Darwin Streaming Server on FreeBSD	Monday, April 7, 2003

Warning: high geek content. If you've ever tried to install Apple's Darwin Streaming Server from the source distribution (which you'll need to do if you're not running Mac OS X, Linux i386, Solaris, or Windows NT/2000) you've likely encountered some pretty annoying problems. I've now setup DSS on FreeBSD a couple of times, and both times have been, let's say, less than desirable.

Apple provides two scripts with the source distribution: Buildit and Install. (For whatever reason, Apple chose not to simply use a standard Unix Makefile so that you could just type make && make install.) The Buildit script works just fine on FreeBSD; the Install script however, does not. Apple's Buildit script does not leave the compiled binaries in the locations where the Install script expects them to be. Why, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine -- maybe better.

Craig Harman was nice enough to create a FreeBSD-specific binary download, however it is one minor-minor version behind the current (4.1.2 versus 4.1.3). I also have always preferred compiling my own binaries, so I decided to fix the Install script, and post a diff file.

For all you FreeBSD folk out there who would like to run DSS on your server, follow these steps:

1. Grab the source for version 4.1.3 (you'll need to sign up for a free Apple Developer Connection account).
2. Download my diff and put it in the DSS-4_1_3.src folder.
3. From the DSS-4_1_3.src folder, apply the patch:
   
   patch Install < Install.diff
4. Type ./Buildit, followed by ./Install.
5. Visit port 1220 of your server, and proceed with the setup.

Hopefully this diff will make the installation much more painless than I've had to go through.

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Comments Users of FreeBSD ports can take advatange of the port maintained by nork: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/net/DarwinStreamingServer/pkg-descr - Chris Slothouber, Monday, June 23, 2003 Try taking a look at ./DSS_MakeRoot in the top source directory. It seems to be much better suited to installing from the source build than ./Install - phase66, Wednesday, June 25, 2003 Installation tip: the qtgroups file that comes with the 4.1.3 source distribution contains a line that looks like "admin: aGFja21l". If you can't login, try changing it to "admin: admin". - Patrick, Friday, July 25, 2003

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