You can use the silent installation process to install Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software without any manual interaction. This unattended installation approach provides the convenience of automating the installation of a large number of Wowza Streaming Engine instances.
Before you start
Complete a request form
Submit an access request using a valid name and email address that is associated with your existing Wowza account via the Wowza Streaming Engine silent installer DocuSign form.
Approval is contingent on your account having a Wowza Streaming Engine license key with an active maintenance and support (M&S) service period.
Note: This includes monthly and annual Wowza Streaming Engine subscriptions, and perpetual license keys with active maintenance and support (M&S).
Please allow up to 72 business hours for the Customer Experience team to process your request. Once your request is approved, you will receive an emailed response that contains a silent install key for you to use.
Configure the response file
The WSE4.opt response file controls the silent install process. Download a sample WSE4.opt file to help you customize your installation. This file includes a description of various command line arguments you can pass to the installer. At a minimum, you must configure the silent install key and Wowza Streaming Engine license key values in this file. You must configure a separate response file for each Wowza Streaming Engine instance that you install.
Note: With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.29, we added an optional logfile_directory command line argument that can be used to customize where the installation log file is generated. If this parameter is not defined, the log file is added to the default installer log directory. For more, see Troubleshooting. The logfile_directory parameter also determines where the uninstall logs are generated.
Download Wowza Streaming Engine software
Silent installation of Wowza Streaming Engine only works with Wowza Streaming Engine production builds. To silently install a Wowza Streaming Engine instance on Windows or Linux operating systems, you can download the latest Wowza Streaming Engine installers for these operating systems from the Wowza Streaming Engine Downloads webpage.
Perform the installation
This section describes how to perform a silent installation of Wowza Streaming Engine, using command-line syntax specific to the supported operating systems. The syntax that's shown assumes that the silent installer and WSE4.opt response file are located in the same folder and that you replace [version] with the Wowza Streaming Engine software version number (4.x.x or 4.x.x+x).
Note: We recommend using a 64-bit operating system for optimal performance and to enable use of the Transcoder feature.
Windows installers
WowzaStreamingEngine-[version]-windows-installer.exe --optionfile wse4.opt
Linux installers
chmod +x ./ WowzaStreamingEngine-[version]-linux-x64-installer.run sudo ./ WowzaStreamingEngine-[version]-linux-x64-installer.run --optionfile wse4.opt
Linux package managers
Red Hat
sudo rpm –Uvh WowzaStreamingEngine-[version]-linux-x64-installer.rpm
Ubuntu
sudo apt install WowzaStreamingEngine-[version]-linux-x64-installer.deb
Note: We recommend that you use the Linux installer to install Wowza Streaming Engine. Only advanced Linux users should install the software using a package manager.
Add a license key and administrator credentials
After the installation is complete and before you can start the software, you must create a Server.license file that stores your license key for the media server software and an admin.password file that stores your administrator credentials for Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
Add a Server.license file
- Create a file named Server.license in the Wowza Streaming Engine installation directory ([install-dir]/conf/) for your operating system:
- Windows – %WMSCONFIG_HOME%\conf\Server.license
- Linux – /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/conf/Server.license
- Enter each license key on a new line.
Add an admin.password file
- Create a file named admin.password in the Wowza Streaming Engine installation directory ([install-dir]/conf/) for your operating system:
- Windows – %WMSCONFIG_HOME%\conf\admin.password
- Linux – /usr/local/WowzaStreamingEngine/conf/admin.password
- To provide administrator account access to advanced property, server listener, and module settings, which are reserved for expert Wowza Streaming Engine users, add credentials to the file, specifying the admin,advUser group as shown in the following example:
# Admin password file (format: [username][space][password][space][groups][space][passwordEncoding]) Admin $2y$10$3RI.M/WPQ8qomZb0EkaGme/873Y3dI18TIPB2GUOWrOJC2RDsfJCa admin,advUser bcrypt
Administrators can create accounts for other users with full administrative access to Wowza Streaming Engine Manager or with read-only privileges.
Note: We recommend encoding your password using one of the methods supported by Wowza Streaming Engine (bcrypt or digest). For more information, see Manage users with the Wowza Streaming Engine CLI password tool.
Start the software
Now that installation is complete, you can start the software. See Start and stop Wowza Streaming Engine for details.
Note: If you install the software using a package manager, after the installation is completed, you must start the software as a service (the ability to start the software automatically isn't supported). For details, see Start and stop Wowza Streaming Engine as a service (Linux).
Troubleshooting
During the silent installation of the Wowza Streaming Engine software, a log file named installbuilder_installer.log is created. You can review this file if issues arise during the silent installation process. If you didn't use the optional logfile_directory command line argument to customize a directory during installation, the installation log file is added to these default locations:
- On Windows, the log is created in the user's local Temp directory, usually C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp.
- On Linux, the log file is created in the /tmp directory.
If an installbuilder_installer.log file already exists from a previous installation, the installer creates a new log file with one of the following unique file names:
- installbuilder_installer_[pid].log
- installbuilder_installer_[pid]_[uid].log
The [pid] value is the process program identifier. If a log file contains this value, a new log file is created with the [uid] value as a unique identifier in the file name.
