Controlling access to content

You can control new connections to clients that are receiving content as a unicast stream from the publishing points on your server. For example, you may want to deny access to content when conducting certain activities, such as updating your plug-in configuration, modifying server property settings, or modifying your content source. If these activities are performed while clients are streaming your content, streaming may be interrupted for a short period of time.

If clients are receiving content as a multicast stream, you can stop the broadcast publishing point to stop multicast transmission.

On-demand publishing points

To control client connections to unicast streams from an on-demand publishing point, use the following buttons on the Monitor tab for the publishing point:

• Allow new unicast connections. Allows new client connections to the publishing point.

• Deny new unicast connections. Denies new client connections to the publishing point but does not disconnect currently connected clients. As connected clients stop receiving the stream (when the stream ends or they disconnect from the server), the number of connections gradually decreases. Clients that are connected through HTTP are disconnected when the user stops, pauses, fast-forwards, or rewinds the content.

• Disconnect all clients. Disconnects all client connections to the publishing point. To prevent new client connections, you should also deny new connections.

Broadcast publishing points

To control client connections to unicast streams from a broadcast publishing point, use one of the following options:

• Start publishing point when first client connects. This property for the publishing point is enabled by default so that the publishing point does not start until the first client connects. This feature is useful when you are sourcing from an encoder or distribution server and want to minimize bandwidth usage. If only one client is connected to the publishing point and that client disconnects, the server closes the connection with the encoding computer and stops streaming the content after 30 seconds. If another client connects, the server automatically reconnects to the encoding computer and resumes streaming the content.

• Start publishing point. Click this button on the Source tab for the publishing point to begin streaming the broadcast. Clients that connect to the broadcast stream begin playing it in progress.

  Manually starting a broadcast publishing point overrides the Start publishing point when first client connects property. If you want the broadcast publishing point to start and stop automatically based on client connections, do not start the publishing point manually.

• Stop publishing point. Click this button on the Source tab for the publishing point to stop all clients from receiving the broadcast stream.

• Allow new unicast connections. Click this button on the Monitor tab for the publishing point to allow new client connections to the publishing point.

• Deny new unicast connections. Click this button on the Monitor tab for the publishing point to deny new client connections to the publishing point.

• Disconnect all clients. Click this button on the Monitor tab for the publishing point to disconnect all client connections to the publishing point. To prevent new client connections, you should also deny new connections.

To control access to multicast streams from a broadcast publishing point, use one of the following options on the Source tab for the publishing point:

• Start publishing point. Click this button to start the multicast transmission. Clients that access the multicast stream begin playing it in progress.

• Stop publishing point. Click this button to stop the multicast transmission.

Server connections

To control client access to streams being delivered from all of the publishing points on your server, you can use the following buttons on the Monitor tab for the server:

• Allow new unicast connections. Allows new client connections to publishing points on the server.

• Deny new unicast connections. Denies new client connections to publishing points on the server but does not disconnect currently connected clients.

• Stop the service. Stops the Windows Media Services service. Stopping the service disconnects all clients from all publishing points and stops all multicast transmissions.

See Also

Concepts

Start publishing point when first client connects
About the default publishing points
Limits
Authentication
Authorization