| What's a RealServer and where do you get one? Although the system might not yet be as ubiquitous as setting up residential phone service, it's out there. We're going to tell you how to get (and use) it. For serving on-demand files, you can use either the RealServer for real-time streaming of on-demand files or any Web server for HTTP/Progressive streaming. For live stream authoring, you must use the RealServer, which is available for Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, and so on) and Windows NT/2000. For the purposes of the Step-by-Step tutorials in this chapter, you'll be using the RealServer for both live and on-demand. NOTE HTTP/Progressive on-demand RealMedia files can be streamed through HTTP/Progressive streaming from a Web server. See Chapter 2 for an explanation of the differences between progressive (for on-demand only) and real-time (both on-demand and live) streaming. See Chapter 7 for examples on how to do both.
For more general information on issues relating to serving your streams, see Chapter 7. RealServer 8.0 (Free Versus Pay) RealNetworks offers four RealServer products, and they're all available from the RealNetworks Web site. Each of these products is different, so if you want to know more, go to www.realnetworks.com/products/servers/comparison.html for links to information and purchase (download) of all four products. RealSystem Server 8.0 Professional This supports multicasting and includes a 100-user concurrent stream license (expandable to 1,000). The price starts at an eye-opening $5,995. Higher number licenses are available. You will want a real budget and compelling content to justify the purchase of this product. RealSystem Server 8.0 Plus This supports multicasting and includes a 60-user concurrent stream license. (More concurrent users are available by upgrading to the Professional edition.) You can get this product for around $1,995, which is still pricey, but is good for people with smaller budgets who want to get their feet wet. This product does have a few limitations: no advertising and authentication extensions, a limited RealSystem administrator, absence of control over client IP connections, and lack of stream capacity segmentation. RealSystem Server 8.0 Intranet This is specifically configured to support corporate intranets. This product supports scalable multicasting (efficient for this environment) and includes a 200 user concurrent stream license (expandable to 500). The price starts at $3,995. RealSystem Server 8.0 Basic This supports multicasting and includes a 25-user concurrent stream license (not expandable). The best news is that it's free. Limitations include lack of advertising and authentication extensions, a limited RealSystem administrator, no control over client IP connections, and absence of stream capacity segmentation. For the purposes of this book, you'll learn how to install RealServer Server 8.0 Basic on a Unix (FreeBSD) computer and also a Windows NT v4.0 computer. STEP-BY-STEP: How to Set Up Your RealServer The RealServer application functions basically the same for both Windows and Unix computers. -
Download RealServer Basic from www.realnetworks.com/products/servers/basic.html. Download instructions are included on this Web page. Be sure to select the RealSystem Basic download and not the Plus. Fill out the information and choose your operating system (either FreeBSD 3.0 or Windows NT/2000) from the Download dialog box choices. Your license key will be e-mailed to the e-mail address you entered in the Download Information area. The Basic license is free for one year. NOTE  | If you downloaded the installer to your desktop computer, you need to transfer the installer to the server computer that will be running RealServer Basic. If you're transferring via FTP, use binary mode. FreeBSD users must have the 3.0 compatibility libraries installed on the computer where the RealServer will reside. |
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Open your e-mail and save your license attachment to a file. If necessary, also transfer the license to your server computer (again as a binary transfer). Now you are ready to install. -
Run the installer program. The RealServer installation greeting appears. Select Next. You will do this repeatedly throughout the installation process even though it's not mentioned again. -
Enter the full filename to your license file. -
Read and then continue, assuming you agree to the licensing terms. -
Specify the directory where you want to install RealServer Basic 8.0. NOTE Make sure that the directory you select has plenty of free space. The installed program requires 25MB of disk space and the server's log files that also reside in this directory can quickly grow to gigabytes (see Chapter 2 for server computer hardware requirements). -
Create a username and password that will be used for accessing the RealSystem administrator, monitor, and live encoder. You'll need to enter this information into your RealProducer so that it can broadcast live streams to the RealServer. -
Accept the default port setting of 7070 for the RealServer to listen for PNA connections. -
Accept the default port setting of 554 for the RealServer to listen for RTSP connections. -
Accept the default port setting of 8080 for the RealServer to listen for HTTP connections. NOTE If you're not running a Web server on the same computer as RealServer Basic, you might want to choose the default Web server port 80. Port 80 is more likely to be allowed through most firewalls than Port 8080. -
Accept the random port that the installer selects for the admin port. This value determines on what port RealServer's administration system will listen for Web browser requests. Make note of this number for later post-installation configuration purposes. NOTE  | If you're installing RealServer on a Windows NT/2000 server, you'll have the option to install RealServer Basic as an NT Service. The default of checked (accepted) is fine. |
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The installer will show a summary of your installation settings. Finish the installation. (For Unix, press F. For Windows, click Finish.) -
After the installation process is complete, you'll be prompted to start the RealServer and the RealSystem Administrator. Choose Yes. RealSystem Server 8.0 Basic for Unix (FreeBSD) and Windows NT/2000 is now ready to use. Live streams sent to the server are available to the RealPlayer in the default / encoder pathname (rtsp://myserver.mydomain.name/encoder/streamname.rm) . You can upload on-demand files into the Content directory of your RealServer installation directory and then access them with a URL such as rtsp://myserver.mydomain/ondemandfile.rm. Sample sound clips are included with the installation, so you can easily test your server. A link is available to play these sample sound clips through the RealSystem Administrator (Figure 3.27). Extended documentation and help is also available from within the administrator, which you can access with your Web browser (where adminport is the port number chosen during installation) at http://myserver.mydomain:adminport/admin/index.html. Figure 3.27. Open the RealSystem Administrator in your Web browser to perform additional configuration.  |
