Guides - Deploy Ant Media Server Enterprise Edition through the Linode Marketplace

Ant Media Server is an open source video streaming platform known for its scalability and low latency. It supports WebRTC live streaming, as well as CMAF and HLS streaming, and can be ingested through RTMP, WebRTC, or HLS. There are two editions of Ant Media Server: Community Edition and Enterprise Edition. This Marketplace App installs the Enterprise Edition, which is equipped with more features and enhanced performance. See this Comparison Chart for details.

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using the Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• Recommended plan: 16GB Dedicated CPU Instance

Ant Media Server Options

• Email address for the Ant Media Server Login & SSL Generation: Enter the email address that should be used to log in to the Ant Media Dashboard, and generate free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates.

Limited Sudo User

You need to fill out the following fields to automatically create a limited sudo user, with a strong generated password for your new Compute Instance. This account will be assigned to the sudo group, which provides elevated permissions when running commands with the sudo prefix.

• Limited sudo user: Enter your preferred username for the limited user. No Capital Letters, Spaces, or Special Characters.

  Locating The Generated Sudo Password

  A password is generated for the limited user and stored in a .credentials file in their home directory, along with application specific passwords. This can be viewed by running: cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials

  For best results, add an account SSH key for the Cloud Manager user that is deploying the instance, and select that user as an authorized_user in the API or by selecting that option in the Cloud Manager. Their SSH pubkey will be assigned to both root and the limited user.

• Disable root access over SSH: To block the root user from logging in over SSH, select Yes. You can still switch to the root user once logged in, and you can also log in as root through Lish.

  Accessing The Instance Without SSH

  If you disable root access for your deployment and do not provide a valid Account SSH Key assigned to the authorized_user, you will need to login as the root user via the Lish console and run cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials to view the generated password for the limited user.

Custom Domain (Optional)

If you wish to automatically configure a custom domain, you first need to configure your domain to use Linode’s name servers. This is typically accomplished directly through your registrar. See Use Linode’s Name Servers with Your Domain. Once that is finished, you can fill out the following fields for the Marketplace App:

• Linode API Token: If you wish to use the Linode’s DNS Manager to manage DNS records for your custom domain, create a Linode API Personal Access Token on your account with Read/Write access to Domains. If this is provided along with the subdomain and domain fields (outlined below), the installation attempts to create DNS records via the Linode API. See Get an API Access Token. If you do not provide this field, you need to manually configure your DNS records through your DNS provider and point them to the IP address of the new instance.
• Subdomain: The subdomain you wish to use, such as www for www.example.com.
• Domain: The domain name you wish to use, such as example.com.

Getting Started after Deployment

Access the Ant Media Server Dashboard

1. Using LISH or SSH connect to the instance and access the Ant Media Server credentials in the /home/$USERNAME/.credentials file. You will find an example of the output below. Keep in mind that $USERNAME will be replaced with your chosen sudo username.

   cat /home/$USERNAME/.credentials

   Sudo Username: $USERNAME
   Sudo Password: Fs4WomBrHCI27M5fZg2PJfnW
   Ant Media Server Username: antuser@akamai.com
   Ant Media Server Password: 79KP106i3AxW8YOmaWA7FNVo

2. Open your web browser and navigate to https://[domain]:5443, where [domain] can be replaced with the custom domain you entered during deployment or your Compute Instance’s rDNS domain (such as 192-0-2-1.ip.linodeusercontent.com). You can also use your IPv4 address. See the Managing IP Addresses guide for information on viewing IP addresses and rDNS.

3. Use the Ant Media Server Username and Ant Media Server Password from the credentials file to log in to the Ant Media Dashboard.

4. Once logged in to the Ant Media Server Dashboard, you can manage your entire application.

5. To start using the Enterprise Edition of Ant Media Server, you need to obtain a license. Visit the Self-Hosted Solutions page on Ant Media’s website to order a license.

6. Once you obtained the license key, navigate to the Settings tab within the Ant Media Dashboard, enter the License Key, and click Save.

For more on Ant Media Server, check out the following resources:

• Ant Media Server wiki
• Publishing a Live Stream

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Ant Media
• Document