Install on Windows

This chapter guides you through the installation process of SmartFace, including SmartFace prerequisites, SmartFace Platform, and SmartFace Station on Windows OS.

To install the SmartFace on the Windows environment, you need to match some general requirements and have your license ready. If you are not prepared yet, please return to the introduction to installation.

Video Tutorial#

If you prefer a video step by step guide please watch the prepared tutorial video. If you prefer to read a step by step guide, please skip this section and navigate to the General requirements section.

General requirements#

There are several requirements on an operation system and other software that is needed for successful installation of the SmartFace Platform on Microsoft Windows.

• CPU with support AVX2 instruction set, eg Intel Haswell microarchitecture or AMD Zen family
• Operating system: Windows Server 2016 (x64), Windows Server 2019 (x64), Windows 10 PRO (x64), Windows 11 PRO (x64)..
• English language pack with English character set

• Do not use any other Windows 10 edition than Windows 10 PRO edition and use Windows 10 only for evaluation purposes. For production, use Windows Server or Linux OS.
• Windows 10 N edition is missing Media Feature Pack. It is required that this pack is installed on the machine for proper functioning of the SmartFace Platform.

Download Installation Files#

All of the Installation Files are available at our Customer Portal, you can login with your credentials.

1. At the Customer Portal access Products on the top menu bar or through Home > Products & Licenses > Products

2. Click on the name of the SmartFace product and then on the SmartFace page choose the current release version - major version first, then the release itself.

3. Under the Downloads section you can download all the installation files. Several files have a version number in the file name, such as SmartFace_PreReq_Installer_X.Y.Z.exe (X.Y.Z. is the version number). Please use Installation Files combination from one release only.

Once you have all the necessarry files downloaded, in the Microsoft Windows setup you need to install several packages. The combination of packages might differ per use case. For our initial installation please install the set as follows:

1. SmartFace Prerequisites
2. SmartFace Platform
3. SmartFace Station

Install the SmartFace Prerequisites#

Prerequisites can be installed manually, or automatically by using the Prerequisites installer. The Prerequisites installer requires internet connection and it installs and configures the software prerequisites on the server before you start the SmartFace installation.

The installer deploys the following components:

• Microsoft SQL Server Express 2019

  Prerequisites installer installs the Microsoft SQL Server Express 2019 and sets up a database and creates a database user for the SmartFace Platform. The maximum size of the Microsoft SQL Server Express database is 10 GB and is suitable for small-scale deployments. For advanced, complex and distributed installation please contact us directly for more information. The default parameters are as follows:

  • SQL instance: localhost\sfexpress
  • SA password: smartface
  • DB user: smartface
  • password: smartface

• RabbitMQ
• Erlang
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64)
• OpenVINO Toolkit
• NVIDIA cuDNN
• NVIDIA TensorRT

  Prerequisites installer installs NVIDIA libraries in the c:\Program Files\innovatrics\smartface directory by default. If the installation directory is different, then these libraries need to be copied manually.

Execute the Prerequisites Installer#

1. Run the SmartFace_PreReq_Installer_X.Y.Z.exe as an administrator (select Run as administrator). Click Next to continue.

2. Select an installation path or keep it as per default setup, then click Next

3. The wizard checks whether any of the prerequisites have already been installed. Select the components which you want to install and click Next. By default, all options are selected.

4. Review the selection and click Install.

5. Wizard will install all the selected prerequisites. Once the installation is finished, click Finish to restart the computer.

Install the SmartFace Platform#

Please make sure you have installed all the prerequisites and deployed the license before starting the SmartFace Platform installation. If you have used the Prerequisites installer, the default values are prefilled.

To install SmartFace Platform, perform the following steps:

1. Run the SmartFace_Platform_Installer_x64_X.Y.Z.exe installer as an administrator (select Run as administrator).
2. Accept the license agreement and click Next.

3. Select a destination, where the SmartFace will be installed. By default, it is C:\Program Files\Innovatrics\SmartFace. Click Next.

4. Fill in the Host settings and click Next.
   • Port for SmartFace API endpoint. The default value is 8099. The API endpoint will be available on the following addresses:
     • REST API port: 8098
     • OData Port: 8099
     • GraphQL Port: 8097
   • Choose the availability of the SmartFace API:
     • Externally available: API is available from outside of the server
     • Local only: API is available only from the localhost

5. Fill in the SQL database connection settings and click Next.

   If you have used the Prerequisites installer, the default values are pre-filled. Otherwise, you should provide the following information:

   • MsSql server instance — an instance of the database engine, e.g.:
     • localhost\sfexpress: default instance of Microsoft SQL Server Express installed by the Prerequisite installer
     • localhost\SQLEXPRESS: default instance of Microsoft SQL Server Express
     • localhost: default instance of Microsoft SQL
   • Database name
   • User name
   • Password

You can also select Advanced connection string settings and build the connection string yourself:

The connection string includes the following parameters, which are semicolon-separated:

• data source=SQLserverinstance; (typically localhost or servername or localhost\SQLEXPRESS)
• initial catalog=databasename;
• User ID=username;
• Password=password;
• multipleactiveresultsets=False;
• connect timeout=60;

6. Fill in the Configuration settings and click Next.

   • Path to NoSql database. By default, it is C:\ProgramData\Innovatrics\SmartFace\Data. It is recommended to use a standalone disk (where the OS is not installed) with enough space for storing images from camera streams;

   • Path to log files. By default, it is C:\ProgramData\Innovatrics\SmartFace

7. Fill in the RabbitMQ connection parameters and click Next.
   Please provide connection information for RabbitMQ.

8. Fill in the S3 settings - settings for S3 blob storage (MinIO) and click Next.

9. Setup camera configuration and click Next.

Define the maximum number of cameras that could be registered during installation. This number determines the maximum number of cameras which will be possible to create, as each camera processing is handled by one process (SmartFace_Camera service).

The highest number which can be entered is 100. For each camera, one Windows service needs to be registered.

10. Set up the Database cleanup and click Next.

• Set up the daily database cleanup
  • Enable database cleanup (checked by default): Enables the daily database cleanup. Then, fill in Time of day when the daily database cleanup should run. The time is specified in the hh:mm:ss format in the UTC time zone.
• Set up the cleanup of SQL and NoSQL records related to faces and images.
  • For removed images also delete (checked by default): Deletes all SQL and NoSQL records related to faces and images. To delete only full images from streams in the NoSQL database, clear this checkbox.
  • Deleted stored images: cleanup process deletes all image data older than the entered value (in days).
• Set up the cleanup of match results.
  • Enable if you want to cleanup also match results for faces which are no longer present in database (were deleted).

11. Set up the GPU configuration and click Next. Windows services with GPU support will be installed on the system that belong to the CPU services.

12. Click Install to initialize the SmartFace Platform installation.

13. Once the installation is sucessfully finished, please click Finish.

Install the SmartFace Station#

Please make sure the SmartFace Platform is installed before proceeding with the SmartFace Station installation. To install SmartFace Station please perform the following steps:

1. Run the SmartFace_Station_Installer_vX_Y_Z.exe as an administrator (select Run as administrator). Click Next to continue.

2. Choose the installation location and click Install.

3. Once the installation is completed sucessfully you can set URL, endpoints and ports for the SmartFace Station. Once set, click Next.

• SmartFace core server API URL - the URL where the Swagger and the REST API is available.
• SmartFace OData API URL - the URL where the Swagger and the OData API is available.
• Address to Access Controller gRPC endpoint - the URL that SmartFace Station connects to receive gRPC notifications from the Access Controller module.
• Host (IP address where SF Station server listens for requests) - the default 0.0.0.0 means that all IPv4 addresses are listened to.
• Port (port where SF Station server listens for requests) - the default is 8000. This is where you access SmartFace Station with your browser.

4. Additional settings can be adjusted, such as Blacklisted watchlists - watchlists of member with restricted access or to setup the Keycloak Authentication. Click Next.

Apply License#

Open the License Manager and click on the Deploy license tab. Click the License file: button and choose the license file. Once the correct file is selected, select to activate the license for Everyone and click on the Deploy license button.

After a successful deployment you can see the license in the License information tab. If you do not see your license please click Refresh.

Run the SmartFace#

Once the SmartFace is successfully installed it will be up and running automatically.

Validate your Installation#

Once the services are up and running you can visit the port 8000 on your installation machine in your preferred browser. Such as the URL: http://localhost:8000

After the SmartFace Platform is installed, you can also view the status of the following services in Task Manager services tab (depending on your installation settings). These services should be in running state.

You can also get the list of running services with the following command: Get-Service -Name "SF*". Please keep in mind this is not the final list and the list presented will differ based on your installation.

The results would be as below:

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  SFAccessController SmartFace AccessController
Running  SFApi              SmartFace API Service
Running  SFBase             SmartFace Base Service
Running  SFCam1             SmartFace Camera 1 Service
Running  SFCam10            SmartFace Camera 10 Service
Running  SFCam11            SmartFace Camera 11
Running  SFCam2             SmartFace Camera 2 Service
Running  SFCam3             SmartFace Camera 3 Service
...

After Installation#

Once your installation is done and your SmartFace is up and running, you can follow an additional tutorial guiding you through your first steps after installation of the SmartFace - registering a Watchlist Member, adding a camera and getting you first identification.