Manage Media Server with web-based qAdmin tool

This information is primarily for administrators and/or people who manage Zylinc solutions

The Media Server is the server that runs the Debian Linux-based part of the Zylinc solution. The Media Server answers calls to queues, plays music on hold, makes interactive voice response menus work, etc. The Media Server also hosts the Administration Portal in a Tomcat service that runs on the Linux operating system.

The Media Server was previously known as ZyCall Switch Server.

You can use the web-based qAdmin tool to manage the Media Server. The qAdmin tool is especially useful for the tasks listed in the following.

Note that the Media Server also has a command line-based management console tool, the AdminCLI, which we recommend for other tasks. See Manage Media Server with AdminCLI console tool.

If support asks you for debugging information, you can quickly download the collectinfo file:

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Downloads

  5. Select collectInfo

  6. Click Generate

  7. Use the links to download collectInfo or collectInfo_mini

It's useful to view the current time, date and timezone for Media Server, because it lets you know if the time synchronization service is working.

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select System Info, to view current values of timezone, data and time on Media Server

When you want to measure CPU load for Media Server, use Linux' load average percentages. Those load averages are similar, but not identical, to the CPU utilization graph on Windows.

Load averages in Linux consist of a combination of threads that are working plus threads that are waiting for CPU, disk, uninterruptible locks, etc.

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Show Processes

  5. Load average shows three comma-separated load average values. The three values are average CPU load percentages over the last minute, last five minutes, and last 15 minutes respectively.

    • If the averages are close to 100, something causes a too high CPU load on your system

    • If the averages are close to 0, your system is idle

    • If the one-minute average is higher than the five- or 15-minute averages, the load on your system is increasing

    • If the one-minute average is lower than the five- or 15-minute averages, the load on your system is decreasing

The information is based on the Linux command top -b -n 1 | head -n 6

For more information, refer to the Linux help for the top command.

To view the memory usage, you can do the following:

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Show Processes.

  5. The line that starts with KiB Mem: shows the total, used, and free amount of memory.

    The information is based on the Linux command top -b -n 1 | head -n 6

    For more information, refer to the Linux help for the top command.

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Logs (asterisk) to view size as well as used, available, and usage percentages of the root file system.

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Logs (asterisk) to view size as well as used, available, and usage percentages of the root file system.

  5. Click Force log rotation to free up disk space on the server.

  6. Select Logs (tomcat)

  7. Delete unnecessary log files.

If you install, reinstall, or upgrade a Media Server, or if you change an existing Media Server so that it'll use a different database, you must use Rewrite Config afterwards. If not, the system will fail. In the Administration Portal you find Rewrite Config under INSTALL > Database Connection > Rewrite Config.

Supporters like to know if Rewrite Config was ever used, because they can use this information to diagnose why the system fails.

To check if Rewrite Config was ever used, do the following:

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Downloads

  5. Rewrite Config has been used at least once if a line is visible that starts with 1 moh(n) cb(n) da(n) en(n) vr(n) n

    n may represent any number, depending on the amount of audio files present on the server.

    The same line will also show two buttons, Audio Backup and CallBacks Backup, if Rewrite Config was ever used.

  1. In a browser, go to http://<MediaServer>:8080

  2. Click zyqadmin

  3. Specify user name and password:

    • Username: admin
    • Password: The password for Tomcat instance user admin on Media Server

  4. Select Logs (tomcat)

  5. Click zylinc-admin.log

  6. Search for the last line that contains the text Rewriting all tenants

  7. The beginning of the line contains time stamp information about when Rewrite Config was used.

Security and patching of Zylinc Media Server: The Media Server is (and always has been) an appliance/black box intended to be run on a customer's internal LAN, that is protected from the outside world by the customer's own security protocols. This black box principle is in place to ensure optimal support for the Media Server functions that this appliance delivers. To continuously update said appliance with all sorts of updates and patches would primarily be an academic exercise with (in the majority of cases) little practical impact, and it could potentially compromise the quality of support rendered.