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Installing the Myriad Anywhere v6 Self-Hosted web application

Broadcast Radio Team
  • Updated

Contents

Introduction

We offer three paths to remotely working on your Myriad station

  • Myriad Anywhere (Self Hosted): With this solution, the station is remotely accessed via Microsoft Edge, Chrome or Firefox web browsers which means you can access them from any Windows PC, Linux PC or Mac. Currently you cannot access Anywhere from iOS tablets as they do not support the OPUS audio codec that Anywhere uses. The major advantage of this solution is that the users can access the station from anywhere and from a wider range of devices. The downside is that to ‘self-host’ you will need both secure web hosting infrastructure and knowledge of how to deploy and maintain hosted web solutions. This option is included free of charge with all Myriad v6 Playout Studio installations.
  • Myriad Anywhere Cloud: This option offers the same advantages as the ‘self-hosted’ option but we take care of hosting the website and manage all the security for you. Myriad Anywhere cloud is hosted on our secure cloud platform and Myriad Remote Edit Server provides a secure, direct connection to the cloud platform through your firewall. This has the big advantage that you do not need to host your own Anywhere portal, manage hosting and security or allow ‘real world’ traffic onto your network via your firewall. There is a small monthly fee to access Myriad Anywhere Cloud.

We strongly recommend using Myriad Anywhere Cloud for several reasons:

  1. Updates: Myriad Anywhere Cloud receives new updates several times a month, whilst Self-Hosted usually only gets updated every 3 months or so.
  2. Security: Myriad Anywhere Cloud is hosted securely in Microsoft Azure data centres and comes with all the appropriate SSL certificates to make sure that your end users are always able to access the website from most modern web browsers. Further, you usually do not need to make any modifications to your firewall as the connection to the Myriad Anywhere Cloud is done as a secure encrypted outbound connection directly from the computer running Myriad Remote Edit Server ("RES") it ONLY allows data to be transmitted between Myriad Anywhere Cloud and Myriad RES.

If you do decide that you want to "self-host" Myriad Anywhere instead of using Myriad Anywhere Cloud then please do read this document carefully as you will be responsible for ensuring your network remains secure.

What is "Myriad Anywhere (Self-Hosted)"?

With this solution, you control the platform that hosts Myriad Anywhere. This means that you provide both the web server that the Anywhere Web Service runs on, and the hosting for the web site that your presenter will visit to access Myriad Anywhere.

The main advantage to hosting Myriad Anywhere yourself is that you can control all aspects of the platform and security and because it is running on your own infrastructure, there are no additional hosting costs to pay to a 3rd party (unless you are using 3rd party cloud services of course).

Initial installation & setup for "Myriad Anywhere Self-Hosted"

This document will outline the process for installing and setting up the necessary components and infrastructure needed to enable you to host your own Myriad Anywhere (Self Hosted).

Before you get started, there are a few prerequisites you will need as well as some additional things you need to be aware of.

You will need:

  • Full access to your web server (running Internet Information Services IIS).
  • Suitable domain URL for users to access.
  • SSL Certificate for your domain.
  • Latest Remote Edit Server (RES) software.
  • Remote Edit Server (RES) should be installed and configured on the same PC.

You should only attempt to setup a Myriad Anywhere (Self Hosted) if you are:

  • Comfortable with all the terms, technology and systems listed above.
  • Familiar with configuring and managing IIS.
  • Have full admin access to all systems and authorisation to make changes.

This documentation is intended to provide a brief outline of the processes involved. It is assumed that you are already familiar with the underlying technology and have experience using all the tools involved. We will also not cover every step of each process so you may be required to follow onscreen instructions or do some independent research on how things may relate to your specific setup.

CAUTION – Whilst we have tried to make this process as simple as possible to allow a wide range of stations to participate in the Myriad Anywhere (Self Hosted), we are not able to offer specific technical assistance on the setup process. If you are not familiar and comfortable with the technologies and terms listed above, then you should carefully consider whether you should use Myriad Anywhere Cloud instead.

If you are not comfortable with setting up a self-hosted Myriad Anywhere but still want to offer Myriad Anywhere to your users, don’t worry, we now offer a ‘hosted’ version of the solution called Myriad Anywhere Cloud which offers all the benefits of Myriad Anywhere but with virtually no setup needed at your station as everything is hosted on our secure cloud platform. Myriad Anywhere Cloud is available for a small monthly fee.

Download the files you need

Before you start, it is a good idea to download the files you will for the process. You need to download two ‘ZIP’ files each of which contain numerous other files and folders.

Visit: https://www.broadcastradio.com/myriad-anywhere-support#1219196670

  • Scroll down to the Myriad Anywhere Server Self-Hosted section and choose the Myriad Anywhere Self Hosted v6 button to show the available options, then click the button to Download the “Myriad Anywhere Web Application”
  • From the same window, click the button to download the Prerequisites
  • Download both of zip files and extract them to a location that you can easily access later.

Installing Internet Information Services (IIS)

  • You will need to be running Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 (or higher) in order to enable this feature.

Follow these steps

  1. Click on the Windows Start button.
  2. Type ‘Turn Windows Features On or Off’ and select that option once it appears.
  3. Tick the Internet Information Services option, OK and then wait for the feature to finish installing:

  4. Navigate to the folder that IIS created on your C: drive C:\Inetpub.
  5. Create a new folder under there called "Anywhere" (C:\Inetpub\Anywhere)
  6. Locate the Anywhere.zip you downloaded earlier. Open the ‘.ZIP’ file (or folder if you have extracted it already).
  7. Copy the entire contents folder (this is the folder that contains the web.config file) into that C:\Inetpub\Anywhere folder created in step 5.
  8. Make sure that new C:\Inetpub\Anywhere folder is NOT marked as ‘read only’, and that all users have at least Read+Write (Full) access to that folder - in particular the SYSTEM and NETWORK SERVICE accounts.

  9. That completes the basic installation on the web site content.

Installing additional prerequisites

In addition to IIS, there are there additional prerequisites that you also need to install in the same PC.

  • URLRewrite
  • Node.js
  • IISNode

All three of these can be found in the Prerequisites folder than can be downloaded from the same location that you downloaded the Anywhere.zip file from. The names of the folders may be different in your zip but all 3 components will be there:

 

Once downloaded, it is important to install each of the prerequisites in the correct order which is:

  1. URLRewrite
  2. Node.js
  3. IISNode

Install URLRewrite

  1. Open the URLRewrite folder and run ‘rewrite_amd64_en-US.msi’
  2. Follow the standard installation instructions for this application.
  3. There are no options to worry about with this application so the process should complete after a few seconds.

Install Node.js

  1. Open the Node.js folder and run ‘node-v18.17.1-x64.msi’
  2. Click Next on the first few steps of the installation wizard.
  3. When prompted, click on the option to ‘Automatically Install The Necessary Tools’.
  4. The installation should then proceed as normal. During the installation process, you may see a few times when a ‘command’ or ‘Powershell’ window appears and asks you to ‘press any key’ to confirm. Follow all on screen instructions to complete the installation.
  5. This process takes several minutes so be patient!
  6. You may see a final ‘Powershell’ process where you may need to type ‘enter’ and press return to close the Powershell window.

Install IISNode

  1. Open the IISNode folder and run ‘iisnode-full-v0.2.21-x64.msi’
  2. Follow the standard instructions on the installation program. There are no options to worry about so the process should complete very quickly.

All prerequisites are now installed.

Additional steps for installing Myriad Anywhere

There are a few additional steps that need to be competed for everything to work. This information was taken from articles

here  https://github.com/tjanczuk/iisnode/issues/52

and

https://github.com/tjanczuk/iisnode/issues/497

Although there is no need to read these as the steps required are summarized below.

  1. Launch the IIS Manager (Internet Information Services Manager) and highlight the top node in the tree.
  2. In the center section, look in the bottom section under "Management" and double click on Feature Delegation.
  3. Find "Handler Mappings" in the list and highlight it, then on the top right-hand side, select "Read/Write" to update it to Delegation: Read/Write.

  4. Return to the top left item in the tree view node.
  5. In the center section, under IIS, double click on URL Rewrite.
  6. In the top right-hand corner click on "View Server Variables".
  7. In the top right hand corner click on "Add.." and add a new variable called HTTP_CONNECTION.

  8. Next you need to create a new Application Pool.
    • Expand the tree view in the top left and select the Application Pools option.
    • On the right-hand Actions section, click on Add Application Pool.
    • Type ‘Myriad Anywhere´ into the Name field and then click on OK.
    • Next, select the Myriad Anywhere Application Pool you just created and then click on the Advanced Settings option in the right-hand Actions list:
    • Scroll down until you find Identity (under Process Model) and then click on the ‘edit’ button to the right of the option
    • Change the Built-in Account option to Local System then click OK
    • You can click on OK to close the Advanced Settings window.
  9. Now you need to change the Basic Settings for your Default Website to ‘point’ at the folder created earlier.
    • Click on the Default Website node in the left-hand tree view and then click on the Basic Settings option in the right ‘Actions’ section.
    • Click the Select button in the Application Pool section and select Myriad Anywhere from the drop-down list, then click OK.

    • In the Physical Path section, use the Browse button to select c:\inetpub\Anywhere.
  10. Next you need to add an SSL Certificate to your Default Website.
      • Click on the top left node on the tree view to select your IIS server.
      • Double click on the Server Certificates option.
      • For testing purposes, you can use the Self-Signed Certificate option. On the right-hand Actions section, click on the Create Self-Signed Certificate option.
      • Give your SSL certificate a name, select Personal from the drop-down list and then click on ok.
      • Click on the Default Website option on the left hand tree view and select the Bindings option from the right hand Actions menu.
      • Click on the Add button.
      • Select HTTPS from the Type drop down.
      • Select your newly created certificate from the SSL Certificate drop down.
      • Click on OK. You can now close IIS Manager as everything should be setup.

Testing your Myriad Anywhere website

You should now be able to test your Myriad Anywhere site by visiting:

https://localhost

 

Troubleshooting

  • When you try access the website, please make sure you are using the https:// prefix – most modern web browsers will only allow access to the microphone if the webpage is accessed via a secure https address.
  • Currently, Anywhere is only supported on the very latest versions of Chrome and Firefox, so please make sure you are running the latest version of either Chrome or Firefox.
  • Because the Certificate you created above is only a “Self Signed” certificate, most web browsers will display a warning message that the site isn’t fully secure. You can ignore this warning during your testing. Once you are ready to open your Anywhere website up to your remote users you will very likely want to obtain and install a proper public SSL Certificate on your IIS installation. These are available from many vendors and usually you would purchase it via the company you registered your internet domain with. They will be able to provide installation instructions when you order the SSL certificate.
  • If you see a 500.xxxx error message when you open the webpage, first, please try rebooting your PC. If you still see the issue, please check you have the latest Windows Updates installed as well.

Now that you have Myriad Anywhere Self Hosted installed, take a look at the Using Myriad Anywhere guide.

Webpage & YouTube Channel

For more information on using Myriad Anywhere, check our Website and YouTube channels for regular updates.

www.broadcastradio.com

https://youtube.com//c/Broadcastradio

 

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