Managing the server

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Remote management tools

To manage your Amazon Web Services account, use any of the following:

  • AWS Management Console

    When you sign in to the console, select Amazon EC2 from the drop-down list. Or, after you sign in to the console, select the Amazon EC2 tab. After you sign in, you can launch an instance of Adobe Media Server.

  • Elasticfox, a Firefox browser extension that works much like the AWS Management Console.

  • Amazon Web Services API

    Amazon has several developer tools that let you call the Web Services API to manage your instances and applications. See Amazon Developer Tools.

  • Amazon EC2 API Tools

    Amazon describes these tools as, “The client interface to the Amazon EC2 web service. Use these tools to register and launch instances, manipulate security groups, and more.”

To connect to the Adobe Media Server instance from a remote computer, use any of the following:

  • SSH clients (for example, PuTTY, Terminal, and WinSCP). These SSH clients can also use SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) and SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol). See Managing content.

  • Adobe Media Server Administration Console

    You can use the Administration Console to manage multiple Adobe Media Server instances. Adobe Media Server Administration Console is not configured to run by default.

Adobe Media Server Administration Console

Adobe Media Server Administration Console is not configured to run by default. To use it, you must enable it in the ams.ini configuration file and start it.

For general information about the Administration Console, see Using the Administration Console.

Configure the Administration Server

Note:

Before running any command in Adobe Media Server Administration Console, add a sudo command before it to assume super user or root user privileges. This is necessary because root user is disabled in AMS version 5.0.4 and higher and amsadmin is the new user. amsadmin user has permission to browse the contents of the AMS installation directory.

  1. In /opt/adobe/ams/conf/ams.ini, set values for the following parameters:

    • SERVER.ADMIN_USERNAME = someusername

    • SERVER.ADMINSERVER_HOSTPORT = :1111

    The first two parameters add one user for the Administration Console. To add additional users, see the next section, “Add administrators”.

    To set the administrator password, perform the following steps:

    1. Ensure that AMSAdmin is not running.

    2. Execute the following command from the shell:opt/adobe/ams/amsadmin –console –user someusername

      You will be prompted to enter a password. Ensure that the password is atleast 8 characters long.

    3. Go to Users.xml and check for the salted hash of your password under the password tag.

  2. Restart the server:

    ./amsmgr server ams restart

  3. Open port 1111 in the Security Group of the instances you want to administer. Open the port only to the IP addresses that are allowed to access the Administration Server. See Working with Security Groups.

Start, stop, or restart the Administration Server

  1. Do one of the following to connect to the instance over SSH:

  2. Enter the following to change to the Adobe Media Server root installation directory:

    cd /opt/adobe/ams

  3. To start, stop, or restart the server:

    ./amsmgr adminserver start | stop | restart

Add administrators

  1. To add administrators for a particular application, copy a Users.xml configuration file from opt/adobe/ams/conf to /mnt/applications/myapplication. Add a <User></User> section to the Users.xml file with the username and password of the administrator.

    See Configure an application.

  2. You can optionally specify which IP addresses and domains each administrator is allowed to connect from <Allow></Allow>, and which IP addresses and domains each administrator is not allowed to connect from <Deny></Deny>.

  3. Restart the server and the Administration Server:

    ./amsmgr adminserver restart

    ./amsmgr server ams restart

    Note:

    When you edit a configuration file, restart Adobe Media Server. When you edit the Users.xml configuration file, restart Adobe Media Server and Adobe Media Administration Server.

Secure the Administration Console

  1. To limit access to the Administration Server at a global level, edit the Server.xml configuration file. For information, see Limit access to Adobe Media Administration Server.

Connect to the Administration Console

  1. Open a web browser and enter the following into the address bar:

    http://public-dns/ams_adminConsole.htm

    For example:

    http://ec2-184-72-164-117.compute-1.amazonaws.com/ams_adminConsole.htm

    The Administration Console is located on the instance in the following directory:

    /mnt/webroot/ams_adminConsole.htm

  2. In the Server Address box, enter the Public DNS of the instance.

  3. Enter the administrator username and password.

    The username and password are stored in the /opt/adobe/ams/conf/ams.ini file.

    For security reasons, the administration console does not save your password between sessions.

  4. (Optional) Select the Automatically Connect Me option.

  5. (Optional) Click Revert to return the Administration Console to its default settings.

    Reverting deletes all saved servers, user names, and passwords from the Administration Console. All custom resizing within the Administration Console is restored to the original state. (The Revert button, however, does not affect the server.)

  6. Click Login.

    You can disconnect at any time by clicking Logoff.

Run the Administration Console from another computer

To run the Administration Console from a computer other than the one hosting the instance, copy ams_adminConsole.htm, ams_adminConsole.swf, and AC_RunActiveContent.js from /opt/adobe/ams/tools to the other computer.

Verify that the Allow and Deny tags in the Users.xml file allow the connection from the other computer’s IP address.

Using the Administration API

The Adobe Media Administration Server has an API that you can use to monitor and administer the server. You can call Administration APIs over RTMP and HTTP.

Adobe Media Server Administration API Reference

To call Administration APIs, configure and start the Administration Server. See the tasks in the section Adobe Media Server Administration Console. After you’ve completed those tasks, you can call Administration APIs over RTMP.

Call Administration APIs over HTTP:

  1. Edit the /opt/adobe/ams/conf/ams.ini file as follows:

    USERS.HTTPCOMMAND_ALLOW = TRUE

  2. Edit the file opt/adobe/ams/conf/Users.xml to list the Administration APIs that can be called over HTTP (only ping is allowed, by default):

    <AdminServer> 
                <HTTPCommands> 
<!-- The <Enable> value is set in the ams.ini file. --> 
            <Enable>${USERS.HTTPCOMMAND_ALLOW}</Enable> 
<!-- List of Admin APIs that can be accessed over HTTP.--> 
<!-- Add multiple commands separated by commas.  "All" indicates --> 
<!-- every command (it's not recommended to allow all commands). --> 
            <Allow>ping</Allow> 
<!-- List of server admin commands denied access via HTTP. --> 
<!-- Add multiple commands seperated by commas.  "All" indicates --> 
<!-- every command. --> 
            <Deny>All</Deny> 
            <Order>Deny,Allow</Order> 
        </HTTPCommands> 
    </AdminServer>

  3. Restart the server and the Administration Server:

    ./amsmgr adminserver restart

    ./amsmgr server ams restart

    Note:

    When you edit a configuration file, restart Adobe Media Server. When you edit the Users.xml configuration file, restart Adobe Media Server and Adobe Media Administration Server.

For more information, see Working with the Administration API.

Starting and stopping an instance

When you launch an instance, the instance is backed by Amazon Secure Simple Storage (S3). After you launch the instance, you can create an Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volume and attach it to the instance. The major difference between S3-backed and EBS-backed instances is that EBS-backed instances can be stopped and restarted. Instances that are S3-backed can be launched and terminated, they cannot be stopped and restarted.

Note:

When you terminate an instance, any changes made to that instance (media copied to the instance and changes to configuration files) are lost. To save media and configuration files, copy them off the instance before you terminate.

Terminate an instance

You cannot stop an instance backed by S3, you must terminate it. To start it, you have to launch a new instance (choose an AMI, define a security group, and so on).

  1. In the AWS Management Console, select the instance.

  2. Select the Instance Actions drop-down list and choose Terminate.

Stop an instance

You can stop an instance backed by EBS. You cannot stop an instance backed by S3.

  1. In the AWS Management Console, select the instance.

  2. Select the Instance Actions drop-down list and choose Stop.

Start an instance

You can start an instance backed by EBS. You cannot start an instance backed by S3.

  1. In the AWS Management Console, select the instance.

  2. Select the Instance Actions drop-down list and choose Start.

For more information, see Launch an instance of Adobe Media Server and Using Amazon Simple Storage Solution (S3) to store and stream content.

Start and stop the server on Linux

On Linux, Adobe Media Server is installed as a service. Start and stop the Adobe Media Server service using the amsmgr utility. Use the amsmgr utility to perform other tasks as well, such as configuring the service to start automatically when the system is started.

Start, stop, or restart Adobe Media Server

  1. Log in as an amsadmin user.

  2. Change directories to /opt/adobe/ams:

    cd /opt/adobe/ams

  3. Open a shell and type one of the following:

    sudo ./amsmgr server ams start|stop|restart

Start, stop, or restart the Administration Server

  1. Log in as an amsadmin user.

  2. Change directories to /opt/adobe/ams:

    cd /opt/adobe/ams

  3. Open a shell and type one of the following:

    sudo ./amsmgr adminserver start|stop|restart.

For more information, see Managing the server on Linux.

Installation directories

Adobe Media Server is installed to the following directory:

/opt/adobe/ams

The configuration files are installed to the following directory:

/opt/adobe/ams/conf

Adobe Media Server on Amazon Web Services has a few differences from a standard Adobe Media Server installation. The following directories are located in the /mnt directory:

/mnt/applications

/mnt/logs

/mnt/webroot

The applications, logs, and webroot directory are in the /mnt directory, because on Adobe Media Server on Amazon Web Services, the /mnt directory contains more storage space than the / <root> directory.

Logging

The Adobe Media Server log files are written to the following directory:

/mnt/logs

For more information about logging, see Monitoring and Managing Log Filesin the Adobe Media Server Configuration and Administration Guide.

Configuration files

The server configuration files are located in the following directory:

/opt/adobe/ams/conf

You can edit configuration files just as you would on any edition of Adobe Media Server. See Working with configuration files.

Note:

When you terminate an instance, all content on the instance is permanently deleted. Before you terminate an instance, copy any content you’ve added or modified, including configuration files, off the instance.

The following are the differences between the standard Adobe Media Server Extended configuration files and the Adobe Media Server on Amazon Web Services configuration files:

  • Adaptor.xml

    Adaptor/RTMFP/Core/HostPortList/HostPort has a public attribute to allow UDP traffic through Amazon’s firewall:

    <HostPort public="184.72.197.33:19350-19360">:19350-19360</HostPort>

  • ams.ini

    The Administration Server is not configured or started by default. (See Adobe Media Server Administration Console section.) To connect to the Administration Server, configure a port:

    SERVER.ADMINSERVER_HOSTPORT = :1111

    On an instance, the /mnt directory is much larger than the /opt directory. Therefore, content is configured to live in subdirectories of /mnt:

    LIVE_DIR = /mnt/applications/live VOD_COMMON_DIR = /mnt/webroot/vod VOD_DIR = /mnt/applications/vod/media VHOST.APPSDIR = /mnt/applications LOGGER.LOGDIR = /mnt/logs

For information about configuring the server for optimum performance for your streaming use case, see Configuring performance features in the Adobe Media Server Configuration and Administration Guide.

Apache HTTP Server configuration

The Apache HTTP Server configuration on Adobe Media Server on Amazon Web Services is the same as it is on other editions of Adobe Media Server. Adobe Media Server listens on port 80 and proxies unknown HTTP requests to port 8134. Apache listens on port 8134.

The Apache root directory is /opt/adobe/ams/Apache2.4/.

The Apache webroot directory is /mnt/webroot/.

For more information, see Configuring Apache HTTP Server.

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