There is a rather simple way of getting status info from a running Flash Media Server. This can be used to draw graphs with Cacti for instance.

First make sure the admin API over HTTP is enabled in /opt/adobe/fms/conf/fms.ini

USERS.HTTPCOMMAND_ALLOW = true

Then enable the methods you need or use a keyword “All” in /opt/adobe/fms/conf/Users.xml

<AdminServer>
    <HTTPCommands>
        ...
        <Allow>All</Allow>
        <Deny></Deny>
        <Order>Deny,Allow</Order>
    </HTTPCommands>
</AdminServer>

Here is a working example of how to get the number of active connections with PHP (you need php-XML module to run this).

<?php
$adminUser='admin';
$adminPassw='SuperSecretPassword';

$xml=new DomDocument();
$url="http://localhost:1111/admin/getServerStats?auser=$adminUser&apswd=$adminPassw";
$xml->load($url);
$connected=getTagContents('connected',$xml);

printf("There are currently %d active connections on the server\n",$connected);

function getTagContents($tagName,$dom) {
    $node=$dom->getElementsByTagName($tagName)->item(0);
    return $node->nodeValue;
}
?>

In the example above I just extract a single value out of a returned XML that looks something like this:

<result>
    <level>status</level>
    <code>NetConnection.Call.Success</code>
    <timestamp>Thu 28 Apr 2011 11:59:24 AM EEST</timestamp>
    <data>
        <launchTime>Tue 26 Apr 2011 07:29:32 PM EEST</launchTime>
        <uptime>145792</uptime>
        <cpus>2</cpus>
        <cpu_Usage>0</cpu_Usage>
        <num_cores>1</num_cores>
        <memory_Usage>4</memory_Usage>
        <physical_Mem>98799616</physical_Mem>
        <io>
            <msg_in>1008000</msg_in>
            <msg_out>190805</msg_out>
            <msg_dropped>0</msg_dropped>
            <bytes_in>423676178</bytes_in>
            <bytes_out>3904886327</bytes_out>
            <reads>434063</reads>
            <writes>168869</writes>
            <bw_in>0</bw_in>
            <bw_out>0</bw_out>
            <total_connects>72</total_connects>
            <total_disconnects>69</total_disconnects>
            <connected>3</connected>
            <rtmp_connects>4</rtmp_connects>
            <rtmfp_connects>0</rtmfp_connects>
            <normal_connects>0</normal_connects>
            <virtual_connects>1</virtual_connects>
            <group_connects>3</group_connects>
            <service_connects>0</service_connects>
            <service_requests>0</service_requests>
            <admin_connects>0</admin_connects>
            <debug_connects>0</debug_connects>
            <total_threads>168</total_threads>
            <working_threads>2</working_threads>
            <swf_verification_attempts>0</swf_verification_attempts>
            <swf_verification_exceptions>0</swf_verification_exceptions>
            <swf_verification_failures>0</swf_verification_failures>
            <swf_verification_unsupported_rejects>0</swf_verification_unsupported_rejects>
            <swf_verification_matches>0</swf_verification_matches>
            <swf_verification_remote_misses>0</swf_verification_remote_misses>
            <server_bytes_in>0</server_bytes_in>
            <server_bytes_out>0</server_bytes_out>
            <rtmfp_lookups>0</rtmfp_lookups>
            <rtmfp_remote_lookups>0</rtmfp_remote_lookups>
            <rtmfp_remote_lookup_requests>0</rtmfp_remote_lookup_requests>
            <rtmfp_redirects>0</rtmfp_redirects>
            <rtmfp_remote_redirects>0</rtmfp_remote_redirects>
            <rtmfp_remote_redirect_requests>0</rtmfp_remote_redirect_requests>
            <rtmfp_forwards>0</rtmfp_forwards>
            <rtmfp_remote_forwards>0</rtmfp_remote_forwards>
            <rtmfp_remote_forward_requests>0</rtmfp_remote_forward_requests>
        </io>
    </data>
</result>

If you decide to pull status info from remote servers then keep in mind that it is not the best idea to make the admin API port world-accessible. Also be aware that the password is passed in plain text on the URL!

A better alternative might be to limit admin API calls to localhost and pass the needed values to your monitoring server over SNMP.