Possible to run *own* Stratus server or *not* use Stratus for RTFMP?

Question

Possible to run *own* Stratus server or *not* use it for RTFMP?
In other words, have Flash peers be able to talk RTFMP without needing to ever talk to Stratus server.
It may not always be possible to stay connected to Adobe's Stratus servers so this would be useful.
Possible? How?
cs

Answer 1

Flash Player 10.1 beta supports nc.connect("rtmfp:").  a NetConnection connected in this manner can only be used for groups communication (NetStream for multicast and NetGroup) between peers on the local LAN, or for a NetStream that is to receive a pure IP multicast (no P2P or C-S at all).  this is covered in the beta ActionScript reference page for NetConnection.connect().
note that this mode can't be used for 1-1 NetStreams, only group NetStreams and NetGroups.
in order for peers in the group to find each other on the local LAN, you must enable LAN peer discovery and add an IP multicast address to the groupspec.  when using GroupSpecifier to make the groupspec for joining groups (recommended), that's the "ipMulticastMemberUpdatesEnabled" property and the "addIPMulticastAddress()" method, respectively.  for example:
  var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection;
  nc.connect("rtmfp:");
  var gs:GroupSpecifier = new GroupSpecifier("com.example.chatapp/mychannel");
  gs.multicastEnabled = true;
  gs.postingEnabled = true;
  gs.ipMulticastMemberUpdatesEnabled = true;
  gs.addIPMulticastAddress("239.254.254.1:30000");
  var ng:NetGroup = new NetGroup(nc, gs.groupspecWithAuthorizations());
  var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc, gs.groupspecWithAuthorizations());
  // ... add event handlers, wait for NetGroup.Connect.Success & NetStream.Connect.Success, then post and publish/play streams
in this example, i specified a group called "com.example.chatapp/mychannel", where P2P multicast and posting are enabled, where peers can discover each other on the local LAN and they use IPv4 multicast address 239.254.254.1 UDP port 30000 to do so.
things get really interesting when you connect to Stratus and enable the group server channel (to get auto bootstrapping) and *also* use LAN peer discovery so that peers on the LAN will be more tightly meshed than they necessarily would through normal group topology evolution.
-mike