RealNetworks Quick Start Guide

Helix Server v14.x

Updated: October 2010

RealNetworks, Inc. 2601 Elliott Avenue, Suite 1000 Seattle, WA 98121 U.S.A. http://www.realnetworks.com 2010 RealNetworks, Inc. Patents pending. All rights reserved. RealNetworks, RealPlayer, RealProducer, RealAudio, RealVideo, the Real logo, Helix and the Helix logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. in the United States of America and other countries. All other trade names, trademarks, or registered trademarks are trade names, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of RealNetworks, Inc.

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Contents
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS ............................................................ 4 USEFUL TOOLS .................................................................................................. 4 Media Players.............................................................................................. 4 Encoders .................................................................................................... 4 INSTALLING HELIX SERVER .................................................................................... 5 Upgrade from Previous Version ........................................................................ 5 New Install ................................................................................................. 5 START HELIX SERVER .......................................................................................... 7 Starting the Server on Windows ....................................................................... 7 Starting the Server on UNIX or Linux ................................................................. 7 TEST HELIX SERVER ............................................................................................ 8 Start Helix Administrator ............................................................................... 8 Test with Sample Media ................................................................................. 8 DELIVERING CONTENT ......................................................................................... 9 Video on Demand (VOD) ................................................................................. 9 Live streaming ............................................................................................ 9 NETWORK REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................. 10

MORE INFORMATION ......................................................................................... 11

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Hardware and Software Requirements

Specifications Operating System Linux RHEL 5.x * Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 Solaris 10 SPARC ** Processor Intel P4 or newer Multi-core recommended Intel P4 or newer Multi-core recommended Tx Series or better Memory 1 GB minimum- 4 GB recommended 1 GB minimum - 4 GB recommended 1 GB minimum- 4 GB recommended

*Note: Clones of RHEL 5.x are not officially supported. ** Solaris on x86 is not supported.

Useful Tools
For media playback and content creation you will need a media player and encoder. The players and encoders listed below are free of charge or have a free trial period, and can be found online for downloading.

Media Players
QuickTime Player - Apple RealPlayer - RealNetworks Windows Media Player - Microsoft VLC Media Player VideoLAN (most media formats and streaming protocols)

Encoders
Helix Producer - RealNetworks RealProducer - RealNetworks Windows Media Encoder or Microsoft Expression Encoder - Microsoft

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Installing Helix Server

Upgrade from Previous Version
To upgrade between major versions of Helix Server, such as from v13.x to v14.x you will need to do a 'clean' install of the latest version of the Helix Server into a new directory. Do not install over a previous version or re-use your Helix Server configuration files. Steps: 1. Make a note of your current Helix Server Configuration: Ports (HTTP, MMS, RTSP and Admin), custom mount points, IP Bindings, etc. One easy way to do this is to open your Administrator Tool and take notes or screen shots of your current configuration options. 2. Look in rmserver.cfg for any reference to Var HostName or Var ContentMarker. Copy exact syntax of these lines if they exist, otherwise go to next step if it is not being used. 3. Stop the Helix Server from running. 4. Copy the current Helix Server directory to another name (i.e. Helix Server-v13). 5. Using Windows Add/Remove Programs Control Panel, uninstall Helix Server and clean out the original directory. You will still have your copy to revert to in the event you have problems with your new version of Helix Server. If you do not uninstall Helix Server you will appear to have multiple versions of Helix Server installed. This can be confusing if uninstalling Helix Server at a later date. 6. Using the same ports taken from the old Helix Server install, follow the instructions in the New Install section below.

New Install
To install Helix Server, you need a binary installation file and a license file that enables the Helix Server features. License files are delivered by e-mail after you receive your Helix Server installer and generate your machine ID, as described in Step 4 below. Note: To install Helix Server as a Windows Service, you must have administrative access.

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To install Helix Server:

1. 2.

Log into the account that will own the Helix Server process. Launch the setup file. On Windows, double-click the file. On UNIX or Linux, ensure that the program has executable permission. Then open a command line and run the installer. The program name will be different for each operating system: ./program_name.exe Read the installation recommendations and click Next. Click Browse to navigate to the license file you received from RealNetworks. Then click Next.

3. 4.

Obtaining a License Key

If you have not received your license file from RealNetworks, copy the 32character machine ID shown on the second screen of the installation program. Then follow the instructions in the e-mail sent to you when you downloaded the Server or Proxy installer. This generates a license file valid for the machine on which the installer is running. If you did not receive an e-mail message, log into your product and maintenance account (PAM) at the following Web page: https://pam.realnetworks.com/pam/ Navigate to the download section for your Server and click on the Download license key button.
5. 6.

Read the end-user license agreement, signifying your agreement to its terms by clicking Accept. Enter or browse to the path where you want to install Helix Server. On Windows, you may choose to accept the default path in the C:\Program Files directory Note: Examples in this document assume that youve chosen the default path.

7.

Enter a user name and password, which are required to access various Helix Server features, such as Helix Administrator. Confirm your case-sensitive password by entering it again. In the bottom two fields, the installer generates random values for the ports used to access Helix Administrator. Accept the values or choose new values be sure to write down the values used, you will need them to access Helix Administrator. In the next set of screens, you select the default ports that Helix Server uses to listen for requests for specific streaming protocols (RTSP, RTMP, HTTP, HTTPS). On the next screen you enter location information used to generate a request file sent to a certificate signing authority. You can leave these fields blank only if you do not plan to use the secure HTTP (HTTPS) features of Helix Server. unsecured HTTP for these ports, uncheck the Enable Control Port Security box.

8. 9.

10. Select port values used for HTTPS requests to specific Helix Server features. To use

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11. On Windows, the default installation sets up Helix Server as a service. This is

recommended, but you can prevent this by unchecking the Install Helix Server as an NT service box. This installer page also presents the option to Install SNMP Master Agent as an NT service. If you check this box, the Simple Network Monitoring Protocol master agent is installed as a service. For More Information: The SNMP option is significant only if you have licensed the SNMP feature, which Chapter 6 of the Integration Guide explains.
12. In the final confirmation screen, review the installation information. Click Install

to complete the installation process.

Start Helix Server

Starting the Server on Windows Running a Windows Service
In its default installation, Helix Server is set up as a service named Helix Server. In this case, the application always runs in the background, and you do not need to start it.

Using the Start Menu or a Desktop Icon

To start up from the Windows desktop, make sure the service is not running then double-click the Server icon added to the desktop by the installation program. Or, from the Start menu, select the Server entry: Programs > Helix Server > Helix Server

Starting Up from the Windows Command Line

From the Start menu, open the command prompt. Navigate to the main installation directory folder. Enter the following command to start Helix Server with its default configuration file and standard memory use (256 MB): Bin\rmserver rmserver.cfg

Starting the Server on UNIX or Linux

If you performed a default installation of Helix Server or Helix Proxy, the RTSP port is set lower than 1024, requiring the user who starts the Server to log in as root.

To start Helix Server on UNIX:

1. Start any command shell.

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2. Navigate to the main Helix Server or Helix Proxy installation directory. 3. Start the Server as a standard application. Use the following command for Helix Server from the root installation directory of Helix Server: ./Bin/rmserver rmserver.cfg

Test Helix Server

Before making any custom changes to your new install, test the basic functionality of your Helix Server.

Start Helix Administrator

1. Start Helix Server if it is not already running. 2. On Windows, click the browser shortcut added to the desktop by the installation program. Or open one of the following locations in your Web browser. https://address:SecureAdminPort/admin/index.html http://address:AdminPort/admin/index.html If your web browser is on the same computer as the Helix Server, you can typically use the localhost address. For example:

http://localhost:port/admin/index.html
HTTP and HTTPS communication use separate port numbers that were set during installation. Helix Administrator does not use the standard HTTP and HTTPS ports of 80 and 443. 3. Helix Administrator responds to the URL request by asking for your user name and password. Enter the user name and password chosen during installation. The password is case sensitive. 4. Click OK to start Helix Administrator.

Test with Sample Media

Helix Server comes pre-defined with mount points and sample files for Video on Demand streaming. You can test the sample media with the Helix Administration Tool Samples pages and with media players directly. You will need to have appropriate media players installed for testing (see Useful Tools section below). For this reason, you may wish to run your testing from a client computer on the same subnet as your Helix Server, rather than the Server itself.

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From the Helix Administration Tool:

1. In the upper right corner of the browser window, click the green Samples link. 2. Follow the various Play links. Note: The iPhone sample will not work without first turning on file segmentation (see the inline Help menu or the Helix Integration Guide for more information) and clicking the link from the Safari browser on your iPhone.

From media players:

Open your media player and choose from the file menu to open a URL or Location or Network. Then enter the sample URLs below. RealPlayer rtsp://serveraddress:rtsp_port/realvideo10.rm http://serveraddress:http_port/ramgen/realvideo10.rm Windows Media Player (depending on which version of the player is installed, all of these links may not work) http://serveraddress:http_port/asxgen/Desertrace.wmv mms://serveraddress:mms_port/Desertrace.wmv rtsp://serveraddress:rtsp_port/Desertrace.wmv VLC Media Player rtsp://serveraddress:rtsp_port/realvideo10.rm rtsp://serveraddress:rtsp_port/iPhone-src/Riders.mp4 mms://serveraddress:mms_port/Desertrace.wmv

Delivering Content
Video on Demand (VOD)
Your media can be added into the pre-defined RealSystem Content mount point, located in the Helix Server/Content directory. Drop .rm, .wmv, and .mp4 files into the Content folder, .flv and .f4v files into the Helix Server/Content/flash directory, and .mp4 files for iPhone streaming into the Helix Server/Content/iPhone-src directory. Your exact URLs will differ depending on the media type and the streaming protocol you wish to use. Files located in the Content directory would have a URL similar to: rtsp://helix.server.com/myfile.rm

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If you create sub-directories in the Content folder for your files, then the URL would be: rtsp://helix.server.com/subdirectory/myfile.rm For information on media types and URLs, refer to the inline Help link on the Helix Administrator Tool (Streaming Basics:Media Types) and navigate to the media type section that you are interested in.

Live streaming
Helix Server has pre-defined virtual mount points for delivery of live streaming events. For more information on connecting a live stream to Helix Server, refer to your specific encoders documentation and the Integration Guide at http://www.realnetworks.com/helix-support/manuals-release-notes-legal.aspx

Network Requirements
When a Helix Server connects to the Internet it is necessary to open certain ports from the Server or firewall on the network. This lets the Server receive inbound data requests from the client. Because Helix Server can serve several different kinds of data, you will need to open one port for each kind of request that you want the Helix Server to respond to. Ports you may need to open include: 554 RTSP requests This is the most important port for delivering both Real Media and QuickTime video as it is the most common type of inbound data request for the Helix Server. Metafile requests and RTSP protocol URLs that have been entered directly into the RealPlayer will both default to this port unless another port is specified in the request. RTMP requests If you plan on using the streaming Flash capability of Helix Server you need to open this port. HTTP/Ramgen/iPhone requests The Helix Server listens to port 80 for all HTTP content. This includes any HTML pages that the Helix Server can deliver or any media content that has an http URL linked from a Web page. HTTPS requests Secure HTTP-based communication between Helix Server and web browsers, as well as media players behind firewalls that necessitate secure HTTP cloaking. Non-secure HTTP requests directed toward this port are ignored.

1935 80

443

Continued next page

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1755

9090

Random - Admin port Random - Secure Administration port 8008 8009 8010 listen on 6970-32000 UDP listen on 1024-5000 UDP listen on 1-65000

MMS requests While Microsoft depreciated the use of MMS for Windows Media Player 11 it is still required to have this port open for streaming Windows Media to either Windows Media Player or a Silverlight embedded player. Java monitor port The Helix Administrator's graphical Java monitor has its own port separate from the rest of the administration tool. If you want full monitor access then map this port as well. This is used to access Helix Administrator. A typical URL will appear as follows: http://server_ip_or_address:admin_port/admin/index.html This is used to securely access Helix Administrator. A typical URL will appear as follows: https://server_ip_or_address:secure_admin_port/admin/index.html HTTP or HTTPS listen port for channel control for Helix Mobile Server. HTTP or HTTPS listen port for requests to modify playlist sessions for Helix Mobile Server. HTTP or HTTPS listen port for requests to add or delete playlists for Helix Mobile Server. Data channel for RealNetworks and RTP-based media players. Data channel for MMS media players. Data channel for Multicast MMS multicast.

Additional ports will need to be opened if you require the ability to do live broadcasts.

More Information
To download the latest products and license keys: https://pam.realnetworks.com/pam/frame.cfm For Helix Support contacts, product manuals, release notes and security updates: www.realnetworks.com/support For more about the products of the Helix Media Delivery Platform: www.realnetworks.com/helixplatform To contact the Sales representative in your area: www.realnetworks.com/contact/index.aspx

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