Main commands to launch and check

After you activate the license, start WCS using the command:

sudo systemctl start webcallserver

Stopping the server is done with the command

sudo systemctl stop webcallserver

Here are a few ways to make sure the server has started and is ready to work:

1. Make sure the server process is running.

pgrep -afn com.flashphoner.server.Server

The console should display WCS Core process (PID 6880  on the example below):

[root@localhost ~]# pgrep -afn com.flashphoner.server.Server
6880 java -Xmx4g -Xms4g -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseCMSInitiatingOccupancyOnly -XX:CMSInitiatingOccupancyFraction=70 -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=50999 -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=p13.flashphoner.com -XX:ErrorFile=/usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/logs/error%p.log -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps -XX:+PrintGCDetails -Xloggc:/usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/logs/gc-core-2021-06-25_14-44.log -XX:+ExplicitGCInvokesConcurrent -Dsun.rmi.dgc.client.gcInterval=36000000000 -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=36000000000 -Dcom.flashphoner.fms.AppHome=/usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer -Djava.library.path=/usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/lib/so:/usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/lib -DWCS_NON_ROOT=true -DsessionDebugEnabled=false -Djdk.tls.client.protocols="TLSv1,TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2" -cp /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/lib/* com.flashphoner.server.Server
[root@localhost ~]#

2. Make sure the server process listens the main ports.

netstat -nlp | grep java

[root@localhost tmp]# netstat -nlp | grep java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:1098            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:1935            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:2001          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8081            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:2002          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8082            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 192.168.1.5:3478       0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:50999           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8888            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8443            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8444            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8445            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:9091            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:45731           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      6880/java
udp        0      0 0.0.0.0:1935            0.0.0.0:*                           6880/java

If you used default ports settings, you should see ports 8080, 8444 (Websockets) and 1935 (RTMP) as well as other ports you configured for the WCS server in the list.

3. Make sure the WCS server writes the main server log

tail -f /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/logs/server_logs/flashphoner.log

The log should display information about settings the server started with.

For example:

18:29:51,945 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting allow_outside_codecs: from true to false
18:29:51,974 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting codecs: from null to opus,alaw,ulaw,g729,speex16,g722,mpeg4-generic,telephone-event,h264,vp8,flv,mpv
18:29:51,975 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting media_port_from: from 31001 to 31001
18:29:51,978 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting keep_alive.enabled: from websocket,rtmp,rtmfp to websocket,rtmfp
18:29:51,978 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting webrtc_cc_min_bitrate: from 30000 to 3000000
18:29:51,979 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting codecs_exclude_sip: from null to mpeg4-generic,flv,mpv,opus,ulaw,h264,g722,g729
18:29:51,979 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting wss.port: from 8443 to 8443
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting codecs_exclude_sip_rtmp: from null to opus,g729,g722,mpeg4-generic,vp8,mpv
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting codecs_exclude_streaming: from null to telephone-event
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting webrtc_cc_max_bitrate: from 10000000 to 7000000
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting ip: from 0.0.0.0 to 192.168.1.5
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting client_log_level: from INFO to DEBUG
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting ip_local: from 0.0.0.0 to 192.168.1.5
18:29:51,980 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting media_port_to: from 32000 to 32000
18:29:51,981 INFO        SettingsLoader - main Override setting ws.port: from 8080 to 8080

Logs should react on connection of web clients. If that does not happen during testing, make sure the server process is running and the web client is configured properly to connect this particular server. See the Troubleshooting section for additional information.

If the server process is running and logs have no error, this means the WCS server is ready to work and you can start testing it.

All the ways to start WCS

Starting the server is performed with this command:

sudo systemctl start webcallserver

Since build 5.2.801, WCS is starting as service from flashphoner user for better security

Besides, you can start the server using:

cd /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/bin
sudo ./webcallserver start

In builds 5.2.840 - 5.2.863 this command starts WCS also from flashphoner user.

Environment variables setup

Environment variables and parameters of the start are set in the setenv.sh script. In this script you can se additional parameters for WCS Core and WCS Manager. Also, here you can set the parameter that prevent memory leaks on multi-CPU systems:

MALLOC_ARENA_MAX=4

Starting with stdout output

In some cases, for example, if the server won't start and does not produce any errors, you may need to start the server with direct logging to the 'stdout' console. Direct output to stdout cannot be used in production, because the server will be stopped if the console is closed or the SSH connection is lost. That is why we recommend using stdout output only for debug purposes.

To start the server in this mode, use the following command:

cd /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/bin
sudo ./webcallserver start standalone

Launching with different user permissions

Launching builds 5.2.864-5.2.972

Since build 5.2.864, the permissions to launch WSC are defined as follows:

1. The command

sudo systemctl start webcallserver

starts WCS always from flashphoner user, if the user exists in system

2. The command

./webcallserver start

starts WCS from root when executing from root

sudo ./webcallserver start

or from flashphoner user, when executing from other non-root user

This affects the stanadlone mode too

./webcallserver start standalone

Launching build 5.2.976 and newer

Since build 5.2.976, , the permissions to launch WSC are defined by the following parameter in /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/bin/setenv.sh file only:

On this value (default)

WCS_NON_ROOT=true

WCS is starting from flashphoner user

On this value

WCS_NON_ROOT=false

WCS is starting from root user

In this case, service can be started from root, user permissions to launch Java will be changed automatically.

Folder permissions setting when starting from flashphoner user

Since build 5.2.976, write permissions to the server folders including custom folder are checked while starting WCS from flashphoner user. If permissions are not enough, WCS will not start with the following message in /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/logs/startup.log file

FlashphonerWebCallServer cannot be started from user flashphoner, please fix the permissions to the folders or run 'webcallserver set-permissions'!

In this case, the following command should be executed

sudo ./webcallserver set-permissions

JVM parameters

Parameters are set in the wcs-core.properties file.

Additional launching options can be set in bin/setenv.sh file using the following varaibles:

WCS_JAVA_OPTS - the list of options for WCS Core

JVM parameters are checked for compatibility with current Java version on startup. The error messages are written to /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/logs/startup.log file according to error message returned by Java if JVM cannot start with parameters specified.

Java version automatic detection and  JVM parameters correction

Since build 5.2.972, Java version is detected automatically, and JVM parameters are corrected when WCS is starting after JDK update. JVM launch parameters may also be corrected by the following command

cd /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/bin
sudo ./webcallserver set-java-opts

In this case, the parameters are corrected in the wcs-core.properties file, the previous settings are copied to a file with .backup extension and a sequence number, for example

[root@localhost ~]# ls -l /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/conf/wcs-core.properties.backup.*
-rw-r--r--. 1 flashphoner flashphoner 1614 Jun 23 10:15 /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/conf/wcs-core.properties.backup.0
-rw-r--r--. 1 flashphoner flashphoner 1543 Jun 23 10:17 /usr/local/FlashphonerWebCallServer/conf/wcs-core.properties.backup.1

Note that garbage collector (GC) is not changing automatically in this case, but its parameters can be changed (command line key names for example).