The Administration Console is an Adobe Flash Player application (fms_adminConsole.swf) that lets you manage the server and view information about applications running on the server.

The Administration Console connects to Adobe Flash Media Administration Server, which connects to Adobe Flash Media Server. To log in to the Administration Console, the Administration Server must be running.

By default, the Administration Server in installed on port 1111 (the default value at installation time). You can change the port number of the Administration Server after installation by editing the fms.ini file.

There are two types of administrators: server administrators and virtual host (vhost) administrators. When you log in to the Administration Console as a virtual host administrator, your session is specific to a virtual host, and you can only manage applications running on that virtual host. Server administrators have access to all applications running on the server.

1. To open the Administration Console, do one of the following:

   • On Windows, select Start > Programs > Adobe > Flash Media Server 3.5 > Flash Media Administration Console.

   • On Linux, open the fms_adminConsole.htm and fms_adminConsole.swf files in a browser with Flash Player.

   • On Mac® OS, copy the fms_adminConsole.htm and fms_adminConsole.swf files to the Mac. Open the fms_adminConsole.htm file in a web browser that has Flash Player installed.

   If you installed Apache with Flash Media Server, the fms_adminConsole.swf and fms_adminConsole.htm files are located in the RootInstall/webroot folder. Otherwise, the fms_adminConsole.swf and fms_adminConsole.htm files are located in the root installation folder.

2. (Optional) Specify a server name. This name is an alias you can use to connect to a server quickly. The Administration Console remembers the server address for this server name the next time the console is opened.

3. In the Server Address box, do one of the following:

   • Type localhost if the server and the Administration Console are running on the same computer. If the Administration Server is installed on a port other than 1111 (the default), you must enter the port number as well; for example, localhost:1234. Entering localhost connects you to the default virtual host on this computer.

   • To connect to a virtual host other than the default virtual host, enter the fully qualified host name (for example, www.example.com). The host name must be mapped to a valid network IP address. To test this behavior on Windows, you can edit your local hosts file at windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

   • If you are connecting remotely by running the Administration Console on another computer, enter the server’s name (FlashMediaServer.myCompany.com) or the IP address and port number (12.34.56.78:1112) of the Administration Server to which you want to connect. Ensure your computer has permission to connect to the specified port on the other computer. Also, check that the Administration Server has not been configured to prohibit connections from the specific domain or IP address you are using.

4. Enter your username and password.

   If you are the server administrator who installed the server, enter the administrator user name and password you entered during installation. The username and password are stored in the RootInstall/conf/fms.ini file.

   Otherwise, enter the username and password you received from the server administrator.

   To log in to a virtual host that is not on the default adaptor, you must specify the name of the adaptor. For example, when logging in to a virtual host on the adaptor _secondAdaptor_, the vhost administrator JLee would enter the following information in the Username box: _secondAdaptor_/JLee.

5. (Optional) Select the Remember My Password option.

6. (Optional) Select the Automatically Connect Me option.

7. (Optional) Click Revert to return the Administration Console to its default settings.

   Reverting deletes all saved servers, user names, and passwords from the Administration Console. All custom resizing within the Administration Console is restored to the original state. (The Revert button, however, does not affect the server.)

8. Click Login.

   You can disconnect at any time by clicking Logoff.

Near the top of every screen of the Administration Console are two icons. Click the folder icon to display links to the Flash Media Server website and related resources. Click the question mark icon to display links to Flash Media Server Help.

To run the Administration Console from a computer other than the one in which the server is installed, copy fms_adminConsole.htm and fms_adminConsole.swf to the other computer, or make sure that this file is in the webroot directory so it can be accessed remotely. In both cases, verify that the Allow and Deny tags in the Users.xml file allow the connection from the other computer’s IP address.

The information in the Administration Console panels refreshes every 5 seconds by default. You can change the refresh rate to any time interval between 1 and 60 seconds, or pause refreshing at any time.