This manual describes a pre-release product. As such, some features may not be fully implemented; any information here is subject to change.
This chapter explains how RealServer features are controlled by a license file. If you have more than one RealServer in your organization, you can use a license group to share features.XXX
The list of features available to your RealServer is stored in a file in the License directory. If you purchase additional features, these may be listed in additional files stored in the same directory. License files are written in XML format.
To upgrade your license so that you can use more of RealServer's features, contact RealNetworks or your reseller.
If your organization uses several RealServers that all use the same set of features, you can configure these to share a single license. Refer to "Distributed Licensing".
The following features are controlled by the license:
You can read the file with RealSystem Administrator by clicking About in the left-hand frame. A second browser window appears, displaying the values for your license file. If you have multiple license files, RealServer will show the values for all of them at once.
You can also read the file with any text editor. Although you can read the file with a text editor, you cannot make changes. Any changes to the file invalidate it. If you have multiple files, you will need to read each file individually and calculate any additive features (such as number of streams) yourself.
The LicenseDirectory
variable in the configuration file tells RealServer where to look for license information.
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Additional Information |
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To learn about the configuration file, see "Configuration File". |
If the license file is invalid, RealServer will report an error message, add the error to the error log file, and will not start. To resolve this, remove the license file, and restart RealServer. It will use minimum settings, as described in the "Minimum Settings" table. Contact RealNetworks for a correct license file.
If your RealServer suddenly allows fewer connections or otherwise appears to be using minimum settings, either your license has expired or RealServer is unable to start using the settings you've selected. The table below lists the minimum settings present in every RealServer.
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Note |
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Evaluation versions may have lower minimum values and additional features. |
The distributed licensing feature allows you to purchase a single license to be used by multiple RealServers on your network. The RealServers that share a license are called a "license group". Features enabled in the license are then automatically enabled on all the RealServers in the group, and the number of available connections is shared. Clients are not denied service unless the entire pool of connections in the group is in use.
When you use this feature, you place the main license file on the main RealServer (called the "publisher"). You configure the publisher RealServer with a unique port number, then configure corresponding RealServers (called "subscribers"). The subscribers can be set up to look for a primary publisher RealServer, and if that RealServer is not available or has too few connections available for use, a secondary RealServer can be called upon.
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Note |
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Within a given network or organization, you can have multiple groups, but you should not use this feature outside of a network. |
Each RealServer maintains its own configuration file, and can be configured independently using RealSystem Administrator. The features available to each subscriber depend on the features permitted by the shared license, but can be set up with different values on each subscriber.
To use this feature for the first time requires three steps:
Once you have configured both publisher and subscribers, you need only remember to start the publisher before starting the subscribers.
In addition to the steps shown below, you must tell the person who is setting up the subscriber what value you are using for Admin Port.
Yes
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A generic IP address appears in the Edit Publisher IP Address box.
A generic description appears in the Edit Subscriber Description box.
You'll need to know the value for Admin Port on the publisher, as well as the publisher's IP address.
A generic IP address appears in the Edit Subscriber Description box.
The publisher RealServer must be started before you start the subscribers, so that the subscribers can access the shared license.
Distributed licensing is now active; RealServers can pool their stream count and feature availability.
On the publisher, you can use Java Monitor to view the number of connections currently in use by the subscribers.