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MVoD Logo  Uni Mannheim Logo 

README file for the MBone VCR on Demand Service

Copyright © 1997
University of Mannheim
Lehrstuhl für Praktische Informatik IV
Wieland Holfelder

This is a beta release of the binaries for the MBone VCR on Demand Service (MVoD).

Please see the MVoD Homepage for a general overview on the project. 

If you encounter any problem, please send us an email at mvod@pi4.informatik.uni-mannheim.de.
(You might want to check the latest CHANGES file first, to see if the problem was not already fixed)


System Requirements for MVoD Client and MVoD Server


Supported platforms for the RTP DataPump in this release:

(more platforms may be available upon request)


Installation and configuration instructions:


Some notes about the directories you see under $MVOD_HOME:


MVoD Server configuration

The MVoD Server can be configured with the following configuration files found in $MVOD_HOME: (NOTE: the syntax of these files must be exactly as described in the files, any change of the syntax my cause the MVoD Service to crash/fail/...)

Therefore we recommend that you always use the MVoD administration tool (start it with "$MVOD_HOME/bin/mvod admin") to customize and administrate the MVoD Service through a GUI.
You need to start the MVoD Server first (see below) in order to run the MVoD administration tool. Note that the administration tool only provides a graphical user interface and accesses the MVoD Server through RMI to actually do all the configuration.
Most of the parameter changes even take immediate effect even when the server is running. E.g. you can add/remove users, change guest_login_allowed, etc. during runtime. Changes that you make in the configuration files by hand are not only discouraged but will also not be available until you restart the server by hand.
To be able to login to the MVod Server with the admisitration tool, a user must be a member of the special group "admin". A special user "admin" with group "admin" is configured allready in this distribution and must always be present. This user may be used to administrate the MVoD Service. Initially the password for the user admin is "admin". Please change this password immediatly after login with the administration tool so that no one else has access to your MVoD Server with this default password!


RTP DataPump daemon configuration

The RTP DataPump daemon can be configured with the following file: $MVOD_HOME/.rdcp_passwd (user file for the RTP DataPump daemon)

The syntax is as in a unix /etc/passwd file, use "mvod pump -admin" to manage the content of this file).

Initially a user "mvod" with password "only4mvod" is configured for the MVoD Server to access the RTP DataPump Daemon. You will find these values in the $MVOD_HOME/.mvod file also. The $MVOD_HOME/.rdcpd_passwd file must either be in the directory from where the RTP DataPump daemon is started or specified as command line parameter on startup. This is done automatically if you use the command "$MVOD_HOME/bin/mvod pump" to start the RTP DataPump. See section data-directory above for some comments on how the data-directory is used. The MVoD Server contacts the RTP DataPump daemon through the RTP DataPump Control Protocol (RDCP) when it starts up and asks information about all recorded sessions. Also a new RDCP connection is establised for each newly created or opened sessions. For each RDCP connection, a new process with a new RTP DataPump is forked by the RTP DataPump daemon. If an RTP DataPump is killed when a session is active, the MVoD Server will always try to recover (i.e. it tries to call the RTP DataPump daemon again to create a new RTP DataPump and tries to recover the session in the state it was before the RTP DataPump went down). If you kill the RTP DataPump daemon, all sub-processes created by the daemon will also be killed.


Default user

Within this distribution, a user "demo" with password "mvod" is initially configured in the $MVOD_HOME/.mvod_passwd file. This user has full rights and you can use it for a first login. However, it is higly recommended to change this userid and/or password with the administration tool (see above) or within the MVoD Client (Server menu, Change password) as soon as possible in order to avoid that other people can login to the server with this default userid/password.

To start the MVoD Service

Note: we highly recommend that you always use the mvod script to start all the various components, otherwise some unforseen effects can occur because some environment variables and/or parameters may not be set correctly.


A typical example would look like this

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod reg
... RMI Registry will be started in the background, some messages appear...

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod pump
... RTP DataPump daemon will be started in the background, some messages appear...

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod server
... MVoD Server will be started in the background, some messages appear...

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod client

... and we are (well, should be) ready to go for a first test... (yes all MVoD components can be started on the same host, this is no problem for playbacks, however, you might not be able to record any data from MBone tools running on the same host, see below under general comments)

... and a little later, you might remember that the README said please immediatly change the passwords for the users "mvod" and "admin" and the RTP DataPump password so you now might want to start the administration tool with:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod admin

... and do the necessary changes in the MVoD Server configuration. The command "mvod admin" can always be started, however, to connect to an MVoD Server for configuration, RMI registry and an MVoD Server must be running. Afterwards, you start the command:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod pump -admin

... to do the necessary changes in the RTP DataPump configuration as well. The command "mvod pump -admin" can always be started, regardless whether an RTP DataPump daemon is running or not. Changes in the .rdcp_passwd file will always be immediatly available to a running RTP DataPump daemon.

The advanced user may start reg, pump and server in a row with:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod all

However, in this case you may not give any commandline options to the RTP DataPump or the MVoD Server.

To stop the background processes of the MVoD Service (reg, pump and server), you may use the commands:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod kill reg
whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod kill pump
whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod kill server

The advanced user may stop reg, pump and server in a row with the command:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod kill all

or even with:

whd@solon [~/mvod] > ./bin/mvod kill -f all


MVoD Client as Applet


MVoD Client usage

Hopefully the usage of the MVoD Client is straight forward and intuitive and you don't need much help. However, A context sensitive help is given in the status line depending on the state of the client and the area the mouse pointer is in. Some hints and tips are also available in the help menu. The following quick-keys are availble for the MVoD Client:
Key Meaning
q quit
backspace go back one level
p play
shift-p play at
s stop
shift-s stop at
r record
shift-r record at
e edit session
i info about session
t start tools
shift-t start all tools automatically
l loop-mode on
shift-l loop-mode off
right forward one second
shift-right forward 10 second
ctrl-right forward 1 minute
left back one second
shift-left back 10 second
ctrl-left back 1 minute
up goto end
down goto start


Some general comments:

Enjoy the MVoD Service!

If you have any comments, please send us your feedback to mvod@pi4.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

Thanks.
-- Wieland


Very special thanks for their help/support/jokes/hacks/bugs/bug-fixes/etc. that contributed tremendously to the project goes to:


Wieland Holfelder
Email: whd@pi4.informatik.uni-mannheim.de
URL: www.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/~whd