Introduction

Welcome to Helix^™ Universal Proxy, the most powerful caching proxy server available for streaming media. Helix Universal Proxy teams with media servers and players to optimize bandwidth and improve the playback experience. This manual will help you use and take full advantage of Helix Universal Proxy for real-time delivery of media files.

What is Helix?

Helix^™ from RealNetworks is a universal digital media delivery platform. With industry-leading performance, integrated content distribution, advertising, user authentication, Web services support, and native delivery of RealMedia, Windows Media, QuickTime, and MPEG-4, Helix from RealNetworks is a robust digital media foundation that meets the needs of enterprises and networking service providers.

Audience for this Guide

This guide is intended for advanced system administrators who prefer to edit Helix Universal Proxy's configuration file directly rather than using Helix Administrator.

How This Manual Is Organized

This guide contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1: New Features

If you're familiar with previous versions of proxy servers from RealNetworks, this chapter will give you a quick update on the new features found in Helix Universal Proxy.

Chapter 2: Overview

This chapter contains information you need about configuration file basics, text editing guidelines, and XML syntax used by the proxy configuration file, rmproxy.cfg.

Chapter 3: Custom Logging

This chapter describes enhancements to the logging and monitoring capabilities of Helix Universal Proxy that support gathering information about the registry.

Chapter 4: Redundant Proxies

This chapter explains a new feature that leverages the RealOne Player reconnect technology to provide another level of redundancy for delivering streaming media content.

Chapter 5: Pull Splitting

This chapter discusses improvements to the proxy splitting feature, including simplified port allocation and enhanced gateway bandwidth utilization.

Remaining chapters are in alphabetical order by proxy feature.

Conventions Used in This Manual

This section explains some conventional terms and formats used throughout the book.

Terminology

Because this guide is designed for the Helix Universal Proxy administrators, the term "you" refers to the administrator.

RealNetworks clients, such as RealOne Player, or Windows Media Player are referred to generically as "clients". Where information applies specifically to the RealNetworks^® RealOne Player, this is spelled out.

Note: Although most clients currently in use are computers running RealPlayer or RealOne Player, RealNetworks also makes a software development kit (SDK) that enables other companies to develop their own players with which they can use to receive the various types of streamed data.

"Clips," "content," "media files," and "files" are used interchangeably to indicate the material that Helix Universal Proxy streams.

Typographical Conventions

The following table explains the typographic conventions used in this guide

Notational Conventions
Convention	Meaning
`syntax`	This font is used for syntax of configuration files, URLs, or command-line instructions.
`variables`	Italic text represents variables. Substitute values appropriate for your system.
emphasis	Bold text is used for emphasis.
. . .	Ellipses indicate nonessential information omitted from examples.
`[ ]`	Square brackets indicate optional material. If you choose to use the material within the brackets, don't type the brackets themselves. An exception to this is in the access log, where statistics generated by the `ClientStats` variable are enclosed in regular brackets.

Default Locations and Values

In all of the examples given in this book, it's assumed that you've installed Helix Universal Proxy in the default location for your operating system and that you're using default values for all settings. Of course, you can customize Helix Universal Proxy however you want to meet your specific needs. Default values are used here for clarity of illustration. On Windows-based platforms, the default installation directory is:

C:\Program Files\Real\Helix Proxy

Additional RealNetworks Resources

In addition to this guide, the following RealNetworks resources are available on the RealNetworks web site.

General Information

You can read about Helix Universal Proxy special offers at http://www.realnetworks.com/products/proxy

Helix Universal Proxy Release Notes

The release notes have the very-latest information about Helix Universal Proxy, at
http://service.real.com/help/library/guides/proxy2/readme.html

Helix Universal Proxy Administration Guide

Information about Helix Universal Proxy, powerful software for streaming media content is covered in this basic reference. This guide explains how to set up and configure Helix Universal Proxy using Helix Administrator, an HTML-based, graphical user interface. This guide is available at
http://service.real.com/help/library/index.html

RealSystem Proxy White Paper

For a high-level look at how Helix Universal Proxy can be used to best advantage on your network, review the white paper at:
http://www.service.real.com/help/library/whitepapers/rproxy/proxy.html

Helix Universal Server Administration Guide

Information about Helix Universal Server, powerful software for streaming media content is covered in this basic reference. This guide explains how to set up, configure, and run Helix Universal Server to stream multimedia, available at
http://service.real.com/help/library/index.html

Firewall Information

You'll find information on using our products with firewalls at
http://www.service.real.com/firewall/

©2002 RealNetworks, Inc.
For more information, visit RealNetworks
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