Using the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface

After you have run the installation wizard, all further configuration should be done using the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface.

This topic covers:

Accessing the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface

The Pexip Infinity Administrator interface is hosted on the Management Node. To access this:

  1. Open a web browser and type in the IP address or DNS name that you assigned to the Management Node using the installation wizard (you may need to wait a minute or so after installation is complete before you can access the Administrator interface).

  2. Until you have uploaded appropriate TLS certificates to the Management Node, your browser may present you with a warning that the website's security certificate is not trusted. You should proceed, but upload appropriate TLS certificates to the Management Node (and Conferencing Nodes, when they have been created) as soon as possible.

    The Pexip Infinity Conferencing Platform login page will appear.

  3. Log in using the web administration username and password you set using the installation wizard.

You are now ready to begin configuring the Pexip Infinity platform and deploying Conferencing Nodes.

As a first step, we strongly recommend that you configure at least 2 additional NTP servers or NTP server pools to ensure that log entries from all nodes are properly synchronized. For details, see Syncing with NTP servers.

You can also configure the Pexip Infinity platform to authenticate and authorize login accounts via a centrally managed LDAP-accessible server, such as a Windows Active Directory LDAP server, and/or an OpenID Connect (OIDC) provider such as Azure.

It may take some time for any configuration changes to take effect across the Conferencing Nodes. In typical deployments, configuration replication is performed approximately once per minute. However, in very large deployments (more than 60 Conferencing Nodes), configuration replication intervals are extended, and it may take longer for configuration changes to be applied to all Conferencing Nodes (the administrator log shows when each node has been updated).

Page navigation, search and filtering

You can view the status of the Pexip Infinity platform, and configure the system's operation, via a series of webpages accessed through the navigation menus (Status, History & Logs, System etc.) at the top of each page of the Administrator interface.

If you know the name of the item you want to configure, you can use the search box (above the menu bar) to search for configuration settings based on their associated menu, field name or field label text.

For example, if you search for "bandwidth" the search results will list all of the settings where bandwidth can be configured, such as the maximum call bandwidth settings at the global level, plus the individual service-level settings for each configured VMR, Call Routing Rule, Media Playback Service and so on. From the list you can then select the relevant item in the Add or instance or Matching field column to go to straight to the setting for that item.

You can also apply filters to many of the status pages within the Administrator interface by adding appropriate query parameters to the page URL. For example, when viewing participant history you could filter by a specific media node:

https://<manageraddress>/admin/conferencinghistory/participant/?media_node=<IP address>

In most cases you can filter by the same fields as stated in the filtering section of the relevant schema which, for participant history for example, is available at:

https://<manageraddress>/api/admin/history/v1/participant/schema/?format=json

Setting the start page

By default, you are taken to the Live view page after logging in, but you can change this to a different default page via the Global settings page (Platform > Global settings > Management web interface configuration) and configuring the Management start page setting.

Setting the session timeout

By default, Administrator interface web sessions time out after 30 minutes of inactivity. You can modify the Management web interface session timeout setting via the Global settings page (Platform > Global settings > Management web interface configuration). You can also disable timeouts completely by deselecting the Enable management web interface session timeout setting.

Changing the display language

The Administrator interface can be displayed in the following languages:

  • English (default)
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Traditional Chinese
  • Korean
  • Russian

To change the language, you must edit the language preferences within your browser settings and set it to use one of the supported languages. You must then refresh your browser for the changes to take effect. English is displayed if your browser's selected language is not supported.

The following articles provide help in changing your browser's language:

Timezones

The Administrator interface displays all times (except for those in the Administrator log and Support log, and usage graphs) in your local time. This is obtained from the timezone configured on the computer you are using to access the Administrator interface. So for example, if you are sitting in an office in London and you log in to a Management Node that is located in New York, call start and end times will be shown in London time.

The timezone being used is shown in brackets after the time, in the format 2024-02-25 22:00:12 (GMT).

Logs (and usage graphs, which are based on the information in the logs) are always shown in UTC because of the distributed nature of the Pexip Infinity platform. Logs use the format 2024-02-24T23:16:33.019+00:00.

Note that the VMs hosting the Management Node and Conferencing Nodes use the UTC timezone. Do not attempt to change the timezone on these systems.

Getting help and support

There are two types of help integrated into the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface:

  • Field-level help: by default, most configuration fields show an explanation of the field underneath the input area. You can turn these explanations on or off by clicking on the icon on the bottom right of the page.
  • Context-sensitive help: from any page, clicking on the Help link at the top right of the page opens a new browser window showing relevant information from the Pexip Infinity Administrator Guide. From there you can use the table of contents on the left-hand side of the help window to navigate and view the entire guide. There is also a search box at the top right of the browser window which you can use to search for individual words or phrases.

If you cannot find the information you require, contact your Pexip authorized support representative. Technical support for software issues is available while under a valid support contract and running a Pexip Infinity version no more than 2 major software releases behind the current release. Software bug fixes will only be provided in either the current or the next major release of software.

For an in-depth understanding of the Pexip Infinity platform, we recommend that you attend an appropriate training course — for more information, visit the Pexip Academy.