Using a Separate Server for Encoding

The system does not support management of remote sites or content on other servers without the use of NFS. We do not consider multi-server setups part of our standard CMS install/setup process. We don't require a separate install of the CMS for each server. Make sure both servers are running the same versions of PHP, IONcube, ffmpeg, etc.( http://www.elevatedx.com/requirements.php )

Assisting with server setup is outside of the scope of our support services and will need to be handled by your hosting company.

The separate machine will need:

1) The same absolute path to the admin folder.
2) The same absolute path to the members area content folder (as this is specified in the config file under Setup in admin)

Both of these can be mounted via NFS.

When it comes to encoding, ffmpeg works faster when encoding from a local file than one over NFS, so we have a flag within the cron that allows this:

*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /ADMINPATH/longqueue.php --tmpfolder=/tmp/

Note - Be sure to change /ADMINPATH/ to the actual system path to your admin panel and /path/to/php to your PHP path.

NOTE - If you're going to be encoding using multiple servers, you'll need to make sure the --thread parameter is different across all machines:

# Server 1

*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /ADMINPATH/longqueue.php --thread=1
*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /ADMINPATH/longqueue.php --thread=2

# Server 2

*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /ADMINPATH/longqueue.php --thread=3
*/5 * * * * /path/to/php /ADMINPATH/longqueue.php --thread=4

Database Support

If your current database setup involves connecting to either 127.0.0.1 or localhost on your existing CMS setup, your host will need to make some changes in order to facilitate connecting to the same database from separate server.

- On your primary server (admin panel) have your host create an alias in /etc/hosts called dbserver that points to 127.0.0.1
- On this new server where you're running any encodes, have your host create an alias in /etc/hosts called dbserver that points to the IP address of your admin server.
- Make sure the new encoding server can connect to MySQL on your admin panel using the same username and database that was used to connect via localhost. This may take some additional permissions set up by your host.

Once this is ready, you should be able to go into /cms_admin/setup.php and change the Database host to dbserver, or whatever alias your host set up for this database server.