Welcome to RealNetworks® RealServer™, the most powerful server software available for streaming media files across an intranet or the Internet. This manual will help you use and optimize RealServer for real-time delivery of multimedia files.
This guide is intended for technical system administrators who will be managing RealServer and its activities, but not necessarily creating the material to be streamed. Information on creating content is available in a companion book, the RealSystem Production Guide.
Information services professionals, server administrators, Web masters, and others who provide Web pages for the Internet and for intranets may also find this book useful.
RealServer Administration Guide is also available online at
http://service.real.com/help/library/index.html.
This book contains the following chapters:
This chapter gives step-by-step instructions for getting RealServer started and running quickly.
If you're familiar with previous versions of RealSystem®, this chapter will give you a quick update on the new features in RealServer version 8.
This chapter presents the "big picture" of how RealServer works with a Web server to stream media to client software such as RealNetworks RealPlayer®.
To serve clips to users, you first need to get the content. This chapter describes two tools for creating content, RealProducer® Plus and G2SLTA .
This chapter describes how to construct the links to your content.
This chapter is a guide to starting and stopping RealServer. Depending on which platform you run RealServer on, different automatic options are available.
Modifying RealServer by changing settings in the configuration file is the key to fine-tuning RealServer features. Whether you use the RealSystem Administrator or edit the configuration file directly, this chapter describes how to make changes to RealServer.
This chapter discusses media caches, firewalls, the assignment of IP addresses for RealServer's use, and differences between RealServer running on different platforms.
If you're delivering content to users on the Internet, you'll want to know how RealServer and other RealSystem products interact with firewalls. This chapter provides that information.
This chapter gives instructions for delivering prerecorded or prepared clips.
Live clips are streamed much like static clips, but with a few differences. Use this chapter to learn how to make broadcasting work as smoothly as possible.
This chapter explains how splitting can help you make the best use of bandwidth and provides the highest possible quality of reception.
This chapter discusses multicasting, which is a way of sending a single live stream to multiple clients, rather than sending a separate stream to each individual client. Clients connect to the stream rather than to the RealServer computer.
This chapter shows you how you can limit access to RealServer by specifying restrictions such as maximum bandwidth and IP addresses.
With RealServer, you can control and limit who can view your content. This chapter describes the different RealServer authentication methods and the advantages of each one.
RealServer comes with some different methods for tracking authentication information, as described in this chapter. You can use this data for billing purposes or to track who's watching what.
If you're an Internet service provider (ISP), you can host streaming media on behalf of your customers. This chapter explains how.
To provide the highest possible quality of service, you'll likely want to keep track of how many people are accessing your RealServer. This chapter describes the different methods of tracking RealServer activity.
At some point, you'll want to look at trends and see what content is most popular. RealServer can report player behavior with a customizable degree of detail. As this chapter explains, errors are reported in their own log, which can help you troubleshoot any problems that might arise.
You can have RealServer automatically insert advertisements into presentations. This chapter describes the many options available within this feature.
Running into problems? This chapter provides helpful steps you can take when you're not sure what's wrong. It also lists error messages and tells you what to do about them.
This appendix recaps the structure of URLs for all of the different types of content and delivery formats for streamed media.
This appendix presents a discussion of the XML syntax used by the configuration file.
For those who prefer to edit the configuration file directly rather than use RealSystem Administrator, this is a guide to the configuration file contents.
This section explains some conventional terms and formats used throughout the book.
Because this manual is aimed at the RealServer administrator, the term "you" refers to the administrator. Those who play clips served by RealServer are referred to as "visitors," "viewers," or "users."
RealSystem clients, such as computers running RealPlayer, are referred to generically as "clients". Wherever information applies specifically to RealPlayer or RealPlayer Plus, this is clearly stated. Although most clients currently in use are computers running RealPlayer, RealNetworks also makes a software development kit (SDK) that enables other companies to develop their own players with which they can receive the various types of streamed data.
RealSystem production tools, which are used to create the files and data that RealServer streams, are referred to simply as "encoders."
"Clips," "content," "media files," "files", and "presentations" are used interchangeably to indicate the material that RealServer streams.
The following table explains the typographic conventions used in this manual.
Links that point to RealServer take the following form:
realserver.example.com
realserver is a placeholder for the name of the computer on which you are running your RealServer. Substitute the name of your organization's computer wherever you see this syntax.
example.com is a placeholder for a domain name. Substitute the domain name of your organization's computers wherever you see this syntax.
In all of the examples given in this book, it's assumed that you've installed RealServer in the default location for your operating system and that you're using default values for all settings. Of course, you can customize RealServer however you want to meet your specific needs; default values are used here for clarity of illustration.
On Windows-based platforms, the default installation directory is C:\Program Files\Real\RealServer. On UNIX-based platforms, the default installation directory is /usr/local/RealServer.
Depending on which RealServer product you purchased, some of the features described in this manual may not be available to you or may be limited in some way (such as the number of streams you can transmit simultaneously). Consult your license file for a list of which features are enabled in your version of RealServer. If you'd like to augment your RealServer's capabilities, contact RealNetworks or your reseller.
 |
Additional Information |
|---|
| For instructions on reading license files with RealSystem Administrator, see "License Files". |
In addition to this manual, you may need one or more of the following RealNetworks resources, which are available at http://service.real.com/help/library/index.html.
This file contains supplemental information not covered in this guide. It is available at http://service.real.com/help/library/guides/server8/readme.html.
This manual explains the basics of creating streaming files with the RealSystem tools. You'll learn how to calculate bandwidth needs and how to put a multimedia presentation together. To view this guide, click Resources under Help in RealSystem Administrator.
If you're using RealNetworks RealProxy™, or are working with someone who is, this manual describes the use of RealProxy and configuration information.
RealNetworks has developed a software development kit (SDK) that enables you to integrate applications with RealSystem or create new plug-ins for RealServer or RealPlayer. Programming knowledge is a prerequisite for using the SDK. Register for and download the SDK from
http://www.realnetworks.com/devzone/.
General troubleshooting steps and information about contacting RealNetworks for technical support are given in Chapter 21, "Troubleshooting".