installing frigate from scratch guide

[rugene76]

I recently struggled with installing frigate on docker. The necessary info is scattered across the web and requires a great deal of technical knowledge. To help others avoid what I went through, I've created an installation guide aimed at the technical enthusiast with casual linux skills. For instance, someone not familiar with docker or portainer or who has only vague or rusty understanding of linux. I figure its the least I can do to help out the frigate project.

I've attached my first crack at the guide for a look see. Please let me know what you think.
Installing frigate from scratch.pdf

[joelegg]

I am going to use this this week thank you ! Never used Ubuntu but going to install it and run frigate. As my Synology can't run coral.

[joelegg]

ok so it took me some time to get my nas mount working

got it going eventually with by following fresh install of docker compose from the frigate install docs.

not sure if my tpu is running yet but thanks so much for your guide!

[rugene76]

Here's my latest docker compose copied out of portainer.
Note that:

• I am using ubuntu,
• the latest docker
• dell optiplex 7060 with 16G and 1TB sata
• No nvidia
• 2 coral TPUs, A mini-pcie one plugged into the nvme slot and a A+E key version plugged into where the wifi mini card normally plugs into. I bought the appropriate adapters on amazon to get them to fit.
• I store the media clips and snapshots using NAS storage that is mounted on ubuntu at /mnt/hubfiles/frigate. The database is local in the user folder
• I have 7 cameras, a mix of reolink and wyze, whether 2 corals is useful is hard to say. I use them because I have them

compose code copied directly from portainer - stacks - frigate - editor:

services:
  frigate:
    container_name: frigate
    privileged: true # this may not be necessary for all setups
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: blakeblackshear/frigate:stable

    shm_size: "256mb" # update for your cameras based on calculation

    devices:
      - /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb # passes the USB Coral, needs to be modified for other versions
      - /dev/apex_0:/dev/apex_0 # passes a PCIe Coral
      - /dev/apex_1:/dev/apex_1 # passes a PCIe Coral      
      - /dev/dri/renderD128 # for intel hwaccel, needs to be updated for your hardware
    volumes:
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /mnt/hubfiles/frigate/frigate.yml:/config/config.yml:ro  # modify to match your setup
      - /mnt/hubfiles/frigate:/media/frigate                     # modify to match your setup
      - /home/your_user_id/frigate:/db                                   # modify to match your setup
      - type: tmpfs # Optional: 1GB of memory, reduces SSD/SD Card wear
        target: /tmp/cache
        tmpfs:
          size: 1000000000
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    environment:
      FRIGATE_RTSP_PASSWORD: "password"  #modify to whatever if using rtsp

[yekul]

Bit of a revive here but... How did you get the m.2 a/e coral to work with the dell 7060 please rugene? Doing some research and most seem to indicate it will not work with the wifi slot.

[rugene76]

Take a look at the guide (v2) I wrote.
I plug a coral into each m2 slot using the appropriate adapter. Frigate sees both and they've been working fine.

[upsangel]

Thank you for your sharing! I am just thinking how to let frigate access the miniPCIE coral.

[FS1961]

Hello @rugene76,

I successfully used your guide and got version 11.1 up-and-running just fine. Version 12 has been released now. How do I modify the image to use version 12?

Thanks - this was an excellent guide!

Update*
Just found a note that says where to get it:

image: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable

You can update your guide for others.

[fake-name]

from scratch guide

Install Docker

Pick one. You cannot have both.

[rugene76]

I've updated my proxmox guide with a few edits and a new section called "Updating individual pieces" that specifically addresses updating the coral driver after a proxmox kernel update, as well as portainer, docker and frigate v12 updates.
Install frigate and HA into proxmox v2.00.pdf

[FS1961]

Thank you for your efforts! 👍curiously you changed from Portainer to Proxmox. What was the rationale?

[rugene76]

Thanks, I found the total install daunting but worth it. I figured I'd document what I did for me and others to benefit from. Not being a proxmox/docker/portainer/frigate expert, writing down the details for when I circle back to the proxmox environment after months of not thinking about it helps remind me of what to do.

Not sure what you mean about proxmox/portainer. I use both in the install. Docker as a container in proxmox and portainer to simplify management of the docker containers.

[FS1961]

Sorry, guess I’m confused. I thought Proxmox is a Portainer alternative. I see now it’s a virtual environment.

[amkrafie]

Hi, in the guide I'm at the part of installing docker, you say to Uncheck “unpriviledged container” but then to Enable “keyctl”, when I go to enable it, it says unprivileged only... am I doing something wrong ?

[rugene76]

It been a while so I'm not sure but since I put the instruction in red, I would do what it says, "Uncheck “unpriviledged container” (make it privileged) (I think the container needs to be “priviledged” for the USB/PCI to pass through correctly.)"
A little experimentation might be in order.

[sfgannon]

This is great, thank you for compiling and sharing this document.

[Menethoran]

FYI, portainer instructions have changed from version specific to a more generic url:

https://docs.portainer.io/start/install-ce/server/docker/linux

[robotgoat]

Hi, hope this is the right place to post this. I've also created a similar guide for setting up Frigate and Home Assistant containers using Podman rootless containers. If there are any errors do not hesitate to correct me. Hope this helps for those who want to install it another way.

https://www.spiffygoose.com/en/posts/2023_05_24_frigate-nvr-setup-with-homeassistant-using-podman/

[def1149]

Link returns 404 error

[robotgoat]

Sorry, I recently made some changes to my site. The correct URL is https://www.spiffygoose.com/posts/2023_05_24_frigate-nvr-setup-with-homeassistant-using-podman/

[FredyReady]

THANK YOU! I have been struggling with getting Frigate up and running for few days now and this .pdf saved me a lot of headache!

...funny, now I think it is quite easy. But getting it right form all online resources is still PITA...

[DC651F82053AD314]

Thank you for this guide! I'm part of the way through, currently waiting for my Coral device delivery before I continue.

I do have one question: I might be missing it, but when I look through the guide I am not seeing the actual Frigate installation itself. I see the .yml configuration file example in the guide, as well as the example/sample to create the Portainer 'stack', but I'm not seeing the actual Frigate installer.

I do see this line in the Portainer stack sample: image: blakeblackshear/frigate:stable
Does this line tell Portainer where to grab the Frigate installer? Just trying to understand/clarify that. I saw the comment above about this URL: ghcr.io/blakeblackshear/frigate:stable -- and I see that the URL forwards to the GitHub page listing the different Frigate container versions, I was just wondering if someone could elaborate on this a bit. If I am following the guide, where in the guide is the Frigate container installed?

Thanks again in advance!

[rugene76]

The docker compose file pulls and starts the appropriate frigate image using the given parameters in the compose file. I suppose that is, in a sense, when frigate gets 'installed".

Use the compose file or something similar that I've listed at the end of the install guide as Frigate 12.x changed the image location.

good luck!
Gene

[shift-del1]

Great guide, I followed these steps, hardware accelerion worksfine on Ryzen 5 7530U, Proxmox 8.1, LXC Ubuntu 23.10, Frigate 0.12.1. The only additional thing I had to do is to add "LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME: radeonsi" to the container config and install va-mesa-driver on the host. Thank you.

[Landonthi]

@rugene76 I have a couple questions for you if you don't mind?

-What adapters are you using for the coral TPUs, I have a optiplex 7090 micro and am looking to install Corals like you have,
-Is there a difference between Docker and Docker.io (from my understanding Docker.io is easier to install and for Ubuntu?)
-After installing Docker is it better to use Docker Desktop or Portainer to run Frigate from? (Im so confused.....)
-In your new guide you use Proxmox, did you find it to be better then using Ubuntu?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[rugene76]

sorry for the slow response....
item 1: For the base machine, I have had good luck using a refurbished Dell 7060 with an 8th generation i7 processor and 32Gb of memory. For frigate’s video storage I use an external NAS (Netgear ReadyNAS 314). I use 2 differently keyed Coral modules plugged into (with adapters purchased on Amazon) the NVMe m2 slot and wifi slot on the motherboard of the 7060.

Links to the adapters I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089YSVN1S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JFYSNVL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Unfortunately, the first adapter is no longer available but I'm sure there must be a workable replacement. Luckily, they are relatively cheap and returnable, so some experimentation with other parts is possible.

I did have to bend the case a little on my dell 7060 to fit the NVMe adapter but it wasn't too hard to do. I removed the wifi module and replaced it with a coral, so I have 2 corals installed. Unfortunately, I don't have good pictures of the complete assembly.
here's a picture I do have: (I hope its visible and not too big)

item 2: I really don't know if there is a difference in dockers. I did originally install docker on ubuntu but I abandoned it because I had too many issues.

item 3: I use portainer. It's well maintained, has an android app for my phone. Don't know anything about docker desktop.

item 4: proxmox works much better in terms of day-to-day management. It is however daunting to install everything you need. That's why I wrote the install document - I'm long retired so my ability to remember all the details is overwhelmed by proxmox.

I do successfully and reliably run a relatively complex home assistant VM and a separate docker container for frigate as described in the doc. I have 8 cameras - a mix of reolink and Tapo C120's running the latest frigate version. I was using some wyze cameras through wyze-bridge but I found them to be very unreliable, so I recently removed all my wyze camera and replaced with the Tapo C120.

Opinion on: Frigate really needs a related project to create an install package to simplify things. I love frigate but too much is left to the imagination for the installation. I would guess that only technically skilled folks can reasonably install it. Taking an approach like home assistant's standalone OS version might be a good way to simplify frigate's install and widen its appeal.

hope that helps!

[MilesAheadToo]

@rugene76, thank you so much for the guide. I have been struggling for a week.
One question though: Am I right that I need to install the coral drivers on the linux machine?
I am confused because you don't state this explicitly, though the section on Portainer is immediately after the Portainer section.