How to deploy the Recording Connector

The Recording Connector is used for the purpose of recording meetings on-premise to a server separate from the host’s device on which the meeting takes place. The server is deployed within the environment where the meeting takes place and is used to record meetings.

In order to be deployed over any virtualization platform that supports OVF, the Zoom Recording Connector is packaged as an OVF file and can be downloaded and installed from the following URLs:

• There are three VMware products: VMware VSphere, VMware Workstation, and VMware Fusion
• The Nutanix environment (tested on Nutanix AHV and ESXi (AOS 5.5.5))
• supports Hyper-V (best-effort support) on Windows Server 2012/2016.
• Currently, Virtual Box does not support Hyper-V.

Here you can find the specifications for the VM that you will be using.

What are the prerequisites for deploying the Recording Connector?

• The meeting connector must be active in the current Business, Enterprise or Education plan
• As part of a Cloud Recording subscription
• That has been enabled by the Zoom Sales team

The Recording Connector: How to set it up

1. Initially, a Meeting Connector virtual machine should be provisioned and set up.
2. Go to your Zoom profile and then click Meeting Connector in the Advanced menu.
3. In order to download the OVF and VMDK files, click on Recording VM and then click on the Download tab.
4. I have opened the OVF and VMDK files into my VM Client and imported them into my VM.
5. Log on with the default credentials of the Virtual Machine once it has been started.
   • Username: admin
   • Password: If this is not set up to be generated at startup, this password will be generated randomly, but if it is set up to be generated on startup, it will not be displayed.

   

6. If you want to find out the IP address of the server, you can use the command ifconfig. You can configure the IP address of the server manually if it does not have one. 
7. Please navigate to https://IPaddress:5480 in your browser using the IP address listed in the results of ifconfig, with the IP address representing the internet address.
8. Simply login with your credentials that were previously created. Change the password when logging in for the first time.
9. If you entered the Meeting Connector token from the Meeting Connector page of the Zoom web console, it will be visible on the Configure tab. If your Zone Controller is located at a different location, please enter its address here as well.
10. Click on Submit.

What is the process for changing the Admin login password?

1. Click Login in the Virtual Machine.
2. You will be prompted to enter the administrative credentials.
3. From the User menu, click Manage.
4. You will be able to change the password for the admin account by clicking Change Password. 
5. You will be asked for your current Administrator password, then you will be asked to enter your new one, then you will need to confirm.
6. Click on Modify.

Activating cloud recording in a meeting that is taking place on-premises

Having set up your Recording Connector VM, you will need to enable your account to use the on-premise cloud recording functionality. To do so, follow these steps.

1. Zoom’s advanced section is located under the Meeting Connector section of your profile.
2. To access Zoom’s advanced section, click the Go Live button.
3. On the On-Premises Cloud Recording page, click Enable.

Here are the steps you need to follow to access your recordings

It is normal that an audio recording of a meeting is automatically saved to the server’s storage by default, under the following path: /opt/zoom/cmr-storage/.  In order to store the recordings in one of these different folders, they are first saved in the following location:

• Archive: A collection of compressed audio recordings of meetings.
• Recording: The recordings are currently in the process of being converted from raw data to finished media files.
• Playback: The production has already been processed and the final output is ready for viewing.

It is imperative to note that completed recordings are saved to the following location: /opt/zoom/cmr-storage/replay/year/month/date/confID once they are complete.

Changes to the storage location can be made using the following steps:

A network file system (NFS) can be mounted as a location to store recording files on the recording server:

1. You will need to edit the ssb.cfg file in the /opt/zoom/conf/ directory
2. By changing the value of cmr_home in the section under [CMR].
   [cmr_home] is the recording path for NFS storage mounted on the system
3. Change the value under [MRT] for mrt_home to:
   A path in the NFS file system for the transcoding folder named mrt_home