Chapter 2: Customizing RealPlayer Intranet Administrator

This chapter explains how to use RealSystem Administrator to customize general setup options for RealPlayer Intranet Administrator. The chapter focuses on the configurations central to the product setup—for example, port settings, mount points, and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) delivery paths.

Configuring RealPlayer Intranet Administrator General Setup Options

You can use RealSystem Administrator to customize RealPlayer Intranet Administrator features and settings.

To make changes to any general setup feature, click the appropriate category listed under Configure>General Setup. Make whatever changes you want, and then click Apply. A confirmation page appears to let you know that the changes have been made. You may be required to restart RealPlayer Intranet Administrator; if so, a message to that effect will appear on-screen.

If your Web browser is set to permit cookies, RealSystem Administrator "remembers" the page that was open in the right-hand frame the last time you used it. Each subsequent time you access RealSystem Administrator, or when you click the Refresh button, RealSystem Administrator displays this page. In Netscape Navigator, RealSystem Administrator will reload with the main Welcome page when you resize the browser window unless cookies are enabled.

After you start RealPlayer Intranet Administrator and RealSystem Administrator, you can change RealPlayer Intranet Administrator features by using the following procedure.

To customize RealPlayer Intranet Administrator general setup options:

1. On the left side of the RealSystem Administrator screen, click whichever category you want under Configure>General Setup.

2. Set the values in the page on the right.

3. When you have finished changing values, click Apply.

4. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

   If you made changes that require RealPlayer Intranet Administrator to be restarted, the Pending Changes button at the top of RealSystem Administrator changes to red.

   In addition, the Restart Server button, located at the at the top of the RealSystem Administrator window, turns red if you need to restart RealPlayer Intranet Administrator for your changes to take effect. When you see the Restart Server button change to red, you should click it as soon as possible.

   	Note
   	Clear your browser cache settings after applying any changes. This enables you to view the most current version of the Web page, which should reflect the latest changes.

Common Settings

Certain settings are common to every RealPlayer Intranet Administrator. They are described in this section.

Port Numbers

Port settings tell RealPlayer Intranet Administrator where to listen for requests.

If your RealPlayer Intranet Administrator and Web server are on the same computer, you may need to modify the HTTP Port setting. Otherwise, you will probably not need to make any changes to the port settings.

Note

If you change the port number for HTTP Port from its default values after installation, you may need to modify the path to reflect the new port number in the URL from which to retrieve preferences box when you create new configuration files for RealPlayers. (The default value on the Intranet Preferences page is 8080. RealPlayers receive this value and use it to access the configuration file on startup if you do not supply another one.)

	Warning
	Be careful when changing the HTTP Port value on RealPlayer Intranet Administrator when it is servicing deployed RealPlayers that are using remote preferences. The deployed RealPlayers access preferences using HTTP and the port number assigned to RealPlayer Intranet Administrator during installation.

RealPlayer Intranet Administrator uses the following settings to determine where to listen for requests sent using a particular protocol (you can view the settings from RealSystem Administrator by clicking Configure>General Setup>Ports):

• HTTP Port—the default value for this setting is 8080.

• Monitor Port—port used by Java Monitor. The default value is 9090.

• Admin Port—port number to which RealSystem Administrator connection requests are directed. The setup process assigns a random value for this setting to ensure security, but the user can manually override this value during the setup process.

  	Note
  	To use a port lower than 1024 on a UNIX system, you must be logged on as super-user.

Mount Points

A mount point is a short way of referring to the actual directory where a given file or set of files is stored.

Every mount point begins and ends with a forward slash.

RealPlayer Intranet Administrator uses one mount point to store the configuration files used by RealPlayers. By default, this mount point is named /prefs/. It corresponds to the local IntranetPlayer/prefs subdirectory in the RealPlayer Intranet Administrator directory. An HTTP delivery path named /prefs references this mount point and permits Web access to files in this directory. You can create a similar scenario for the installers by creating an additional mount point and adding an HTTP delivery path.

The default location for the /prefs/ mount point on Windows is C:\Program Files\Real\RealPlayer Intranet Administrator\IntranetPlayer\prefs. On UNIX, you must specify the main RealPlayer Intranet Administrator directory; an IntranetPlayer/prefs subdirectory is created automatically under this directory.

To create a mount point for installers:

1. In RealSystem Administrator, click Configure>General Setup>Mount Points. The following Web page appears.

   

2. Click Add New. A generic mount point name appears in the Edit Mount Point box.

3. Type the new name in the Edit Mount Point box. This new name must be unique, and it must begin and end with a forward slash (/).

4. Click Edit to save the new name.

5. In the Description box, type a description for this new mount point. Note that you cannot use a period (.) in this box.

6. Identify the location of the local /IntranetPlayer/installers directory by typing the full path for the install directory in the Base Path box.

   	Tip
   	If you are not sure what the base path is, check the base path for the /prefs/ mount point. Use the same path, but substitute "installers" for "prefs." Do not include the quotation marks.

7. Click Apply.

8. In the message box that prompts you to restart the server, click OK to restart RealPlayer Intranet Administrator and apply the changes.

9. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

HTTP Delivery

RealPlayer Intranet Administrator can serve installers and configuration files by way of HTTP. The HTTP delivery paths indicate the mount points whose contents you can make available through HTTP. Each path variable gives the name of a virtual directory whose contents you can access through a browser. The default HTTP delivery paths serve the following purposes:

admin accesses the RealSystem Administrator, which is served through HTTP.

prefs permits Web access to the contents in the /prefs/ mount point. This mount point maps to the IntranetPlayer/prefs directory under the main RealPlayer Intranet Administrator directory. (Configuration files that you generate on the Intranet Preferences page are saved to this directory on the local computer.) The /prefs delivery path enables Web access to this content. Users can use the HTTP delivery path to retrieve configuration changes to RealPlayer, and you can use it to view and verify the contents of a configuration file.

To permit Web access to installers, you must create a new HTTP delivery path that maps to a mount point for installers.

To create a new HTTP delivery path for installers:

1. Create a mount point that maps to the /IntranetPlayer/installers subdirectory of the RealPlayer Intranet Administrator directory. (For more information, see the procedure in the "Mount Points" section.)

2. In RealSystem Administrator, click Configure>General Setup>HTTP Delivery. The following Web page appears

   

3. Under the Paths box, click the Add New button. A default directory name, directory1, appears in the list of paths and in the Edit Path box.

4. Change the name to match the name of the installer mount point. This example uses /install.

5. Click Edit and verify that the new name appears in the path list.

6. Click Apply to save the changes.

7. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

   The files in the installer directory are now available through browsers using the following address:

   http://address:HTTPPort/install/filename.exe

   where:

   address is the IP address or host name of the computer on which RealPlayer Intranet Administrator is installed.

   HTTPPort is the port on which HTTP listens for requests.

   install is the name of the HTTP delivery path you created. It is the same as the name of the mount point but does not have a forward slash (/) at the end.

   filename is the name of the installer.

IP Binding

When RealPlayer Intranet Administrator starts, it uses the IP address assigned to the computer's host name.

You can configure RealPlayer Intranet Administrator to always use specific IP addresses by setting up the IP Binding list. Within this list, you cite individual addresses to use, or you can bind to all of the IP addresses available on the RealPlayer Intranet Administrator computer.

To reserve IP addresses for RealPlayer Intranet Administrator:

1. In RealSystem Administrator, click Configure>General Setup>IP Binding.

2. Click the Add New button.

   A generic address appears in the Edit IP Address box.

3. In the Edit IP Address box, type the IP address that you want RealPlayer Intranet Administrator to use, and then click Edit.

   To capture all addresses for RealPlayer Intranet Administrator's use, add the IP address of 0.0.0.0 and delete any other addresses. RealPlayer Intranet Administrator will automatically bind to all addresses and to localhost (127.0.0.1).

   	Tip
   	Binding to all addresses by using 0.0.0.0 is recommended for most administrators.

   If you type a specific address, RealPlayer Intranet Administrator will bind to the specified address only; it will not bind to localhost.

4. Click Apply.

5. When prompted to restart RealPlayer Intranet Administrator, click OK, and then click Close.

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This file last updated on 04/23/01 at 11:46:57.