Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@ccoles146

ccoles146/server-install.md

Created April 3, 2024 15:12
Show Gist options

  • Select an option

    Learn more about clone URLs
  • Save ccoles146/87023f1ebc89c0525801bc46d3bf4c97 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.

Select an option

Learn more about clone URLs
Save ccoles146/87023f1ebc89c0525801bc46d3bf4c97 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
Quick Local Video streaming server with push to multiple destinations
Raw
server-install.md

Video Streaming Server

Installation

  1. Download and install Ubuntu, (e.g. server 22.04)
  2. Configure server with static IP address
  3. Install Nginx-RTMP
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libnginx-mod-rtmp

Installation of ffmpeg (optional)

ffmpeg can be used for streaming a pre-recorded video directly from this server. It is useful for testing.

sudo apt install ffmpeg

Installation of youtube-dl (optional)

youtube-dl can be used for downloading streaming content from YouTube or elsewhere.

sudo apt install youtube-dl

youtube-dl can simply be run using a command like:

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iom_nhYQIYk

Streaming a video to the RTMP server (optional)

This will only work once the RTMP service is running. The command to use later is:

ffmpeg -re -i "Introducing App Platform by DigitalOcean-iom_nhYQIYk.mp4" -c:v copy -c:a aac -ar 44100 -ac 1 -f flv rtmp://localhost/live/stream

Streaming at multiple different qualities (Transcoding) can be done as follows, but RTMP must first be configured using dash_variant and/or hls_variant

ffmpeg -re -i "Test Video.mp4" \
    -c:a aac -ac 2 -b:a 128k -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v baseline -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency -vsync cfr -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr" -b:v 500k -minrate 500k -maxrate 500k -bufsize 1000k -g 60 -s 640x360 -f flv rtmp://example.com/dash/streamname_low \
    -c:a aac -ac 2 -b:a 128k -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v baseline -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency -vsync cfr -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr" -b:v 1500k -minrate 1500k -maxrate 1500k -bufsize 3000k -g 60 -s 1280x720 -f flv rtmp://example.com/dash/streamname_med \
    -c:a aac -ac 2 -b:a 128k -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v baseline -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency -vsync cfr -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr" -b:v 5000k -minrate 5000k -maxrate 5000k -bufsize 10000k -g 60 -s 1920x1080 -f flv rtmp://example.com/dash/streamname_high

Configure RTMP

Edit the nginx.conf file using nano which may need installing first.

sudo apt install nano /Y
sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Add the following text to the end:

rtmp {
        server {
                listen 1935;
                chunk_size 4096;
                allow publish 127.0.0.1;
                deny publish all;
                # Specify buffer settings
                buflen 5s;  # Set the buffer length

                application live {
                        live on;
                        record off;
                }
        }
}

Note allow publish ip-address; # is the IP address that streams may be receive from. This will need modifying to accept a stream from another server e.g. OBS or ProPresenter7.

Sending Streams to the server

When the application is called live then the target can be set as follows:

rtmp://ip-address/live

The path or the key can be whatever you want e.g.: obs_stream

Warning Ensure the RMTP server settings in nginx.conf is configured to allow publish from the sending ip-address.

Watching an RTMP stream

To watch the RTMP stream from the local server:

  • Use VLC player
  • Open Network Stream
  • rtmp://ip-address/live/obs_stream

Add Monitoring Configuration (optional)

The monitoring site will be available at port 8080

Creating the following configuration:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/site-available/rtmp

Add the following contents:

server {
    listen 8080;
    server_name  localhost;

    # rtmp stat
    location /stat {
        rtmp_stat all;
        rtmp_stat_stylesheet stat.xsl;
    }
    location /stat.xsl {
        root /var/www/html/rtmp;
    }

    # rtmp control
    location /control {
        rtmp_control all;
    }
}

Create the necessary folders and templates:

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/rtmp
sudo gunzip -c /usr/share/doc/libnginx-mod-rtmp/examples/stat.xsl.gz > /var/www/html/rtmp/stat.xsl
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/rtmp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/rtmp

View your stats at http://ip-address:8080/stat

Add Modern Stream Formats

To add HLS and MPEG DASH support we need the following configuration without our live application:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Create the config to match:

...
rtmp {
        server {
...
                application live {
                    	live on;
                    	record off;
                        hls on;
                        hls_path /var/www/html/stream/hls;
                        hls_fragment 3;
                        hls_playlist_length 60;

                        dash on;
                        dash_path /var/www/html/stream/dash;
                }
        }
}
...

Now create the necessary directory and edit the rtmp site config

sudo mkdir /var/www/html/stream
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/rtmp
. . .
server {
    listen 8088;

    location / {
        add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
        root /var/www/html/stream;
    }
}

types {
    application/dash+xml mpd;
}

Note Now reload the configuration.

View the streams using a stream viewer

HLS: http://ip-address:8088/hls/stream.m3u8 DASH: http://ip-address:8088/dash/stream.mpd

View the streams from the Internet

You need a player such as a Chrome extension. However there is a player here: https://reference.dashif.org/dash.js/latest/samples/dash-if-reference-player/index.html

Enter the URL as above to view the stream.

Alternative configurations

rtmp {
    server {
        listen 1935;
        chunk_size 4096;

        publish_time_fix off;

        application dash {
            live on;
            record off;
            allow publish ip-address;
            allow publish 127.0.0.1;
            deny publish all;

            # Copy incoming streams to the HLS application
            exec ffmpeg -re -i rtmp://localhost:1935/$app/$name -c:v copy -c:a copy -f flv rtmp://localhost:1935/hls/${name};

            dash on;
            dash_nested on;
            dash_path /tmp/dash;
            dash_fragment 3;
            dash_playlist_length 120;
            dash_cleanup on;

            dash_clock_compensation http_head;
            dash_clock_helper_uri https://<your_server_domain_here>/time;

            dash_variant _low   bandwidth="500000"  width="640"  height="360";
            dash_variant _med  bandwidth="1500000" width="1280"  height="720";
            dash_variant _high bandwidth="5000000" width="1920" height="1080" max;
        }

        application hls {
            live on;
            hls on;
            hls_path /tmp/hls;
            hls_nested on;

            hls_variant _low   BANDWIDTH=500000;
            hls_variant _med  BANDWIDTH=1500000;
            hls_variant _high BANDWIDTH=5000000;
        }
    }
}

Reload the changed configuration

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Restream to Web-based services

In order to push the stream out to other servers such as YouTube or Facebook the following can be used:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
        application relays {
            live on;
            push rtmp1.youtube.com;
            push rtmp1.facebook.com;
        }

Note Don't forget to reload the configuration.

Firewall Configuration

If you have a firewall such as ufw then the following rules will be required:

  • 8088/tcp #dash or hls streams
  • 1935/tcp #rtmp streams
  • 8080/tcp #stats page

In ufw use the following:

sudo ufw allow from your_ip_address to any port http-alt
sudo ufw allow 8088/tcp
sudo ufw allow 1935/tcp

Encryption

If the server can have a subdomain e.g. live.example.com then the certificate will apply to that. Then we may use some dynamic dns service to keep the dns entry updated if we don't have a static IP.

  • Install letsencrypt sudo apt install letsencrypt
  • Stop nginx sudo systemctl stop nginx
  • sudo letsencrypt certonly
  • Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name <your_server_domain_here>;
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }

    server {
        listen       443 ssl;
        server_name  <your_server_domain_here>;

        ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/<your_server_domain_here>/fullchain.pem;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/<your_server_domain_here>/privkey.pem;
        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
        ssl_dhparam /etc/ssl/certs/dhparam.pem;
        ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA';
        ssl_session_timeout 1d;
        ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:50m;
        ssl_stapling on;
        ssl_stapling_verify on;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=15768000;
...
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment