Admin User Manual Archives - Media Control Panel

Create a new Administrator

Reeve — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 04:45:49 +0000

It is possible to create a new Administrator account from the Customers interface. This is functionally identical to creating a Customer or Reseller Account, outside of selecting Administrator as the Account Type.

Username – The username is used to login to a Administrator account. Typically this will be the same as the email account.
Password – Enter the initial password for the Administrator account login. The password must be a length of at least 5 characters minimum.
Confirm Password – Re-enter the exact same password.
Accessibility Features – Adds an additional link to the main menu labelled “Skip to main content” for quick access with Screen Readers.
Status – Determine if the account is created in an Enabled or Disabled state. If disabled, accounts will be unable to login.
API Access – Determines access to the MediaCP API relevant to the Account Type (Administrator, Customer or Reseller). Disabling API Access will prevent any API calls from this Customer account.
Send Welcome Email – Defaults to Yes, results in the Welcome Email Template being sent after account creation if SMTP email is setup.
Name – The Customers full name used to identify the account and in email/other communications.
Contact Number – The contact phone number is used for administrative information only.
Email – The email account is used for primary communications such as resetting the account password and account notifications.
Account Type – The user level is either Customer, or Administrator.

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Administrator Accounts

Reeve — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 04:27:47 +0000

Administrator accounts are designed to be able to manage all aspects of the panel including customers, services, announcements, reseller plans, configuration options and more.

An Administrator should be able to login to the panel and complete any of the tasks outlined in the Admin User Manual.

If you lose access to your Administrator account you can reset the password with the following guide: Reset Admin Password

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Troubleshooting Login Errors

Martin — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 02:29:37 +0000

MySQL Server Unreachable

This error occurs because MySQL has crashed or cannot start. The cause of this error is commonly not enough disk space on the disk which the MediaCP is installed on*. Another cause can be too many requests for the database causing MySQL to crash.

Steps to repair can be found in our MySQL documentation here.

*Please note that the other disks on your server may still have space, however the partition with the mediacp is full, this is what is causing the problem. If you have secondary disks with large storage we advise considering moving all mediacp media content to the secondary disk, our “Move media to another hard disk” documentation outlines the steps here,

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Deleting a Media Service

Matt — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 04:06:57 +0000

Deleting a Media Service will permanently delete the service. The action cannot be undone and the Media Service cannot be restored.

Audio Services

When deleting an Audio Service, the users uploaded media tracks are not deleted as they belong to the Customer account and not the Media Service. You should delete the Customer account or manually delete the media files from if you wish to remove all media tracks.

Video Services

All uploaded video files are permanently deleted when deleting a Video Service. This action cannot be undone.

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Creating a Media Service

Matt — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 01:21:32 +0000

An Administrator can create Media Services from the Media Control Panel from various locations:

There is a button on the Administrators Dashboard labelled “Add Service”;
There is a “Create a new server” button on the Media Services listing page;
There is a “Create Service” button on the Customer Overview page

The creation interface is different from the normal media service configuration screen and presents a “Quick Wizard” guide with the critical base options for a new service.

Select Customer

The first step is to select the customer that you wish to create the service for. The list is presented in an ascending (a-z) alphabetical order and identifies whether a Customer is a Customer, Reseller or Administrator.

If you have difficulty finding the Customer, then we recommend adding a Service from the Customers Overview instead. You can find the Customer from the Customers Listing, then click on the “Add Service” button from the Customers Overview.

Media Service Type

The MediaCP supports a variaty of different streaming engines for both Audio and Video streaming services. You can view a full comparison on our Streaming Servers page.

The “Use selected media as default in the future.” check box allows you to save the selection to ensure it is selected by default when you create the next Media Service.

Audio Service Configurations

General Configuration

Publish Name – Specify the name for this service. The name is used primarily for display purposes. A URL friendly slug is created automatically from the Publish Name and is used publicaly and internally on various components such as the Station Page, HTML Player and Widgets. The URL friendly slug will convert the name to lowercase and replace spaces and special characters with a dash.
Portbase – Shoutcast and Icecast services utilise 2 ports to operate, the port base specifies the first port to use and the second will simply be an increment from the first port. For example a port base of 8000 would utilise both 8000 and 8001.
- Icecast 2 services (not including KH) will utilise 3 ports of {portbase}, {portbase+10000}, and {portbase+10001} because it is not yet capable of using a single port for both SSL and non-SSL connections. This allows the default portbase to operate as SSL and the subsequent ports to run insecurely for broadcasters without SSL capability.
- Icecast 2 and KH have the Shoutcast Compatible option, which if disabled will remove the incremental port. So, if you are using port 8000, only port 8000 will be in use and port 8001 will be available for other services.
Admin Password – Defines the password to access administative functions of the Icecast or Shoutcast service. Additionally, a Stream Password will be automatically generated after the service creation that can be used specifically for broadcaster connection.
# Mountpoints – Often used to broadcast in different formats/qualities, can be configured as a fallback or even broadcasting different streams/channels on the same service.
# AutoDJ Sources – AutoDJ by default operates on the Default Mountpoint and can be configured on additional Mountpoints to provide different qualities and formats. Each AutoDJ Source consumes additional CPU and MEMORY resources therefore a limit is recommended.
Bitrate – Higher bitrates consume bandwidth faster. When using AutoDJ, higher bitrates may consume only slightly greater amount of CPU resources with Audio Services.
Max Connections – Specifies the number of connections the service is allowed to consume.
- The slider reaches up to 999 at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
Storage – Specifies the total amount of disk storage the Media Service is allowed to consume.
- The slider reaches up to 50GB at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
- Storage is shared between other Audio Services under the same Customer account therefore if the Customer has 2 x Media Services with 10 GB storage, then each service will show a total limit of 20 GB (combined)
Data Transfer (MB) – The total amount of Bandwidth or Data Transfer that the Media Service can consume each month.
- The slider reaches up to 500 GB at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
- A new month starts on the 1st day of each month.
AutoDJ Service – By default each Audio Service is provisioned with an AutoDJ service using Liquidsoap.
- AutoDJ is a service designed to broadcast uploaded media automatically in user defined Playlists and Schedules.
- AutoDJ enhances the Audio Service with features such as individual DJ Logins, Track History,
- AutoDJ services consume additional CPU resources and you should consult the System Requirements page for usage/load examples.

Relay & IP Binding

Audio Services can be configured to rebroadcast another service. Icecast services can relay from both Shoutcast or Icecast while Shoutcast services can only relay other Shoutcast services.

Icecast Relay

Relay Type – Master-Slave relay allows the relay of an entire Icecast 2 or Icecast 2 KH service including all mount points. Single Broadcast relay allows relaying from a Shoutcast or Icecast mount point to a local mount point on this icecast service.
Relay URL – Specify the full address to the server or mount that will be relayed. SSL Support is limited with relaying Icecast 2 services so you should specify an insecure/non-ssl port in the URL. Examples:
- Master-Slave – Specify the base URL with no mount point such as http://audio-streaming.com:8000/
- Single Broadcast – Specify the full URL to the stream such as http://audio-streaming.com:8000/stream
Username – (Single Broadcast Only)
Password
- Icecast / Icecast KH – Provide the Relay Password found under the Service Configuration of the origin service.
- Shoutcast – Provide the Admin Password of the origin stream.
Local Mount (Single Broadcast Only)
- Specify the local mount point to deliver the broadcast too, by default this would be /stream however you may wish to configure muiltiple mount points and deliver locally to a mount point url of /relay that can be used as a fallback when there is no live broadcast to the /stream mount.
- Master-Slave relay copies all mount points from origin to this service and this field is not displayed.

Shoutcast Relay

Relay from Shoutcast 2 server –
Relay from Port – Deprecated – do not use this field, it will be removed in future versions.
Allow Relay to other services – Defines whether this Shoutcast server can be used to relay from. This must be enabled if you wish to relay from this server to another.
Bind IP Address – Allows an administrator to bind this server to a specific IP address. Default of ANY will bind to all IP addresses on the server. It is recommended to leave default.

Video Service Configurations

General Configuration

Publish Name – Specify the name for this service. The name is used primarily for display purposes. A URL friendly slug is created automatically from the Publish Name and is used publicaly and internally on various components such as the Station Page, HTML Player and Widgets. The URL friendly slug will convert the name to lowercase and replace spaces and special characters with a dash.
Service Type
- Live Streaming – Available to all Streaming Engines
- Ondemand Streaming
- TV Station – Broadcasts videos in a linear live 24×7 broadcast with switch between live encoder.
- Relay
- Live Streaming Low Latency (Wowza only) – This option is now deprecated and the Low Latency option is now available in the service configuration instead.
- Shoutcast/Icecast Relay
Relay URL – Relay from an existing live broadcast.
- RTSP Broadcast – Supported by any Streaming Engine.
- RTMP Broadcast – Supported by Flussonic & MediaCP Video Only. Wowza Streaming Engine can only rebroadcast from other Wowza RTMP URLs.
- HLS Broadcast (m3u8) – All Streaming Engines
- Shoutcast & Icecast – All Streaming Engines
Live Streaming & FTP Password – Defines the password to broadcast to the service and/or connection password for FTP services.
Bitrate – Higher bitrates consume bandwidth faster.
Viewers – Specifies the number of viewers that can access the stream simultaniously.
- The slider reaches up to 10,00 at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
Storage – Specifies the total amount of disk storage the Media Service is allowed to consume.
- The slider reaches up to 50GB at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
- Storage is NOT shared between other Video Services under the same Customer account.
Data Transfer (MB) – The total amount of Bandwidth or Data Transfer that the Media Service can consume each month.
- The slider reaches up to 500 GB at the most, however it is possible to type in a custom number in the field.
- A new month starts on the 1st day of each month.

Features

Playback Types (Wowza) – Enable streaming to specific endpoints by selecting one or more of the following Playback Types. Apple HLS is required by the Video Player at the minimum. Adobe HDS and Microsoft Streaming are now deprecated.
Transcoder Profiles – Automatically transcodes the broadcast into different format outputs most commonly used to provide an Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) broadcast. Transcoding consumes a lot of CPU resources and you should review the Transcoder Benchmarks.
- Source / Passthru – Adds the original broadcast to the HLS output for ABR. Used to reduce CPU when providing multiple formats in a configuration such as (example) 240p, 480p and Passthru where Passthru is the orginal broadcast at 720p. Passthru output is not transcoded and will not display logo overlays on the stream.
- Audio Only (Wowza) – Provides a HLS output of the audio only stream.
Stream Targets – Stream Targets allow customers to send the broadcast to multiple destinations such as Facebook and Youtube. Check the boxes to allow the Customer to configure each as a target.
GeoIP Country Locking – Allows the Customer to enable Country Locking if desired
DVR / nDVR / Rewind Feature – Allows the customer to enable nDVR or rewind features. Viewers can rewind a live broadcast with DVR enabled streams. This does use additional disk space that is not counted towards the Storage allocation.
HLS Low Latency (Wowza) – Adjusts HLS Playlist Chunk and durations to reduce latency between the video played by the encoder and what the viewer sees. Lower latency can cause problems in the stream if it is not stable enough, so switching between the profiles is recommended.
Recording (MediaCP Video & Wowza only)
- Service – Specify another service to save the recordings.
- Autostart – Should live recording be started automatically when the broadcast begins or manually started by the Customer.
Authentication
- Live Authentication – Require a password to publish. If disabled, then a password will not be required to broadcast.
- Lock Incoming Stream – Limit broadcast to a list of Ip addresses. Often used when Live Authentication is disabled.
HTTP origin Mode (CDN) (MediaCP Video & Wowza Only) – Deploys the application in HTTP Origin mode, ready for connectivity with a CDN.

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Deleting Announcement

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 08:37:46 +0000

Deleting will permanently delete the announcement, removing it from display on all interfaces. The action cannot be undone and the Announcement cannot be restored.

An alternative to deletion, is to use the Announcement Expire On field to define when to hide the message from all interfaces. This is a great alternative to ensure there is a history of previous announcements, especially maintenance windows and similar.

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Managing Announcements

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 08:37:26 +0000

Columns

ID # – The unique ID of the announcement stored in the database
Subject – The Title or Subject as configured on an announcement
Published – Whether the announcement is currently published or unpublished based on the Publish and Expiry dates configured on the announcement
Publish On – The date and time when the announcement will be displayed
Expire On – The date and time to automatically unpublish and remove the announcement from display

Sorting

Clicking on the highlighted column headings will sort by this column in descending order. All columns except for the Published status can be sorted.

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Creating Announcement

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 08:37:07 +0000

Parameters

Subject – The subject is displayed above the announcement in a bold display
Content – The message displayed to users/visitors can include styling (bolding, italics, headings, etc), links and even images.
Publish On – The date and time when the announcement is to be displayed
Expire On – The date and time to automatically unpublish and remove the announcement from display
Type – Determines the colour scheme of the announcement.
Visibility – Determines who can see the announcement and who cannot. If a user type is unchecked then the message will not be displayed to that user.
- Administrators – Display the announcement on the administrators dashboard.
- Resellers – Display the announcement on the Reseller dashboard, to resellers.
- Customers – Display the announcement to Customers, either on the Service Overview if there is only 1 service, or on the listing page if there are multiple services under the account.
- Login Page – Display the message on the login page to unauthenticated users
Dismissible – Determines if the user can dismiss and hide the message. If it is not dismissable, the annoucement will be always be displayed while Published.

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Misc

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 01:09:27 +0000

Includes advanced configurations that don’t belong to any other category.

API Access

This configuration controls access to the MediaCP API. The API allows remote commands to be securely communicated through the platform, it is often used for integration into external systems such as Billing Systems or to enhance a Workflow.

Some examples of API usage:

An administrator uses the API to integrate with WHMCS Billing System
An administrator or reseller uses the API to automatically provision new Customers and Services when their customers complete payment
A customer automatically creates an automatic workflow to create DJ accounts

There are three levels of control, by default new Customers are not provided access to the API unless manually enabled by an Administrator:

Enabled – new users will not be provided API access until enabled
Enabled – new users will be provided API access by default
Disabled – No API Access, billing integrations will not work

Each Customer receives a unique API key that can be reset at any time. Documentation is available from the Customers Account Profile.

Listener/Viewer Maps

ReCAPTCHA

Google ReCAPTCHA adds a layer of security to the login page. When enabled, the Google ReCAPTCHA will be displayed after an unsuccessful login to the control panel.

You must provide a valid ReCAPTCHA v2 Site Key and Secret to use this feature.

For those using our WHMCS Integration, ReCAPTCHA will interrupt the WHMCS plugin sign in function, which will cause the login to not work and will require ReCAPTCHA completion to continue.

If an invalid Site Key or Secret is provided, you may be locked out of the control panel.

Disable Google ReCAPTCHA

If Google Recaptcha is configured incorrectly it may restrict users from logging into the MediaCP. You can solve this issue by disabling the captcha.

Login to SSH as root user
Run the following command in SSH to disable ReCAPTCHA

echo "UPDATE settings SET value = 'disabled' WHERE setting = 'captcha';" | /usr/local/mediacp/mysql/bin/mysql --protocol=SOCKET --socket=/usr/local/mediacp/mysql/data/mysql.sock --user=root --password= mediacp >/dev/null 2>&1

FTP

FTP Server Prefix – FTP usernames are configured with a default prefix of “ftp_” before the users id. You can adjust the prefix by updating this value however please note it may be required to reset FTP accounts by running the following.

/root/init --reset-ftp

Other

Debugging – Debugging output will provide additional information for MediaCP Support Team when an error is displayed in the control panel. It should be disabled unless there is a problem.
RESET Reporting Statistics – This will permanently delete the Historical Reporting data. If the database is quite large, then this may take some time to complete.
RESET Data Transfer – Permanently delete all bandwidth and data transfer information, effectively resetting all limits and destroying past data.
Refresh System Cache – Clears system caches such as Station Pages, HTML Player Configurations, Templates, Thumbnails, and Cover Art. If you have changed a setting in the control panel and it is not reflected, or there are broken thumbnails, then refreshing the system cache is recommended.

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Backups

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 01:09:18 +0000

Automatic backups can be configured to run daily and/or weekly in the background on the system at a time of your choosing. The automatic backups are compatible with our restoration utility process.

Backing up of Media Contents and Historical Data can be a disk intensive operation. If the backup process is too intensive then you might consider using rsync to keep Media Content files in sync on a different hard disk or server. Consult the Backup Package & Structure documentation also.

Backup Configuration

Email Report – Enter an email address to deliver backup reports or leave the field blank to disable emailed reports. Email must be configured correctly for this to work.
Backup System Path – The location to store backups in, this location will also be used for staging the new backup as well.
I/O Priority Level – Since the backup process can be intensive, it is recommended to run backups in the background at a low priority in order to not disrupt other services. The backup process will use ionice to control the priority of the entire backup processes disk and cpu resources.
Backup Hour – Select an hour according to your systems default timezone (not the MediaCP default timezone) to run the backup. We recommend that you set it to run during off-peak hours, early enough to allow your server to finish backups before peak traffic resumes. Default 2am Server Time.

Daily / Weekly Backup

The purpose of a Daily and Weekly backup is to configure different retention strategies, since the Media Contents and Historical Data is often very large in size.

Backup Schedule – Daily backup can run on multiple days, every day if desired.
Historical Data – Determines if Historical Data should be included in the backup. For large databases, this may take a long time to complete.
Media Content – Determines if Media Content should be included in the backup. For large amounts of Media Content, this may take a long time to complete and a lot of storage may also be required.
Retention – How many backups to keep on the system.

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