Chapter 2: Customizing RealOne Desktop Manager

This chapter explains how to use RealSystem Administrator to customize general setup options for RealOne Desktop Manager. 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 RealOne Desktop Manager General Setup Options

You can use RealSystem Administrator to customize RealOne Desktop Manager features and settings.

To make changes to any general setup feature, click the appropriate category listed under Server 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 RealOne Desktop Manager; if so, a message to that effect will appear on-screen.

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

After you start RealOne Desktop Manager and RealSystem Administrator, you can change RealOne Desktop Manager features by using the following procedure.

To customize RealOne Desktop Manager general setup options:

1. On the left side of the RealNetworks Administrator screen, click Server Setup>Ports. The Server Setup:Ports window appears.
   Note that Ports is one of five configuration categories:

• Ports
• Access & Error Logging
• HTTP Delivery
• IP Binding
• Mount Points

1. As required, set the values in the various possible configuration categories.
2. When you have finished changing values, click Apply.
3. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

If you made changes that require RealOne Desktop Manager to be restarted, the Restart Server button at the top of RealNetworks Administrator changes to red. 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 RealOne Desktop Manager. They are described in this section.

Ports

Port settings tell RealOne Desktop Manager where to listen for requests.

If your RealOne Desktop Manager 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 where the player will retrieve preference updates box when you create new configuration files for RealOne Enterprise Desktops. (The default value on the Intranet Preferences page is 8080. RealOne Enterprise Desktops 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 RealOne Desktop Manager when it is servicing deployed RealOne Enterprise Desktops that are using remote preferences. The deployed RealOne Enterprise Desktops access preferences using HTTP and the port number assigned to RealOne Desktop Manager during installation.

RealOne Desktop Manager uses the following settings to determine where to listen for requests sent using a particular protocol (you can view the settings from RealNetworks Administrator by clicking Server Setup>Ports):

• HTTP Port—the default value for this setting is 8080.
• Admin Port—port number to which RealNetworks 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.

Access & Error Logging

The RealOne Desktop Manager access log records the IP addresses of the clients that have connected to RealOne Desktop Manager, the files they accessed, the times of day they connected, and much more. The access log is useful for verifying that RealOne Enterprise Desktops are able to connect to RealOne Desktop Manager and retrieve configuration files and updates to these files. New information is always appended to the end of the access log.

The access log file shows all files served by RealOne Desktop Manager, including all RealNetworks Administrator Web pages. These appear in the GET statement; you can easily identify them because they all begin with admin. For example, "GET admin/index.html HTTP 1.0" shows the opening RealSystem Administrator page. If you make changes using RealSystem Administrator, the confirmation page that appears in RealSystem Administrator is also recorded in the access log.

The error log contains both information and error messages about RealOne Desktop Manager operation. By looking for patterns of errors, you can troubleshoot and correct problems and avoid recurrences of them.

You view the text of the error log by using a word processor or text editor.

The error log is an excellent tool for troubleshooting any problems that may arise with your RealOne Desktop Manager. An entry is made to the error log only when an error occurs. If no errors occur, this file will not exist.

If you have an error message that refers to a fatal error, contact the RealNetworks Technical Support Department at http://service.real.com for assistance.

RealOne Desktop Manager uses the following two settings to record information in the error log (you can view them from RealNetworks Administrator by clicking Server Setup>Access & Error Logging):

Log Rolling Frequency—settings for creating new log files at specified intervals. See "Log File Rolling".

Error Log File—the default location is the Logs subdirectory of the main RealOne Desktop Manager directory. The default name of the error log file is rmerror.log.

Error Log File Format

The error log records client connections and RealOne Desktop Manager errors. Each time an error is generated by RealOne Desktop Manager, a record is created in the error log. The error log path is stored in the same directory as the access log; this path is indicated by the LogPath variable.

The syntax of the file is as follows:

***date time computername(process_ID): error_message 

The various types of entries are listed and defined in the following table.

Log File Rolling

Log files can grow indefinitely as they accumulate data. To keep log files at a manageable size, you can limit the access log to a week's worth of information, for example, or to a specified file size, and RealOne Desktop Manager will begin a new log file when that limit is reached.

To set up log file rolling:

1. In RealSystem Administrator, click Server Setup>Access & Error Logging.
2. In the appropriate section of the page—Access Logging or Error Logging—limit the log files either by time period or by size:

• To limit log files by time period, select the number and the period you want from the drop-down lists in the Log Rolling Frequency boxes. You can save log files hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.
• To limit log files by size, type in the Log Rolling Size box the maximum number of megabytes you want to allow for a log file.

If you supply values for all three boxes, RealOne Desktop Manager will use the size or time period that is reached first.

3. Click Apply. Files will be named according to the structure outlined in the following section, "Rolled Log File Format".
4. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

Rolled Log File Format

Rolled log files are named using the following format:

name.log.datestamp

where:

name is the name of the regular log file, as taken from the Access Log File box or the Error Log File box (usually rmaccess for access logs and rmerror for error logs).

log is the file name extension for the log file.

datestamp is the date stamp, in the format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS,

where:

YYYY denotes the year (always in four digits)

MM denotes the month

DD denotes the date, or day

HH denotes the hour

MM denotes minutes past the hour

SS denotes seconds past the minute

Disabling Log File Rolling

If you turn off log file rolling, RealOne Desktop Manager will create a single, large log file.

To disable log file rolling:

1. In RealSystem Administrator, click Server Setup>Access & Error Logging.
2. In either the Access Logging or Error Logging section, select 0 in the first Log Rolling Frequency box.
3. In either the Access Logging or Error Logging section, delete any contents from the Log Rolling Size box.
4. Click Apply.
5. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

HTTP Delivery

RealOne Desktop Manager 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 RealNetworks Administrator, which is served through HTTP.

update provides access to the client components available for RealOne Enterprise Desktop updating. When a RealOne Enterprise Desktop client tries to access content it does not recognize, the client will automatically check the update directory for new components.

prefs permits Web access to the contents in the /prefs/ mount point. This mount point maps to the IntranetPlayer/prefs directory under the main RealOne Desktop Manager directory. (Configuration files that you generate on the RealOne Enterprise Desktop 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 RealOne Enterprise Desktop, and you can use it to view and verify the contents of a configuration file.

components provides access to the individual components available through automatic updating (autoupgrade).

For the installer to have access to a Web site, 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 RealOne Desktop Manager directory. (For more information, see the procedure in the "Mount Points" section.)
2. In RealNetworks Administrator, click Server Setup>HTTP Delivery. The following Web page appears:

3. Under the Paths box, click the "+" icon to Add New Path. A default directory name, Path1, 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 Apply to save the changes.
6. 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 RealOne Desktop Manager 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 RealOne Desktop Manager starts, it uses the IP address assigned to the computer's host name.

You can configure RealOne Desktop Manager 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 RealOne Desktop Manager computer.

To reserve IP addresses for RealOne Desktop Manager:

1. In RealNetworks Administrator, click Server Setup>IP Binding.
2. Click the "+" icon to Add New IP Address.

A generic address, "0.0.0.0", appears in the Edit IP Address box.

3. In the Edit IP Address box, type the IP address that you want RealOne Desktop Manager to use, and then click Apply.

To capture all addresses for RealOne Desktop Manager's use, add the IP address of 0.0.0.0 and delete any other addresses. RealOne Desktop Manager 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, RealOne Desktop Manager will bind to the specified address only; it will not bind to localhost.

4. Click Apply.
5. When prompted to restart RealSystem Administrator, click OK, and then click Close.

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.

RealOne Desktop Manager uses one mount point to store the configuration files used by RealOne Enterprise Desktops. By default, this mount point is named /prefs/. It corresponds to the local IntranetPlayer/prefs subdirectory in the RealOne Desktop Manager 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\RealOne Desktop Manager\IntranetPlayer\prefs. On UNIX, you must specify the main RealOne Desktop Manager directory; an IntranetPlayer/prefs subdirectory is created automatically under this directory.

To create a mount point for installers:

1. In RealNetworks Administrator, click Server Setup>Mount Points. The following Web page appears.

2. Click the "+" icon to Add New Mount Point. A generic mount point name ("Content1") appears in the Edit Description box. Edit this name to one of your choosing. Note that you cannot use a period (.) in this box.
3. Type the new mount point designation in the Mount Point box. This new designation must be unique, and it must begin and end with a forward slash (/).
4. 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.

5. Click Apply.
6. In the message box that prompts you to restart the server, click OK to restart RealOne Desktop Manager and apply the changes.
7. Click Close in the Configuration Change Results window.

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