Launch an Instance and Install Red5Pro

Start a Basic Instance:

• Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard
• From left-hand navigation, under INSTANCES, click on Instances, then Launch Instance
• Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) – Select the “Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS (HVM)”
• Step 2: Choose an Instance Type – Recommended minimum t3.medium (required for Wavelength zone instances). Click on Next: Configure Instance Details
• Step 3: Configure Instance Details – Network: choose the VPC that you created for autoscaling in that region. Ensure that “Auto-assign Public IP” is set to Enable; accept all other defaults.
• Click on Next: Add storage – increase from the default 8G to 16G or more; click on Next: Tag Instance; click on Next: Configure Security Group
• Step 6: Configure Security Group – choose “Select an existing security group” and choose the node security group you created.
• Click Review and Launch
• Click Launch
• In the final step when prompted, Choose an existing key pair, and select the public key that was created earlier

Install Red5Pro on the Instance

• Follow the Installing Red5Pro on a Linux Server instructions
• Make sure that Red5 Pro service is set to auto-start on launch
• Connect to your instance using the private key from the key-pair that you created
• ssh -i ~/.ssh/keys/red5prokey ubuntu@<server_ip_address>
• Red5 Pro Clustering does not work without a license. You will need to purchase a Red5 Pro Professional license from https://account.red5.net. Add a file named LICENSE.KEY with your Pro license key (16 characters, plus dashes, like: YOUR-LIC-ENSE-KEY1) to the root of the Red5 Pro Server installation ({red5prohome}/LICENSE.KEY)

If you haven’t already, Install NTP (network time protocol). NTP is necessary to ensure that the Stream Manager and all nodes are in sync. sudo apt-get install ntp The service should start automatically once installed.

Configure Autoscaling on the Instance

Navigate to the location where you extracted the red5pro files, and edit the file {red5prohome}/conf/autoscale.xml

• Change the active value from “false” to “true”
• Replace http://0.0.0.0:5080 with https://your-streammanager-url
• Save and close the file

example:

    <bean name="config" class="com.red5pro.clustering.autoscale.Configuration" >
        <property name="active" value="true"/>

        <!--Stream manager hosted uri. use the host of your stream manager.  -->
                <property name="cloudWatchHost" value="https://red5autoscale.red5pro.com/streammanager/cloudwatch"/>

note: Servers in the Wavelength Zone can only connect to secure SSL

Modify Cluster Properties

Edit the file {red5prohome}/conf/cluster.xml

1 – Replace the default <!-- edge/origin link cluster password --> password from changeme to a unique value. Make a note of this password, to be used in the Stream Manager red5.properties file.

2 – REQUIRED FOR WAVELENGTH ZONE SUPPORT set node communication to use private IP

     <!-- Set to true to use private IP addresses for node communication -->
        <property name="usePrivateAddresses" value="true" />

Modify Red5pro-Activation Configuration

Edit the file {red5prohome}/conf/ed5pro-activation.xml, setting the Network Topology to AWS:

        <!-- Network topologies available: DEFAULT, PROPERITES, AWS -->
        <property name="networkTopology" value="AWS" />

Remove Unnecessary Webapps

To ensure a faster startup time for your server, we suggest deleting any webapps that you will not be using from the {red5pro}/webapps directory (for example: template, streammanager; do not remove root). For ease of setup for the Stream Manager, leave a zipped copy of the server distribution on the server.

In addition, it is recommended that you remove any plugins (found in the red5pro/plugins directory) which you will not be using, from the following list:

• red5pro-mpegts* — HLS
• red5pro-restreamer* — restreamer
• red5pro-socialpusher* — social media restreaming

Add Service Restart – IMPORTANT

Because of the nature of the Wavelength zones, networking takes longer to initiate, and that interferes with the red5pro service startup. To work around this, we added the following restartred5pro.sh script to the /home/ubuntu directory to wait a minute and then restart the service:

#! /bin/bash
sleep 60
sudo systemctl stop red5pro
sudo systemctl start red5pro

And add the following cron job (sudo crontab -e) to be run on startup:

@reboot /home/ubuntu/restartred5pro.sh

Verifying Red5 Pro on Instance

Start the Red5 Pro service

sudo systemctl start red5pro

Once you have started the Red5 Pro Server, you can verify that it is running and available by opening a web browser and navigating to http://<server-ip>:5080, where is the Public address value of your Red5 Pro server.

After you’ve verified, stop the Red5 Pro service

sudo systemctl stop red5pro

Create AMI Image from Instance

To create an AMI, to be used by autoscaling for node creation:

• Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard, click on Running Instances, and select your instance.
• Click on “Actions” => “Image” => “Create Image”
• In the “Create Image” popup window enter a unique image name and description and click create image. Leave additional default settings. Make a note of the image name – you will need this for the stream manager launchconfig.
• You can now stop (or terminate) the instance (NOT the AMI). You will not be charged by Red5 Pro for a server instance that is live for shorter than 15 minutes.
• If your nodegroups span multiple regions, you will need to copy the AMI to each (detailed in the next step)