The Red5 streaming server installation on Linux is configured by default as a start-up service. This may be fine when you are running Red5 as a production server but, definitely not adequate for a development machine, where you may be deploying more than one open socket server (as I do). In such an environment you need to be able to start the server of your choice manually - when you need it. The method outlined below will reconfigure your Red5 server for manual boot. The Red5 service discussed runs on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

First you need to navigate to the init.d folder
cd /etc/init.d

Stop the Red5 service
sudo ./red5 stop

Remove all the default auto-config settings
sudo update-rc.d -f red5 remove

Finish up by specifying the new config settings (stop always)
sudo update-rc.d -f red5 stop 20 2 3 4 5 .

An untried (untried by me) alternative suggested kindly by Mikko Rantalainen is

"As an alternative, one could specify new config in the second step, for
example:

# start with sequence number 80 at run levels 2, 3, 4 and 5
# stop with sequence number 20 at run levels S, 0, 1 and 6
sudo update-rc.d red5 start 80 2 3 4 5 . stop 20 S 0 1 6 .

I'm not sure about the official run levels for latest debian or ubuntu but, historically runlevel 2 is supposed to be without network connection - so red5 should probably run only at run levels 3, 4 and 5. However, at least default install of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS seems to run at runlevel 2 with active network connection."

My thanks to R.G Manuel and Mikko Rantalainen without whom I would still probably be scratching my head on this one.