KalturaCE (Kaltura Community Edition) - Getting Started Guide

Introduction

This manual will guide you through the stages of getting started with the KalturaCE (Kaltura Community Edition) server.
Following sections will describe:

• Pre-Installation preparations and requirements.
• Installation guidelines.
• Post-Installation comments and references.

Prerequisites

KalturaCE is a Linux (debian) based Video and Rich-Media Application Management Server, in order to run the server and extend it, you will need understanding of the following components:

• Ubuntu or a Debian based linux distribution.
• It is possible to run KalturaCE on other Linux distributions, though it hasn't been thoroughly tested yet.
  
  • See how Dan Cardin (redbeard) has successfully installed KalturaCE on Centos 5.2 (32-bit machine).
• xampp, or the following:
  
  • Apache Web Server.
  • Mysql 5 and above.
  • PHP 5.2.2 and above.
• For Runing KalturaCE on Windows inside VMWare - read - Installing KalturaCE using VMWare on Windows.

NOTE: Apache must be running on default http port (port 80) otherwise flash components will fail to load properly. this will be fixed in the next version.

Overview - KalturaCE (Kaltura Community Edition)

The Community Edition is a full featured video and rich-media application management server solution developed through the combined efforts of Kaltura and the Kaltura community hosted on Kaltura.org.

Bug fixes and support are provided by the community.
Kaltura provides additional Proffesional / Enterprise value-added services, including: consulting, expert support, hosting & streaming, decentralization, deployments, low-cost CDN networks, advertising and monetization, video SEO, and more.
Note that you can create a great combination of both by creating your own video solution, and leveraging some or all of Kaltura's services as well.
The Community Edition is deployed on a single server and is available under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.

Components (Birds-eye overview)

The following components are available:

Server Components

1. Content upload, bulk upload.
2. Search and import content from online repositories.
3. Content and application management.
4. Video encoding and Image manipulation.
5. Notifications.
6. System monitoring console.

Flash/Flex Clients

1. Kaltura Management Console (KMC) -
2. Kaltura Dynamic Player +Playlist (KDP) - Highly customizable rich media player and an MRSS playlist extension.
3. Kaltura Contribution Wizard - Customizable wizard, enabling end users to easily upload and import media from various sources using a single interface.
4. Kaltura Standard Editor (KSE) - This video editor that allows users to create remixes from images, audio and video files. Easy to use UI and customizable skin and locale.
5. Kaltura Advanced Editor (KAE) - Full featured video editor to create remixes from images, audio and video files based on timeline-based editing. Customizable skin and locale, extensions, dynamic features and statistics and JS hooks integration.

Integration Level Components

1. API Client library generator for php5 and php4 (upcoming: ActionScript3 and .NET-C#).
2. Sample Implementation (Based on Remix Site) - A sample website application show casing basic KalturaCE usage.

Hardware and Software requirements

Linux, Apache 2.2, Mysql 5 and PHP 5.2.2+.

Linux

KalturaCE is designed to work on any Debian based and 32Bit distribution.
The following distributions were tested and known to work with KalturaCE:

• Debian 2.6+
• Ubuntu 8.04+

SMTP - Mail Server

Should be installed on the system and configured to run on localhost:25.

It is recommended to run KalturaCE under XAMPP installation, if your system is not configured yet - use XAMPP.

Additional Components

KalturaCE also requires the following to be installed:

• php-cli
• libcURL
• mod-rewrite
• memcache - optional, but recommended for better preformance

Pre-Installation requirements

In order to run and to enable pretty urls, KalturaCE utilizes .htaccess and Apache Mod_Rewrite.
The following shows how to configure a default XAMPP installation to enable .htaccess and Mod_Rewrite.

1. Open the /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf file.
2. Look for the following line:
   ;Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI Includes
   Uncomment this line by removing the ";" from the start, if this line .
3. Look for: AllowOverride
   To enable using .htaccess, make sure the line written as follow: AllowOverride All
4. Enable Mod_Rewrite by adding the following line:
   LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Installation

1. Download the latest release from http://kaltura.org/project/kalturaCE.
2. Unpack the tar file to your web root directory (e.g. tar xvfzp ./kalturaCE_{version}.tgz -C /opt/lampp/htdocs/).
   DO NOT unpack on Windows and then upload to the server - the symbolic links inside the tar file will be lost when unpacking on Windows.
3. If KalturaCE will be installed in a relative path to the server root, or will be installed on a subdomain
   Copy the crossdomain.xml file (located at the root of kalturaCE) to the root of the main domain (ie. www.yourdomain.com/crossdomain.xml).
   This is important for the Flash/Flex widgets to communicate with the KalturaCE Server services.
4. Create a new database create a user and grant it the necessary privileges (All privileges, except "grant").
5. Browse to http://localhost/kalturaCE/index.php
6. Follow the instructions on the installation wizard.

Installation FAQ and known problems

• Q: Why am I getting an error about php-cli not found ?
  A: Install php-cli (sudo apt-get install php5-cli).
  (On XAMPP installation you should have php5-cli enabled by default).
• Q: I get messages saying the permissions are not right, what should I do ?
  A: Run kalturaCE/install/fixperms.sh with the user owner of the web root directory (or use sudo kalturaCE/install/fixperms.sh).
• Q: How do I install memcache ?
  A: Run the command: apt-get install memcached php5-memcache
  edit the file: /etc/php5/conf.d/memcache.ini
  uncomment the line: ;extension=memcache.so (By removing the ";" from the start).
  Restart apache (usualy by running the following command with root user: /etc/init.d/apache2 restart).
• Q: How do I install libcURL ?
  A: sudo apt-get install curl libcurl3 libcurl4-openssl-dev php5-curl
  Restart apache.
  (On XAMPP installation you should have libcURL enabled by default).
• Q: How do I install and enable Mod_Rewrite ?
  A: Run the following command with root user: a2enmod rewrite
  Restart apache.
  (On XAMPP installation you should have Mod_Rewrite enabled by default).
• Q: Why isn't my KCW webcam working? / I have a streaming server (Red5/FMS/Wowza) installed, and I would like to enable recording from the KCW - what should I do ?
  A: Follow the following steps:
  • Create a symbolic link from the streams directry (the folder that is customized in the streaming server to save recorded streams to, on Red5 you can use: red5/webapps/oflaDemo) to the webcam folder in the kalturaCE (/kalturaCE/content/webcam).
  • Change the kcw uiConf (for the sample implementation: content/uiconf/kaltura/samplekit/kcw_2.6.4/kcw_samplekit.xml) to add the webcam UI:
    
    <provider id="webcam" name="webcam" code="2">
            <authMethodList>
                    <authMethod type="1" />
            </authMethodList>
            <moduleUrl>WebcamView.swf</moduleUrl>
            <customData>
                    <serverUrl>rtmp://{HOST_NAME}/oflaDemo</serverUrl>
            </customData>
    </provider>
  • Change the <serverUrl>...</serverUrl> tag value to the url of the recording application on your Streaming server (you can use {HOST_NAME} to use the KalturaCE server domain).

Post-Installation

Congratulations!
You are now ready to experience the various parts of the system, to ease your start,
browse to the root of your new KalturaCE installation (at http://localhost/kalturaCE) where you'll find the following:

• Sample Implementation - View and play with a sample website application that uses your newly installed KalturaCE services.
  In this basic Kaltura Application you can use the KCW to upload/import content, use the KSE to easily mash up and remix content images, video and audio create new videos.
• Kaltura Management Console - A partner management console that enables partners to view and manage all their content including moderation control, upload and bulk upload, create playlists as well as manage account information, view usage statistics and administer various integration settings.
• System Tools - Set of administration tools to monitor different aspects of the KalturaCE server including; monitoring of batch processes, view and manage the different content in the system (with root permissions, as oppose to KMC where the access is per partner only), investigate statuses of different aspects of the system such as pending jobs and notifications and change server specific settings such base url and CDN host.
• API Test Console - Interactive browser to view and test the different APIs (api_v3).

You may also want to check out the followings:

• We also recommend to read the API documentation at:
  http://localhost/kalturaCE/kaltura/api_v3/web/testmeDoc/
• Use the php5 client library located on /kalturaCE/kaltura/api_v3/generator/php5 to build applications of your own like the Sample Implementation.

Setting the Drupal Kaltura Module to work with KalturaCE

Video module for Drupal
Using Drupal you can start playing with KalturaCE without the need to implement or develop the site architecture and easily experience some of the KalturaCE capabilities.
To deploy Drupal with Kaltura Module on your KalturaCE server follow the Drupal-Kaltura Integration Guide.

Working with WordPress

Using the "All in One Video Pack" you can start experiencing some basic capabilities of KalturaCE without the need to implement or develop anything.
To deploy the Wordpress Kaltura Plugin to work with your KalturaCE server follow the WordPress-KalturaCE Integration Guide.

Logs and Investigating Errors

KalturaCE provides logs and investigation console to monitor and understand what have gone wrong in case of failures.
The logs in the system are located under the kalturaCE/logs/ folder and are divided as follows:

• kaltura_api_v3.log - provides a log about the services of api_v3.
• kaltura_prod.log - provides a log about the services of api_v2 (aka. partnerServices2).
• kaltura_batch.log - provides general application logs about the batche processes in the system (batch connections to the database).
• kaltura_install.log - the installation log (not in use after installation is over).
• Additional logs are provided by each batch process individually:
  
  • {machine_name}-batchBulkUpload.log - the bulk upload batch.
  • {machine_name}-batchDownloadVideoServer.log - addDownload service batch process log.
  • {machine_name}-batchEmailServer.log - email sending batch (according to mail_job table in the database).
  • {machine_name}-batchImportServer.log - importing process (imports files from other online sources).
  • {machine_name}-batchNotificationServer.log - notification batch log.
  • {machine_name}-batchRunner.log - logs the different batch processes execution.
  • {machine_name}-batchWatch.log - logs the different running batch statuses.
  • {machine_name}-newBatchConvertClient.log - batch that prepares files for conversion.
  • {machine_name}-newBatchConvertServer.log - batch that process the file conversion.

In order to investigate the status of processed entries, use the Investigate panel under the system console at /kalturaCE/api_v3/system/investigate.php .
The Investigate panel provides information about the processing of single entries (entry = media) in the system, the logs that indicate the action performed on the entry and extended information about the entry versions, conversion profile used to convert the media and current status.
Use the investigate when an entry fails to upload/import/convert and is not visible in the Content panel on the KMC.

Batch Watch

Inside the system console, the Batch Dashboard shows the status of the various batch processes in the system.
When the KalturaCE installation completes, all the batch processes are started automatically, However, if the system is restarted the batch processes should be started again manually.
It is highly recommended to create a cron job or adding the script (kalturaCE/alpha/batch/runBatch.sh start) to the init.d in order to configure this operation to run automatically upon reboot.

Additional resources

• For submitting bugs, feature requests and ideas use the issues manager on the project home page.
• For KalturaCE related discussions, look for help and socializing with other KalturaCE developers visit the project forums.

Version history

Following list of KalturaCE public release versions. See Changes Log for more information.

• 05/05/2009 - alpha 1.0 release.
• 02/06/2009 - alpha 1.01 release.

Contacts and Support

Kaltura inc.
Career Opportunities: jobs@kaltura.com
Tech Support: support@kaltura.com
Sales: +1 (949) 7133370