- Preface
- Start Here
- Cisco Show and Share Dependencies
- Manage User Access and Permissions
- Set Up File Hosting Locations
- Manage the Publishing Workflow
- Manage Categories
- Manage System-Wide Settings
- Remove Videos and Comments
- Manage Featured Videos
- Manage Tickers
- Localize and Reskin Cisco Show and Share
- Integrate a Cisco MXE 3500 for Video Transcoding and Pulse Video Analytics
- Enable Mobile Application Access
- Enable Pulse Spoken Keyword and Speaker Identification
- Configure Digital Media Encoders
- Use a Cisco DME to Transcode Video
- Generate Cisco Show and Share Reports
- Configure Failover
- Backup and Restore
- Ports Used by Digital Media Suite
Administrator Guide for Cisco Show and Share 5.6
- Updated:
- March 20, 2015
Chapter: Set Up File Hosting Locations
Set Up File Hosting Locations
About File Hosting Locations
A file hosting location is where Cisco Show and Share stores its published files. By default, Cisco Show and Share stores uploaded videos, transcripts, files, and slides locally on the appliance. In this configuration, Cisco Show and Share becomes the origin server for the videos.
We recommend, as a best practice, that you configure Cisco Show and Share to store the files on external servers. You can define external servers for each file type that you support.
A hybrid deployment, in which some file types are published locally to the Cisco Show and Share appliance, and some file types are published to an external server, is also supported.
For more information about file hosting locations, see the following topics:
How Locally Published Files are Served
When you publish all files locally, Cisco Show and Share delivers files directly from the appliance using the following methods:
External File Hosting Location Server Types
You can use streaming servers or web servers to host video and associated files.
It is highly recommended that you use an appropriate streaming server as the external file hosting location for FLV and MP4/H.264 videos. If you do not, the video editing feature of Cisco Show and Share will not work. The Cisco Show and Share video editor uses non-destructive editing. This means that the original video remains intact and pointers and markers are used to create the edited version. This type of editing requires a streaming server to play back the video correctly. If you publish an edited file to a non-streaming server, the file will play back in its unedited form.
Table 4-1 shows the external server types recommended for each file type
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The tested the following Flash streaming servers: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/ You can also use an HTTP server to host FLV files, but it is not recommended. |
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We tested the following streaming servers: |
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Microsoft Windows Media Services http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/server/server.aspx You can also use an HTTP server to host WMV files, but it is not recommended. |
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We recommend that you use an HTTP server for all other file types, such as uploaded.zip files and text transcripts. Typically, these files are handled by the Default Hosting Location. |
About the Default Hosting Location
If you publish some or all files to an external hosting location, you must define a Default Hosting Location. The Default Hosting Location is the location used for any file type that does not have a defined hosting location. It contains *.* in the file type for defining the hosting location. Typically, the Default Hosting Location will be an HTTP server.
Guidelines and Limitations
- When using the mobile client and external hosting locations, you must define both an RTMP and an HTTP server for H.264 files. This is because the mobile client accesses the videos from the HTTP server; it does not support streaming video. Users accessing Cisco Show and Share through the web client receive the video from the streaming server. When you first enable external file hosting, both an RTMP and HTTP template are created for H.264 files.
- Even if you specify an external server for Flash and MPEG-4 (.flv,.mp4,.m4v) videos, Cisco Show and Share maintains a local copy of that video to allow for future editing. In high volume deployments, this can cause the Cisco Show and Share drive to become full. To avoid this, you can upload videos directly to the external server and then refer to the video using a URL when adding it to Cisco Show and Share. You will not be able to edit videos uploaded by this method.
Note
Cisco Show and Share also maintains two copies of Flash and MPEG-4 published videos when set to local storage—the published version and a copy for future editing.
- If you change file hosting locations when you have existing content in Cisco Show and Share, the content will still appear in the video lists. However, the thumbnails will revert to the default image and the system will report that the videos cannot be found. This is because Cisco Show and Share is looking for the videos in the new hosting location. You must migrate your videos to the new location before changing hosting locations. It is strongly recommended that you set up your final hosting location before deploying Cisco Show and Share to your organization.
- If you are not using a streaming server for FLV and MP4 videos, you should disable the video editor.
Procedures
- Define External File Hosting Locations
- Prepare a Web Server for Externally-Hosted Transcript Files
- Delete a File Hosting Location
- Configure Local File Hosting
Define External File Hosting Locations
When you switch from local file hosting to external file hosting, Cisco Show and Share automatically creates templates for the most used file types. You can modify those templates with your external server information or create new file hosting locations.
One of the locations that you must define is the default hosting location. The DeployLocalConfig Hosting Location drawer contains the Default Hosting location settings. This location should be an HTTP server.
Files that are uploaded as attachments to videos, such as.zip or.doc files, the text transcripts (.txt), and the video thumbnails (.jpg) are also stored externally according to the location defined for those file types. If you do not have a location defined for those specific file types, they are stored on the server defined by the default hosting location settings.
Step 1 Log in to Cisco Show and Share as Administrator or superuser.
Step 2 Choose Administration from the global navigation.
Step 3 Choose Setup > Show and Share.
Your browser loads the File Hosting Locations page. In the default state for this page, a check box with the label “Publish locally to < Show_and_Share_appliance_FQDN >” is checked.
Step 4 Uncheck the Publish locally to check box.
The File Hosting Locations page loads a set of drawers. Templates for the hosting locations of the most commonly used file types are pre-populated.
Step 5 Define a file hosting location for the specified file type. See Table 4-2 for the field descriptions.
Note If you have integrated the Cisco Media Experience Engine with Cisco Show and Share, all uploaded videos will be transcoded to H.264 in an MP4 wrapper. Windows media files might be excluded from transcoding if bypass is selected by the user. Therefore, you will need to define hosting locations for both H.264 and WMV.
Step 6 (Optional) You can add additional file hosting locations by clicking Create an additional file hosting location. You can remove an unused template by clicking Delete.
Prepare a Web Server for Externally-Hosted Transcript Files
You must configure and use a web server for your text transcripts whenever they are stored externally from the Cisco Show and Share server. Your transcript files will be hosted externally when the default file location (*.*) points to an external server or if you define an external server for *.txt files.
In the root directory on your web server, you must save an XML file with the filename CROSSDOMAIN.XML.
If you do not use a web server with the crossdomain.xml file, Cisco Show and Share will not be able to retrieve the transcripts.
To understand the CROSSDOMAIN.XML file and its purpose, see:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer9_security.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/articles/crossdomain_policy_file_spec.html
Delete a File Hosting Location
When you switch from local file hosting to external file hosting, Cisco Show and Share automatically creates templates for the most used file types. You might not need all of them. For example, if you are using a Cisco MXE 3500 running Release 3.3 software, you will not need the FLV Hosting location. You can safely delete it.
If you delete a file hosting location for a file type that has been previously published, files published to that location will be unavailable. Viewers will receive a warning that the file is no longer available.
Step 1 Click Delete to the right of the file hosting location name.
Step 2 Click Yes in the confirmation dialog box.
Configure Local File Hosting
By default, Cisco Show and Share uses local file hosting. Typically you will not need to perform this procedure unless you are using local file hosting and you change the AAI password. This procedure shows you how to reenable local file hosting.
Step 1 Log in to Cisco Show and Share using an administrator account.
Step 2 Choose Administration from the global navigation.
Step 3 If not already there, click Setup > Show and Share.
Step 4 Check the Publish locally to checkbox.
Step 5 Enter the AAI admin password in the Password field.
If you entered an incorrect password, you receive the message “URL Test Failed”. Reenter your password and try again. If you entered the correct password, you receive the message “URL Test Pass”
Troubleshooting
Publishing for a specific file type fails
When publishing works for one file type and fails for another, it typically indicates a mis-configuration of the file hosting location.
- Check the file hosting location settings for the file type that is failing. If you have two file hosting locations configured for a single file type, for example if you have HTTP and RTMP mp4 file hosting locations configured, try setting up the hosting locations so that they are on different paths in the file system.
- Check the network connectivity between Cisco Show and Share and the file hosting location.
If you are using FQDNs for the file hosting locations, verify that you do not have multiple FQDNs associated with the same IP address on the DNS server.
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