If you want to use the telnet interface, running VLS is very easy: just type vls in a shell console, and that's all. Running vlsd will start VLS as a daemon and will detach itself from the launching shell. Remember that VLS will try to load its configuration file (vls.cfg) from the current directory, and if there is no vls.cfg there, it will try to load it from SYSCONF_DIR/etc/videolan (see section ) . If your log file is vls.log as in the example, VLS will need write access in the current directory, or you will see something like : *** Exception *** in copy constructor (0xbffffc98, copy of 0x80e30a8) Unable to open the log file "vls.log": Error: Could not open file 'vls.log': Permission denied Remember also that you must be root when using the "Interface" option in vls.cfg . If everything is right, you will see something like : VideoLAN Server v 0.5.3 (Jun 6 2003) - (c)1999-2003 VideoLAN 2002-03-09 17:24:51 [INFO/Vls] Module "channel:file" registered 2002-03-09 17:24:51 [INFO/Vls] Module "channel:network" registered 2002-03-09 17:24:51 [INFO/Vls] Module "mpegreader:file" registered 2002-03-09 17:24:51 [INFO/Vls] Module "mpegconverter:ts2ts" registered [...] What you can see on the screen (stderr) is exactly what goes in the log file vls.log . When VLS has been successfully started, it doesn't take any command from its standard input, so you can put it into background (you can use the screen utility to do that) . On the other hand, if you want to use the command line interface, please see the VideoLAN HOWTO . After VLS has been launched, it opens a telnet server (on the port 9999 by default). You can connect to this server with the following command : % telnet localhost 9999 You should see something like : Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to vls. Escape character is '^]'. Videolan Server Administration System Login: Then you must authenticate with a login/password pair defined in vls.cfg. When you have been successfully authenticated, you should see a prompt like : admin@vls> > Then you can type some commands, which are explained in the next paragraph. To log out, type logout after the telnet prompt . Usage: help [command] . Called with no argument, "help" gives the list of all the commands (available or not). Called with one argument it gives details about how to use the specified command . Usage: browse [input] . Called without argument, "browse" gives all programs of inputs. Called with one argument it only gives the programs of the specified input. Each program is given with its status . Usage: start <program> <channel> <input> [--loop] [--rtp] "start" launches the specified program of the specified input and broadcasts it through the specified channel. The option "--loop" makes the program being repeated indefinitely. The option "--rtp" makes the TS packet to be send through the RTP protocol, as defined in RFC 1889 and RFC 2250 . Usage: stop <channel> "stop" ends the broadcast of the specified channel . Usage: forward <channel> <speed> "forward" forwards the channel with the given speed. This does not work when reading directly from a device such as an MPEG encoding card, a DVB card or an acquisition card . Usage: rewind <channel> <speed> "rewind" rewinds the channel with the given speed. This does not work when reading directly from a device such as an MPEG encoding card, a DVB card or an acquisition card . Usage: suspend <channel> "suspend" suspends the streaming of the specified channel . Usage: resume <channel> "resume" resumes the streaming of the specified channel . Usage: logout "logout" closes the current administration session and the remote connection . Usage: shutdown "shutdown" stops all the programs and shutdowns VLS .