zoneminder:Linux video camera security and surveillance solution.

ZoneMinder is a set of applications which together provides a complete surveillance solution allowing capture, analysis, recording and monitoring of any cctv cameras attached to a Linux based machine. It is designed to run on distributions which support the Video For Linux (V4L) interface and has been tested with video cameras attached to BTTV cards, various USB cameras and IP network cameras. A partial list is given in the Support section, please give feedback in the Forums if it works with yours. It is designed to support as many cameras as you can attach to your computer without too much degradation of performance. ZoneMinder also requires MySQL and PHP, and is enhanced by a webserver such as Apache.

ZoneMinder is highly componentised and comprises both the back-end daemons which do the actual image capture and analysis and a user friendly front end enabling you to both monitor the current situation and view and organise historical events that have taken place. The front-end is web based allowing you to check and control your ZoneMinder installation from any other machine which can connect. ZoneMinder does not require X at all, or the web interface for day-to-day functions and so is suitable for 'headless' systems. There is also a rudimentary xHTML interface allowing basic monitoring from suitable phones!

http://www.zoneminder.com/