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NovaVMS Manual

First gateway install

By the end of this tutorial you will have a Raspberry Pi 5 running as a NovaVMS gateway, paired to your org’s cloud, and discovering one ONVIF camera on the same LAN. This is the happy path — a fresh Pi, a PoE HAT, a PoE+ switch, and one camera. Edge cases (dual-NIC, VLAN trunk, airgapped pairing) live in the how-to guides.

What you will need

  • Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB) with the official PoE+ HAT fitted.
  • A 32 GB or larger microSD card (A2 class).
  • A PoE+ (802.3at) switch port with outbound internet on the LAN.
  • One ONVIF camera on the same LAN, powered and reachable by IP.
  • A laptop with an SD-card reader, on the same LAN as the Pi.
  • A pairing code from a NovaVMS admin. 6-character uppercase, 10-minute expiry. See US-GW-1.

Step 1 — Flash the microSD card

  1. On your laptop, open Raspberry Pi Imager.
  2. Pick Raspberry Pi 5 as the device.
  3. Pick NovaVMS Gateway OS (64-bit) from the “Other” list.
  4. Pick the SD card. Confirm it is the right one — this erases it.
  5. Click Write.

Step 2 — Boot the Pi

  1. Insert the SD card into the Pi 5.
  2. Plug the Cat6 from the PoE+ switch into the Pi 5’s RJ45.
  3. Wait 45 seconds. The Pi’s onboard LED turns solid green when the gateway service is up.

Step 3 — Find the Pi on the LAN

  1. On your laptop, run:

    Terminal window
    ping novavms-gateway.local

  2. If mDNS works, the Pi replies. Note the IP.

  3. If ping fails, check your router’s DHCP lease table for a host named novavms-gateway.

Step 4 — Run the installer script

  1. SSH to the Pi as novavms. Default password: changeme. The Pi prompts you to change it on first login.

    Terminal window
    ssh novavms@novavms-gateway.local

  2. Run the installer script:

    Terminal window
    curl -fsSL https://novavms-manual.novalien.com/install/gateway.sh | sudo bash

  3. The script installs the gateway binary, go2rtc, and a systemd service. It takes 60-90 seconds.

Step 5 — Pair with the cloud

  1. Ask your admin to open Gateways → Add Gateway in the NovaVMS web UI and generate a pairing code.

  2. Copy the 6-character code.

  3. On the Pi, run:

    Terminal window
    sudo /opt/novavms-gateway/novavms-gateway pair --code <CODE> --cloud-url https://novavms.novalien.com

  4. Replace <CODE> with the code from step 2.

  5. On success, the command prints Paired. API key saved to /etc/novavms/gateway.yaml.

Step 6 — Confirm the online dot

  1. Ask your admin to open the Gateways page.
  2. Your gateway appears with a green dot within 30 seconds.

Step 7 — Discover your first camera

  1. Ask your admin to click your gateway row, then click Discover cameras.
  2. The gateway scans the LAN for ONVIF cameras. Scan takes 30-60 seconds.
  3. The camera appears in the discovery list. Enter its ONVIF credentials and click Add.

Step 8 — See live video

  1. In the web UI, click the new camera.
  2. The Live tab plays a stream within 5 seconds.

You have finished

A Pi 5 gateway is paired and streaming one camera. Next, install the rest of the cameras on site: