Building and installing a Red5 server on a Linux box.

Adding a new user

First we create a new user for the Red5 service.

server:~> adduser red5

and deactivate the interactive shell.

red5:x:10xy:10xy:,,,:/home/red5:/bin/false

Installing a Red5 server on a Linux server.

Building a Red5 installer

To get a grip on Red5 we import the source into an IDE and build the server locally using the current stable release (as of May 2010 this is version 0.9.1).

server:~> svn checkout http://red5.googlecode.com/svn/java/server/tags/0_9_1
server:~> mv 0_9_1 red5-server-0.9.1
server:~> ln -s red5-server-0.9.1 red5-server-0.9.x

Look into the interior of the server, adapt code as needed.

server:~> cd red5-server-0.9.x
server:~> ant dist

Create a

server:~> ant dist-installer

Or download the latest release from http://code.google.com/p/red5/ if the binary distribution is all you need.

Add a Red5 server startup script

Based on the /etc/init.d/skeleton a startup script for the installation above could look like this:

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          red5-server
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Red5 server script
# Description:       Based on skeleton
### END INIT INFO

# Author: fluffi 
#
# Do NOT "set -e"

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="Red5 server"
NAME=red5-server

DAEMON=/home/red5/red5-server-0.9.x/dist/red5.sh
DAEMON_STOP=/home/red5/red5-server-0.9.x/dist/red5-shutdown.sh
DAEMON_ARGS=""
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre
RED5_HOME=/home/red5/red5-server-0.9.x/dist

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

DAEMON_OPTS="--quiet"
DAEMON_OPTS="--chdir $RED5_HOME --chuid red5"

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
	# Return
	#   0 if daemon has been started
	#   1 if daemon was already running
	#   2 if daemon could not be started
	start-stop-daemon --start --background --chdir $RED5_HOME --chuid red5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
		|| return 1
	start-stop-daemon --start --background --chdir $RED5_HOME --chuid red5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --startas $DAEMON -- \
		$DAEMON_ARGS \
		|| return 2
	# Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
	# to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
	# on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
do_stop()
{
	# Return
	#   0 if daemon has been stopped
	#   1 if daemon was already stopped
	#   2 if daemon could not be stopped
	#   other if a failure occurred
	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
	RETVAL="$?"
	[ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
	# Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
	# and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
	# If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
	# that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
	# needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
	# sleep for some time.
	start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
	[ "$?" = 2 ] && return 

	start-stop-daemon --start --background --chdir $RED5_HOME --chuid red5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --startas $DAEMON_STOP -- \
	sleep 10

	# Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
	rm -f $PIDFILE
	return "$RETVAL"
}

#
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
#
do_reload() {
	#
	# If the daemon can reload its configuration without
	# restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
	# then implement that here.
	#
	start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
	return 0
}

case "$1" in
  start)
	[ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
	do_start
	case "$?" in
		0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
		2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
	esac
	;;
  stop)
	[ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
	do_stop
	case "$?" in
		0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
		2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
	esac
	;;
  restart|force-reload)
	#
	# If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
	# 'force-reload' alias
	#
	log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
	do_stop
	case "$?" in
	  0|1)
		do_start
		case "$?" in
			0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
			1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
			*) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
		esac
		;;
	  *)
	  	# Failed to stop
		log_end_msg 1
		;;
	esac
	;;
  *)
	#echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
	echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
	exit 3
	;;
esac

:

Starting the Red5 server manually

With the red5-server startup script the Red5 server should start with uid=red5.

server:~> sudo /etc/init.d/red5-server start

Point your web browser to http://localhost:5080/ to verify the basic installation:

Making Red5 script run at boot time

server:~> update-rc.d red5-server defaults

First experiments with the installed Red5 server.

The oflaDemo streams from data files inside the exploded war. In this experiment i want to stream from outside the Red5 installation. Take a deep breath and dive into the code of the Red5 server:

Some small changes in DefaultStreamFilenameGenerator and the class is configurable via Spring: First i refactored the hardwired local variable "streams/" into a field to make to make the prefix configurable and added an appropriate setter.

    private String prefix = "streams/";
...
    public void setPrefix(String prefix) {
        this.prefix = prefix;
    }

Next was to refactor the hardwired absolute path flag:

    public boolean resolvesToAbsolutePath() {
        return false;
    }

To make it configurable, too.

    private boolean absolutePath = false;
...
    public boolean resolvesToAbsolutePath() {
        return absolutePath;
    }
    public void setAbsolutePath(boolean absolutePath) {
        this.absolutePath = absolutePath;
    }

The resulting bean definition in our example is added to red5-default.xml and looks is as follows (beware! name/id matters with Red5 bean resolving strategy):

    <bean id="streamFilenameGenerator" class="org.red5.server.stream.DefaultStreamFilenameGenerator">
        <property name="prefix" value="${sfg.prefix}" />
        <property name="absolutePath" value="${sfg.absolutePath}" />
    </bean>

With the configuration inside red5.properties.

# streamFilenameGenerator configuration
sfg.prefix=/tmp/upload/
sfg.absolutePath=true

Test the pimped version of Red5 with some small changes in the oflaDemo.

As with the Red5 DefaultStreamFilenameGenerator the oflaDemo, DemoService is given a configurable field:

    private String fileDirectory = "streams/";
...
    public void setFileDirectory(String fileDirectory) {
        this.fileDirectory = fileDirectory;
    }

The resulting configurable bean definition inside WEB-INF/red5-web.xml:

    <bean id="demoService.service" class="org.red5.demos.oflaDemo.DemoService">
        <property name="fileDirectory" value="${fileDirectory}" />
    </bean>

is configured via WEB-INF/red5-web.properties

#fileDirectory=streams/
fileDirectory=file:/tmp/upload/

Drop the oflaDemo.war into the embedded Tomcat deploy directory.

server:~> cp oflaDemo.war ~red5/red5/webapps

Red5 will "explode" the web archive and start the application. Point your browser to see the oflaDemo in action.