Flash® Media Server 3 Beta 1 Read Me

Welcome to Adobe® Flash® Media Server 3 Beta 1 release! This document contains late-breaking product information and updates concerning this prerelease drop.

Minimum system requirements
Install your software
Uninstall your software
What's new in this release
Known issues
Other resources

Minimum system requirements

The Flash Media Server 3 system requirements for production environments are:

The Flash Media Server 3 system requirements for development environments are:

1. Double-click the installer application and follow the on-screen instructions.
2. During the installation process you will be asked to enter a user name and password for the first valid server administrator. These values are written to the fms.ini file which is located in the conf folder after installation. (You can use the management console to add other administrators later.)
3. Enter the server ports that Flash Media Server should use.
4. The final installation step gives you the opportunity to view the Readme.htm file, start Flash Media Server, and select the option to start Flash Media Server manually when you reboot your computer. Select any options you'd like, and click Finish.

   The installation is complete. If you configured it to start automatically, the Flash Media Server service starts.

5. To start the server manually, select Start > Programs > Adobe > Flash Media Server 3 > Start Flash Media Server 3 and Start Flash Media Admin Server 3
6. To open the Flash Media Server management console, select Start > Programs > Adobe > Flash Media Server 3 > Management Console.

To install Flash Media Server from a Linux computer:

1. Log in as a root user (required to install Flash Media Server).
2. Open a shell window and switch to the directory with the installation file, FlashMediaServer3.tar.gz
3. Unzip and untar the installation file. A directory with the installation program is created.
4. Switch to the directory which was just unzipped
5. Start the installation program with the following command: ./installFMS
6. The installation program starts and displays a welcome message.
7. Press Enter to start the installation. Follow the installation instructions on your screen. During the process you will be asked to
   • Enter the installation directory and ports which the server will use
   • Enter an administrative user name and password for the first valid server administrator. These values are written to the fms.ini file which is located inside of the conf folder after the installation.
   • Enter a user for Flash Media Server processes to run as. The default is the "nobody" user. (The user you select is also the owner of the Flash Media Server files.) Your choices are written to the fms.ini file. You can edit the fms.ini file to modify this and other security properties later, if needed.
8. Review the summary of the installation options you have chosen, which are displayed in the installer.
9. To start the server manually, go to the installation directory (default is /opt/adobe/fms/). Use the command “./server start” to start Flash Media Server and “./adminserver start” to start Flash Media Admin Server.

   The installation is complete. If you configured it to start automatically, the Flash Media Server service starts.

To uninstall Flash Media Server from a Windows computer:

1. Select Start > Programs > Adobe > Flash Media Server 3 > Uninstall Flash Media Server 3
2. In the confirmation dialog box, click Yes to uninstall Flash Media Server.
3. Flash Media Server is removed from your computer. A second confirmation dialog box appears when the process is complete.

To uninstall Flash Media Server from a Linux computer:

1. Log on to the server where Flash Media Server was installed.
2. Switch to the root user, or a user with root permissions. Normally you would use su - root to switch to the root user.
3. At the UNIX shell prompt, enter cd /opt/adobe/fms.
4. By default, /opt/adobe/fms is the directory where Flash Media Server is installed. If you installed the server in a different directory, replace /opt/adobe/fms with the actual installation location.
5. Execute the uninstall script ./uninstallFMS.
6. Follow the displayed uninstall instructions.

The following features are included in this beta release:

Enhanced RTMP
Provides a light weight alternative to SSL/TLS based RTMPS protocol. The latest Flash Player 9 Update is required for this feature.

SWF Hashing Validation
Adds the ability to allow connections only from valid .swfs and may be used for restricting stream playback only through sanctioned applications. While this may be used in conjunction with the new RTMPe, this feature in of itself does not encrypt any data. The latest Flash Player 9 Update is required for this feature.

Performance Improvements
This version of the server shows substantial performance improvement mostly due to a new and very efficient scheduler and significantly reduced system call overhead.

Multi-point Publish
Support ‘push publishing’ allowing for more flexible live broadcasting topologies. The server side scripting API has been augmented server side NetStreams and publish event notification providing an application developer the power to build custom Live solutions.

Redirect Connection
NetConnection.Connect.Reject status info has now been enhanced to convey redirect information in a standard manner. To this end all relevant APIs – Access Adaptor, Auth Adaptor and Server Scripting have all been updated to support the redirect capability. This should improve application interoperability.

Stream Data Access
The read/write ACLs (Access Control List) have been extended with two new permission types to control the access to the stream audio and video data in the client. Applications that need to extract a video frames as a bitmaps will now be able to do so if allowed by the server. The server scripting as well as the auth adaptor APIs have been augmented to support this feature.

AMF3 Support
RTMP adds support for AMF3, allowing AS3 applications to work correctly with the server.

Authorization Adaptor Enhancements
The event notification/authorization model has been extended to support actions. These actions may be used to disconnect a client or dispatch an arbitrary message to server script. The latter provides a powerful bridge between the auth adaptor and the server scripting APIs and allows for auth adaptors to be script extensible.

Default Live and Video on Demand Applications
Flash Media Server installation now comes with pre-built Video-on-Demand and Live applications making it easy to use the server right out of the box for these purposes.

FLVCheck Tool
A command line tool to check whether an FLV file is valid, and suitable for streaming through Flash Media Server. Also optionally can insert or update the metadata to accurately reflect the play duration. The GUI less nature of the tool makes it easy to integrate into a wide range of environments.

FMSCheck Tool
A command line tool that performs a deep health check of a running Flash Media Server installation. It has a rich set of options allowing the user to check connection establishment, stream playback and stream publishing functions in the server. The GUI less nature of the tool makes it easy to integrate into a wide range of environments.

64-bit File Support
Adds support for larger than 2 Gigabyte FLV and MP3 files.

For the list of known issues in this release, please refer to the Release Notes on the prerelease site.

Documentation
Flash Media Server Documentation Center

Online Resources
Flash Media Server Product Home
Flash Media Server Developer Center
Flash Media Server End User License Agreement
Flash Media Server Online Forums
Flash Video Streaming Service
Flash Media Solutions Providers

Flash Player Product Home