The Free and Open Source Red5 Flash Media Server can be notoriously difficult to install and get up and running on any server, whether it be Ubuntu, CentOS or any other server system you care to mention. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to quickly get up and running so you can test and play around with RED5 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Updated November 2018 and good for 2019 too! Online guides are often outdated and no longer work. As a case in point, our now outdated guide on how to set up Red5 on CentOS 7 will no longer work with the current command-line instructions. However, as of updating this in November 2018, the guide below DOES work for RED5 & Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Set up your Ubuntu 18.04/RED5 server environment

We’re going to be using a Digital Ocean VPS in this guide but of course, any VPS provider will do. We like Digital Ocean because they’re reliable and cheap, and it only takes a couple of minutes to “spin up” a brand new virtual server environment for us to play with (called a Droplet on Digital Ocean).  You only pay for the time that the server is active so using their service to practice on will only cost you a fraction of Cent/Pound/Euro etc.

As you can see above, there are various versions of Ubuntu to choose from. At the time the screenshot was taken, 16.04 LTS was the default option so we needed to select the dropdown and select Ubuntu 18.04. This will only cost you $5 per month (or $0.007 per hour ) if you then select the 1GB of server memory and 25GB disk size option, which will be enough to get your new RED5 server up and running for a quick test on 18.04.

It will probably take under a minute to create your new RED 5 server environment with Ubuntu 18.04 automatically installed. Digital Ocean will then email you the details with a “root” user password that you’ll need to change when you first log in (see image below).

This is only for demo purposes, so the root password is no longer applicable so don’t bother copying it 🙂

Open PuTTY and connect to your Ubuntu 18.04 server

We use puTTY to gain access to our server because it’s free, widely used and reliable.

Once we’ve connected and logged in, we’re prompted to change our password from the one Digital Ocean emailed us to a new one of our choosing.

Installing RED5 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (x64)

Now we drill down to the nitty-gritty and get on with the install! **PLEASE NOTE – This guide is only brief and is designed to help you test and experiment with a set of basic instructions to get you up and running with RED5 on Ubuntu 18.04 x64 as quickly as possible. For this reason, we’re not going into server security, SSH keys, changing from “root user” or tweaking the install. When you’re prompted to accept terms and conditions for Oracle/Java when running the commands underneath the image below, make sure you’ve read them and are happy to agree to them before proceeding…

Right, nearly ready. Copy and paste each command and hit return. Leave out the hash/pound sign (#) when you’re copying from below. Wait for each command to finish before running the next one.

# apt-get update

# apt-get -y upgrade

# add-apt-repository –yes ppa:webupd8team/java

# apt-get install oracle-java8-installer -y

# wget https://github.com/Red5/red5-server/releases/download/v1.0.9-RELEASE/red5-server-1.0.9-RELEASE.tar.gz

# tar xvzf red5-server-1.0.9-RELEASE.tar.gz

# cd red5-server

# sh red5.sh &

And that’s it, you’re all done! You may need to wait a little while after you’ve run the last command before you see the results in your browser so be patient.

Now you can visit the demo page – Replace YOURIPADDRESS with your own – http://YOURIPADDRESS:5080/demos/ofla_demo.html

If you’re using a browser such as Google Chrome, you may need to adjust the settings for the IP address so you can view your new RED5 server on Ubuntu 18.04 x64 in order to see the finished results. We suggest using Firefox as it’s straightforward and you’ll only need to allow Flash when you load the page.

Here’s what you should see:

You can also install ready-made apps and launch a demo by visiting http://YOURIPADDRESS:5080 where you should see the same as the image below

There are a few demos that come with RED5 and you can install these and have a play around with them to find your feet

We hope this worked for you (it worked for us in November 2018) in setting up your new Red 5 Flash Media Server on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS – We’ll also be doing a post in the near future regarding what to actually do with RED5 once you have it up and running. We’ll be showing how to connect and stream to it, and also how to embed a player onto your own website so your visitors can see your stream – Bookmark this page and check back soon. In the meantime, happy streaming!