Virtual Directories and Linux problem

The readme is actually in the components zip - not the product package - my bad (editing above to reflect that)
You can get that here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/components.html

I genuinely appreciate the reply (different screen name here but it's the same dude). The problem I'm having has more to do with virtual directories, and not virtual hosts or application folders. What I've found in the meantime is that I can connect to virtual directories only through a custom player, and not through the FLVPlayback component. I'd be interested to know, however, which readme.txt file you were talking about previously. Because it mentions some regarding the scriptlib, perhaps there's something there which needs to be added on Linux which is there by default on Windows...

Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to spell all that out. I'm sure it will be helpful to many, even if it's not the exact solution to my problem.

I posted this to a similiar-ish question earlier so its a coverall for a lot of things - Have you configured the FMS XML server so it knows that /var/fms is where files are? Look at number 2 and 4 below

Important Things to make FLV streaming work on FMS 2 (that aren't very well documented)

1. Make sure ports 1935 and 1111 are open and poked thru firewalls. 1935 is the port the streams are on, 1111 is for the admin console.

2. Next upload your flv file to the applications directory on your server BUT not just into that directory, you need to create an application subdirectory:

Path-to-server\appliations\appname\streams\_definst_\yourfile.flv
Whats with the 'streams' and '_definst_' directories you may ask?
Where is that documented? its not as far as i can tell.
In Linux:
/opt/macromedia/fms/applications/appname/streams/_definst_/yourfile.flv

3. Next - per the readme.txt in the components zip (see below) load the main.asc file to the right directory on the server! This is easy if you're on windows because the readme tells you where, not so on Linux because apparently no-one at adobe knew - it is actually answered with "???"
QUOTE:
Extract the .asc files from the ZIP file in the following folder on your hard disk:
In Windows: C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash Media Server 2\scriptlib\components
In Linux: ???
END QUOTE:

So where do you put that main.asc file then in Linux?
You put it in your app folder at the root e.g. Path-to-server\appliations\appname\main.asc
So in the example above it would be:
/opt/macromedia/fms/applications/appname/main.asc

If you can't find the main.asc file, you can download it as part of the fms2_components.zip
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/components.html
NOTE: if you put the file there while an instance is running you need to reload the instance. The readme says to restart your server, I found reloading the app worked too. Try both.

4. Whats the RTMP url for my flvs?
You'll need to use an IP unless you've created a DNS entry for your FMS server.
It would be localhost if its on the same machine especially on windows.
Note: If you are running localhost on your laptop you'll need to adjust the security playback parameters of your flash player to see it see - http://www.mcalister.cc/ddd/flv/index.html

Next make your html and swf file in flash: In the FLV Component parameter the path to your flv is:

rtmp://flash.company.com/appname/_definst_/filename.flv
rtmp://127.0.0.1/appname/_definst_/filename.flv
rtmp://localhost/appname/_definst_/filename.flv
NOTE: the streams folder is missing from this url - that is deliberate (also not well documented)

5. Login into your admin console (login won't work if the ports aren't available and open)
Start an instance of your application (flv).
The default instance name is _definst_ as noted above. If you change this, you'll need to change the rtmp url above.
Publish your flash swf and html from Flash 8 or CS3.
Put the html and swf(s) on your web server - if you have flash swf controls for the video, you'll need to upload that too.
Open the url of the html page on your web server - Hey presto! you're streaming video

Thanks to the following site who also suffered the same frustration but on windows.
http://www.mcalister.cc/ddd/flv/index.html