Configure an External Adobe Media Server

In this section:

Overview

The Flash media streaming server delivers streaming content to students. This content includes Echoes (on-demand content) and/or real-time live webcasts. You can use either the Wowza Media Server (Wowza) or the Adobe Flash Media Streaming Server (Adobe FMS).

This page provides the necessary instructions for installing and configuring an External Adobe FMS for use with EchoSystem (5.1 and above).

Preparing for Installation

The first step is to determine whether Adobe FMS will be installed on the same machine as the ESS, as this will determine if there is a need to co-locate your Flash content (i.e. - to place it in a file system remote to the ESS via a network share so that the media server can access it locally). 

If everything - the ESS, Adobe, and the flash content - will exist on the same physical device, OR the flash content is to be located or with the content located on a mounted SAN volume, then you can skip the following section. Simply make a note of the Flash Folder location, which will be configured in the Streaming Settings section of the ESS System Settings. See Configuring the ESS below as well as the Configure System Settings page.

Co-locating the Flash Content

In order for the Flash server to find and stream Flash content, that content needs to be stored in a drive letter-addressable location (i.e. - logically local). This location can be physically attached to the Adobe host or on the network as a SAN volume. The ESS must transfer the Flash content over the network to the location chosen for the content storage, meaning this location must be accessible via a network share.

When using a common SAN volume for all content, you can skip this section, and make sure that the Flash Folder parameter entered in the Streaming Settings section of the ESS System Settings page matches the location where you want the Flash server to be looking for its content files.

Echo360 recommends NOT storing the content on a location that is logically remote to the Flash server, such as a NAS or UNC-addressable location, since this will generate unnecessary network traffic that could be detrimental to the performance of the streaming server.

The following instructions assume that Adobe FMS is installed on a Windows server; if using a Linux distribution, please refer to the instructions specific to your network file sharing solution (e.g. - Samba) to set up a network share.

  1. Using Windows Explorer on the Adobe FMS machine, navigate to the folder where the root of the Flash content will be stored (e.g. - D:\echo\flash).
  2. Right-click the folder, and select Properties.
  3. On the Sharing tab of the Properties dialog box, click the radio button labeled Share this folder.
    • Enter a unique, recognizable share name. This will be the path element that is later referred to in the UNC path that defines the share.
    • Leave the user limit set to Maximum allowed.
  4. Click Permissions and navigate to the Share Permissions tab in order to set the permissions for access to the folder at the share level.
  5. Click Add...
  6. If the server is located on an Active Directory-managed domain, add the name of the computer account for the machine that is running the ESS. Otherwise, it will be necessary to configure the ESS to run as a separate, privileged user in its Windows service settings, under the "Log On" tab of its properties dialog, and to add that same user account on this machine. 
  7. Click Check Names to verify the group and/or accounts that have been entered into the list. This may require authentication.
  8. When satisfied that the account information entered is correct, click OK.
  9. Select the account name specified in step 6 from the Group or user names list.
  10. Check the box under the Allow column for each of the permissions that should be granted to the selected account. Echo360 strongly recommends that you allow Full Control to the user and/or computer accounts representing the ESS; otherwise, the ESS may not be able to place content here.
  11. Click OK to commit the changes.
  12. Select the Security tab to set the permissions for access to the folder at the file system level.
  13. Repeat steps 5 through 10, using the same group and/or accounts that were used for the share-level permissions.
  14. Click Apply and OK to commit the changes and close the Properties.

Optionally, but as a recommended verification, do the following:

  1. Log into the machine running the ESS as the user account running ESS, if one was specified in Step 6 above.
  2. Attempt to connect to the share you created above using its UNC path.
  3. Once connected, confirm that is it possible to view, create, delete, and rename files.

Configuring the Streaming Application

Adobe Meda Server relies on virtual servers, called "applications," to serve the right kind of content based on the document root given in URL requests. Adobe is installed with a set of default applications that reside in its Program Files folder. In order for Adobe to work with content from the EchoSystem, it is necessary to create a new application based on the default Video-on-Demand (called "vod") application. This application will be referred to as "echo."

  1. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder where the program files for Adobe FMS are installed.
  2. Open the applications folder.
  3. Create a copy of the vod contained there, and rename it to echo. There should now be both a vod and an echo folder within the applications folder.
  4. Open the echo folder.
  5. Open the Application.xml file in Wordpad for editing.
  6. Line 5 contains a <Streams> directive that is currently set to: /;${VOD_DIR}.
  7. Change this entry to read: /;${ECHO_DIR}.
  8. Save and close the file.
  9. Return to the conf subfolder under the Adobe FMS program files root. It should reside at the same level as the applications folder.
  10. Open the fms.ini file in Wordpad for editing.
  11. Find the location in the file where the variable VOD_DIR is defined.
  12. Add a new line, defining a new variable, ECHO_DIR, to reflect the path configured as the share in the Co-Locating the Flash Content section above. Use the same format as the VOD_DIR variable. The fms.ini file should now contain definitions for both the VOD_DIR and ECHO_DIR variables.
  13. When finished, save and close the file.
  14. Start or restart the Adobe FMS service to commit the configuration changes.

Adobe FMS is now configured to serve content from the location set up for holding Flash content.

At this point, the Adobe FMS service should be configured to launch on startup by default.

Configuring the ESS

All of the infrastructure should now be in place for the external FMS. The final step involves configuring three entries in the ESS system configuration to recognize these changes. The information below is also available in the Configure System Settings page.

  1. Log in to the ESS and navigate to Configuration > System Settings.
  2. Click Edit (located at the bottom of the page).
  3. Scroll down to the Streaming Settings section.
  4. For the Flash Streaming parameter, select External Flash Server. Do this even if the FMS is located on the same host as the ESS.
  5. For the External Flash URL parameter, compose a URL consisting of the RTMP protocol, the FQDN of the Adobe server, the application name (echo), and a _definst_ pointer, as follows:  rtmp://fqdn.of.fms.server/echo/_definst_   

    The "echo" in the URL is an application not a folder

    The path elements of this URL do not map to path elements on the storage volume; here, "echo" is the name of an application and not the name of the folder in which the content is stored, and "_definst_" is a virtual pointer. If the URL contains more elements than the example shown here, or the ECHO_DIR folder contains additional subfolders above the content, FMS will not be able to locate the content.

  6. For the Flash Folder parameter, enter the UNC path (or the drive letter path, if using a SAN volume) of the Flash content folder, which was configured in the Co-Locating the Flash Content section above. This should point to the same location defined as the variable "ECHO_DIR" in the application configuration.
  7. When finished, click Save.

The ESS is now configured to call the external Adobe FMS when providing content to viewers. If prompted, restart the ESS in order for the changes to take effect, checking first that no capture or processing tasks are currently running.