Table Of Contents
Administering a Video Portal Appliance
Starting and Using AAI
Performing Routine Administrative Tasks
Viewing Appliance System Information
Obtaining or Transferring a Copy of the System Log
Enabling or Disabling the Java Cache
Changing the Appliance Administrator Password
Patching or Updating Appliance Software
Restarting an Appliance
Shutting Down an Appliance
Using Video Portal Appliance Administration Options
Naming or Renaming Your Video Portal
Backing Up Your Video Portal Appliance
Restoring Your Video Portal Appliance from a Backup
Changing the Logging Level
Changing the Network Settings for an Appliance
Changing the Date and Time Settings for an Appliance
Verifying Database Replication
Administering a Video Portal Appliance
Revised: March 17, 2009
This chapter explains how you can use AAI to administer a Video Portal appliance and includes the following sections:
•
Starting and Using AAI
•Performing Routine Administrative Tasks
•Naming or Renaming Your Video Portal
•Naming or Renaming Your Video Portal
•Changing the Network Settings for an Appliance
Starting and Using AAI
To start AAI from the appliance login prompt, enter the username admin and password that you specified for the admin account when you completed the checklist of tasks in Chapter 2, "Setting Up and Configuring a Video Portal Appliance."
To see options or change selections in AAI, do any of the following:
•To highlight an option or to navigate through the list of options, press the Up/Down arrow keys.
•To select or deselect a highlighted option, press Spacebar.
•To save your changes to an option that you selected for editing and let your take effect, press Enter.
Performing Routine Administrative Tasks
•Viewing Appliance System Information
•Obtaining or Transferring a Copy of the System Log
•Changing the Appliance Administrator Password
•Patching or Updating Appliance Software
•Restarting an Appliance
•Shutting Down an Appliance
Viewing Appliance System Information
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose SHOW_INFO, and then press Enter.
Obtaining or Transferring a Copy of the System Log
You can save a copy of the appliance log file to a USB drive that you attach directly to your appliance, or you can transfer a copy of the log to any SFTP-enabled server.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and then press Enter.
Step 2 Choose GET_SYSLOG, press Enter, and then do one of the following:
•To transfer a copy of the log to an attached USB drive, choose USB, and then press Enter.
•To transfer a copy of the log by SFTP to a reachable server:
a. Choose SFTP, and press Enter.
b. Enter the SFTP server IP address or routable DNS name, and press Enter.
c. Enter the username that you use when you log in to the SFTP server, and press Enter.
d. Enter the password that you use when you log in to the SFTP server, and press Enter.
A system message in AAI tells you if the SFTP file transfer was successful.
Enabling or Disabling the Java Cache
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose CHANGE_JAVA_CACHE, and press Enter.
Step 3 Choose ENABLE to turn caching on for Java, and press Enter.
Alternatively, choose DISABLE to turn off Java caching, and press Enter.
Step 4 Press Enter.
Changing the Appliance Administrator Password
You can change the appliance administrator password. The password that you enter must contain at least 6 characters.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose RESET_PASSWORD, and press Enter.
Step 3 Enter the new password, and press Enter.
Step 4 To confirm that you typed the password correctly, enter it again, and press Enter.
Note You must also enter the new password in the Web-based graphical user interface for DMM.
Step 5 Log in as an administrator to DMM; then, choose Video Portal from the untitled list at the top far-right of the page.
Step 6 Choose Setup > Deployment Locations, and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Step 7 In the "Video Portal Metadata" area, enter the new password in the Login password text box.
Step 8 Click Save Deployment Locations.
Patching or Updating Appliance Software
You can install a software patch or a software update.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose SOFTWARE_UPDATE, and press Enter.
Step 3 Insert the CD-ROM, and press Enter.
Restarting an Appliance
You can restart an appliance.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose REBOOT, and press Enter twice.
Shutting Down an Appliance
You can shut down an appliance.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose APPLIANCE_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose SHUTDOWN, and press Enter twice.
Using Video Portal Appliance Administration Options
•Naming or Renaming Your Video Portal
•Backing Up Your Video Portal Appliance
•Restoring Your Video Portal Appliance from a Backup
•Changing the Logging Level
Naming or Renaming Your Video Portal
You must specify a name for your video portal. You can change the name at any time.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose VP_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose INSTANCE NAME, and press Enter.
Step 3 Enter the name.
The name that you enter will be visible in the public HTTP URL that points to your Video Portal.
Step 4 When AAI shows you the name that you entered, press Enter.
Backing Up Your Video Portal Appliance
You can back up an appliance by using AAI. This backup creates a file that includes only database and configuration information for the appliance; it does not contain media files.
Tip You can back up an appliance also by using DMS-Admin. This backup creates a file that includes database and configuration information for both the DMM and Video Portal appliances. For more information, see the User Guide for Cisco Digital Media System 5.1.x on Cisco.com.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose VP_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 To back up the appliance, choose BACKUP_VP, and press Enter.
Step 3 To back up to a USB drive, choose USB, and press Enter.
Restoring Your Video Portal Appliance from a Backup
You can back up an appliance by using AAI. This backup creates a file that includes only database and configuration information for the appliance; it does not contain media files.
Tip You can back up an appliance also by using DMS-Admin. This backup creates a file that includes database and configuration information for both the DMM and Video Portal appliances. For more information, see the User Guide for Cisco Digital Media System 5.1.x on Cisco.com.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose VP_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 To restore the appliance, choose RESTORE_VP, and press Enter.
Changing the Logging Level
You can change the level of detail that syslog messages show.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose VP_CONTROL, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose VP_LOG_LEVEL, press Enter, and do one of the following:
•To receive messages of only the greatest severity, choose ERROR.
•To receive warning messages and error messages, choose WARN.
•To receive informational, warning, and error messages, choose INFO.
•To receive messages of every severity level, choose DEBUG.
Step 3 Press Enter.
Changing the Network Settings for an Appliance
Note•We recommend that you never change the static IP address that you assign to your Video Portal appliance.
•We recommend that you do not use DHCP to obtain the IP address for your appliance due to the sometimes unpredictable expiration of IP addresses in DHCP systems and the administrative overhead of reconfiguring other devices to reestablish disrupted connections for deployments.
•If you use your Video Portal appliance as one of your deployment locations — even though we strongly recommend that you never do — and if you used IP addresses instead of hostnames when you specified your deployment locations in DMM-VPM at Setup > Deployment Locations, any changes that you make now to the Video Portal appliance IP address will cause some of your entries in DMM-VPM to become invalid. You must reenter all such values manually, including the IP addresses that you specified for deployment locations, video parts, videos, and programs. Until you correct the invalidated IP address in every location where you entered it, the corresponding deployments, video parts, videos, and programs will not run.
•If your network uses a DNS server, you must reassociate the resolvable DNS hostname for your Video Portal appliance each time that you change its IP address.
You can change network settings for an appliance.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose NETWORK_SETTINGS, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose the type of network setting to change. The options are:
•HOST_NAME—To change the appliance hostname, choose this option.
•TCP_IP—To change how the appliance obtains its IP address (DHCP or static), choose this option. We recommend that you do not choose DHCP.
•DNS—To change the primary or secondary DNS server for the appliance, choose this option.
•AUTO_NEGOTIATION—To change NIC speed and duplex settings for the appliance, including whether the speed and duplex should be autonegotiated, choose this option.
•NETWORK_TOOLS—To troubleshoot the network, choose this option.
Step 3 Press Enter.
Step 4 Enter or choose the new settings, and choose the options to confirm each individual change.
Step 5 Confirm the combination of all the network settings that you changed:
•If everything is correct, press Enter.
•If anything is incorrect, choose No, and press Enter to enter different settings.
Changing the Date and Time Settings for an Appliance
You can configure the date and time settings for an appliance.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose DATE_TIME_SETTINGS, and press Enter.
Step 2 Choose the type of setting to change. The options are:
•TIME_ZONE — To change the appliance time zone, or to enable or disable the appliance system clock to use UTC, choose this option.
•DATE — To change the year, month, or date for the appliance, choose this option.
•TIME — To change the hour, minute, or second for the appliance, choose this option.
•NTP — To enable or disable the appliance to use an NTP server, or to change which NTP server the appliance uses, choose this option.
•SHOW_TIME — To see what time setting is in effect on this appliance, choose this option.
Step 3 Press Enter.
Step 4 Enter or choose the new date and time settings, and choose the options to confirm each individual change.
Step 5 Confirm the combination of all the date and time settings that you changed:
•If everything is correct, press Enter.
•If anything is incorrect, choose No, and press Enter to enter different settings.
Verifying Database Replication
Caution You
must configure and enable database replication between your DMM appliance and your Video Portal appliance. If you do not do this, Cisco DMS will not work as designed. See
Configuring Database Replication, page 5-7
If your DMM appliance goes down temporarily or restarts, you must ensure that replication between it and Video Portal has resumed.
Before You Begin
•Log in to AAI.
Procedure
Step 1 Choose REPLICATION, and press Enter.
The message should say, "Replication to Digital Media Manager: Working."
