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After having no end of issues with the proprietary flash media server 2 from Adobe I decided to give installing the Red5 open source version a go instead.

I have to say I was fairly impressed with just how easy it was to get running without having to do any of the faffing around that was required to get FMS2 running.

Here is the process in a nutshell:

1. Download and install the Java Development Kit (jdk) from here (I used the rpm version of JDK 6 Update 2): http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
2. Download and extract Apache ant from here: http://archive.apache.org/dist/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.6.5-bin.tar.gz
3. Copy the extracted apache-ant-1.6.5 folder to /usr/local/ant
4. Setup the environment variables to include the path for java and ant by typing the following at the shell prompt:PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/usr/local/ant/bin
   export PATHThen also remember to add this to  /etc/profile so the settings don't get lost the next time you login
5. Download and extract the Red5 server from here: http://osflash.org/red5
    
6. cd to the Red5 directory you just extracted and type the following at the shell prompt to allow java to retrieve the files it needs from the net and compile and run the server as a background process (the module retrieval is automatic and only has to be done once):ant server & 
7. Then that's it it's running. In my case I needed to kill the ant/java processes running the server after the java modules were initially retrieved and the server built for the first time, but the second time it was fine even though it did take about 30 seconds to fully startup - this may just be a glitch on my system as I have a lot of other stuff also going on.
8. The final step is to test it. This can be done by moving the contents of the webapps/root/demos/ folder from the extracted Red5 directory to a webserver somewhere (I don't think it hast to be the same machine) and then viewing the list of demos in the index.html file.I started off by using the port tester to make sure the demo apps could actually connect to the server on the ports they were meant to (basically rtmp port 1935) and then moved onto testing the video streaming app and then tried a proper live broadcast through the server using the simpleBroadcaster app to two friends who were logged on using the simple subscriber app. All worked well especially as far as the video was concerned though the audio was a little crackly on my live broadcast - this could just be the quality of home connections however.The only last not is just a simple reminder that when running the test apps you'll need to specify the server they need to connect to - the apps are setup to access rtmp://localhost/[APP_NAME] but if you're not running these apps as a local user you will need to change localhost to the name or ip of the server Red5 is installed on

So far I'm quite happy with Red5 as a free (very important) alternative to FMS2, but should you be looking for a commercial product as this is not quite up your street (that is a cheaper than FMS2) then take a look at this instead: http://www.wowzamedia.com/index.html

Wowza only requires java to run and is like a very polished commercial version of the Red5 server (it was actually through installing Wowza that I worked out what to do with the web apps for Red5 - having had no previous experience in flash streaming other than literally installing FMS2) which has a very reasonable price tag in comparison to the cost of FMS2

Just before I go I just need to mention the map below - Red5 ask you to add yourself to their user map if you're using the software so I have - you can find me in Brighton, England

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