. Creating a Network Share This menu allows you to create a new network share using just a few screen entries and mouse clicks. First, choose a name for the network share that is suitable and self explanatory. Then designate the size of the network share in GB in the input field ‚Size in Gigabytes‘...
6.1.5. Modifying Network Shares Occasionally it may be necessary to modify the name of a network share and/or the assigned storage capacity. You can make both of these modifications in this menu. First select the network share you want to modify and click on ‚Select‘. After selecting the network share, you can now make modifications.
6.1.6. Hiding a Network Share (Hidden from Windows Network Discovery) This menu allows you to hide and unhide a QStor QMX network share for Windows. Select the network share you want to hide or unhide and click on ‚Select‘. Note: The selection box will display all network shares, even the ones that are currently marked as hidden.
After that the network share selection box is displayed once again – this time, however, the change you just made is highlighted in bold. Now you can hide or unhide more network shares by clicking on ‚Select‘ or return to the ‚Mamage Network Shares‘...
6.2. Hard Disks The menu item ‚Hard Disks‘ in the Web GUI is the command center for the physical hard disks of the QStor QMX server appliance. Here you can view information about the hard disks, assess their S.M.A.R.T. health situation, add new hard disks and logically remove hard disks.
You can initialize additional hard disks in this menu. Please note, that typically this would only be done when restoring the system after a system failure and after being instructed to do so by Exus Technologies customer support. 6.2.4. Deactivating a Hard Disk You can deactivate hard disks in this menu.
6.3. Software RAID It is commonly assumed that a software RAID suffers from poor performance and a hardware RAID can run rings around it, performance-wise. However, this notion is proving to be more and more outdated in modern servers, as CPU performance has made great gains in recent years.
6.3.1. RAID Status In order to view the current status of the software RAID, select menu item ‚RAID Status‘. You will now see all important status data of the configured RAID sets, giving you an overview of the current configuration. The RAID status is displayed in traffic light colors – a RAID with perfect status is marked optimal.
6.3.2. Creating a RAID In order to create a new software RAID, navigate from menu ‚Storage Management‘ to submenu ‚Software RAID‘ and then click on ‚Create a RAID‘. On the first screen, select the hard disks that you want to become part of the new software RAID.
6.3.3. Deleting a RAID This menu allows you to delete a software RAID. Please keep in mind that once a RAID has been deleted, all data on it, if any, will be irrevocably lost. Please use this menu with caution –...
Page 65
Please note: All data on the selected hard disks will be erased. The second step is assigning the newly selected hot spare(s) to a RAID. This is done by clicking on the RAID name. The selected hard disks are now assigned to and reserved for this particular RAID and will be used as spare drives as soon as a component hard disk of this RAID fails or is removed.
Menu item „Hardware RAID Manager‘ allows you to manage all supported hardware RAID controllers. Please refer to the Exus website for a list of supported controllers. Note: You can only use the Hardware RAID Manager with a QStor QMX appliance that is part of the ‚Pro‘...
Section 7: Access Control Menu In order for users to be able to access a network share, you first need to grant them appropriate access permissions. Only then do users either have full access to the network share, i.e. may read from it and write to it, or have read-only access. Menu item „Access Control“...
Page 68
Now assign which local users and groups will have access to the network share. For individual users, click on a user name listed below ‚Local Users‘ in the left window. For all users, select ‚@users‘ below ‚Local Groups‘ – this predefined group contains all users. You can grant the guest user access by selecting the user ‚guest‘.
7.1.2. Displaying or Modifying Domain Users / Groups Who May Access a Network Share In this menu, you can manage which domain users and groups may access which network share. First, select the network share, whose users and/or groups you want to display or modify, from a list and click on ‚Next‘.
After specifying access permissions, add the previously selected user or group to the network share by clicking on the ‚Add‘ button. Irrespective of the access permissions users have or have not been granted, the administrator always has full access to each and every network share and thus appears in the access control list by default.
Page 71
• Users belonging to user type ‚user‘ are local users of the video storage appliance and can use network shares according to the permissions they have been granted by the administrator. 7.2.1.1. Displaying Local Users This menu displays all local users. One line per user is displayed, containing the login name, the full name and the unique identifier (UID) of the user.
Page 72
While login name and password are required, two other fields are optional. The unique identifier (UID) will be suggested by the Web GUI and you can typically just leave it as suggested. For later reference, it is, however, advisible to enter the full name of each user in the ‚Full Name‘...
Page 73
7.2.1.5. Adding Users to a Group / Removing Users from a Group The Web GUI makes it easy to manage membership of a user in one or more groups. First navigate from ‚Access Control‘ to ‚Users and Groups‘ – ‚User Management‘ – ‚Add Users to a Group / Remove Users From a Group‘.
7.2.2. Local Group Administration In der Gruppenverwaltung legen Sie neue Gruppen an und verwalten bestehende Gruppen. Außerdem können Sie dort Benutzer einer bestimmten Gruppe zuweisen. Here you can create new groups and manage existing groups. You can also assign users to a group.
Page 75
The Web GUI now lists all groups that have been configured on the appliance. (Please refer to section 7.2.2. to learn how to create a group.) Now, assign group membership for the selected user by clicking on the check box left of a group‘s name. (You may click on multiple check boxes, because a user may belong to multiple groups.) Then, save the group membership assignment by clicking on ‚Save‘.
Page 76
7.2.2.4. Removing a Local User To remove a local user from the appliance, navigate to the submenu ‚Remove a Local User‘. The Web GUI displays a list of all user accounts, one per line. Each line shows the login name, the full name and the user ID (UID). In order to remove a user account, click on the broom icon at the very right of the line.
Section 8: Network 8.1. Network 8.1.1. Network Status This menu shows an overview of the QStor QMX server’s current network settings. The Web GUI displays the most important parameters of both Ethernet ports, eth0 and eth1. These are: IP address, subnet mask, gateway and MAC address. You are also made aware whether or not the ports are active and shown the link speed the port is set to.
Page 78
8.1.2.2. Changing Domain or Workgroup You can modify the domain settings of the QStor QMX by selecting the submenu ‚Change Domain / Workgroup“ in the menu ‚Domain and Workgroup‘. At the top, the submenu will show whether the QStor QMX is currently part of a Workgroup, an Active Directory Domain or a Windows Domain and, if so, its name.
Page 79
Active Directory Domain: An Active Directory Domain requires a few more • settings than a Workgroup. Enter the name of the Active Directory Domain, its organizational unit (OU) and the user name and password of a user with domain administrator permissions. Optionally, enable the checkbox ‚Guest access allowed‘ in case you want to allow a guest user to have access.
8.1.3. TCP/IP Settings In order to configure TCP/IP parameters, first select which of the two network ports you want to configure. Click the ‚Select‘ button to select a port. The next step is choosing between a manual configuration of TCP/IP parameters or automatic configuration via a DHCP server.
The Web GUI displays a summary of all settings. Click on ‚Reboot server‘ in order to apply the settings. 8.1.4. DNS / WINS Settings After changing TCP/IP settings of the server appliance or, in case DHCP is enabled, after each system boot, DNS and WINS settings need to be verified and, if necessary, entered manually.
8.1.5. Hosts File Editor In case your DNS server doesn’t resolve all host names to IP addresses, you can manually assign host names to existing IP addresses by using the ‚Hosts File Editor‘. Using names for network resources such as cameras is, of course, preferable to using numerical IP addresses.
Page 83
Adaptive Load Balancing: Adaptive load balancing does not require switch • support. Ethernet packets are distributed among the two ports depending on current traffic and this results in a higher transmission speed. Port Failover: Port failover increases the reliability of the data connection. In case •...
8.1.7. Ping In order to be able to verify whether other devices, such as cameras, servers and routers, are up and running and are reachable via the network, the Web GUI has a ‚Ping‘ test screen. You can navigate to this screen by clicking on ‚Ping‘ in the submenu ‚Network‘. Enter the destination IP address into the entry field and commence testing by clicking on the ‚Ping‘...
8.2.1. APC UPS Status This menu allows you to query the current status of an APC brand UPS. In case the status is not correctly displayed, the cause may be that the UPS has not been configured correctly. In order to remedy that, please refer to the manual of your APC UPS. 8.2.2.
Please note: 1. These settings will only work as described if you have an APC brand USP connected to your QStor QMX appliance. 2. A connection to an APC UPS can be established via USB or LAN, but not via serial port.
Need help?
Do you have a question about the QStor QMX 20 and is the answer not in the manual?
Questions and answers