This repository is designed to offer a simple and quick-to-install video streaming solution for small audiences (up to 1k clients). Upon following all the insatllation steps with your server, your will receive: 1) an rtmp link for pushing your video stream, 2) an m3u8 link that can be used to play the stream in hls format, and 3) a link to a default webpage that you can use to watch your videos directly or embed into your website as an iframe.

This repository is best suited for you if you are looking for a streaming solution with one or more of the following:

• Requires minimum prior knowledge with Nginx
• Requires little or no cost to set up and maintain
• Globally accessible and free from platform policies

Additionally, you are ok with the following:

• Supports only casual streaming with a small (less than 1k) audience size
• Currently supports only Ubuntu/Debian Servers (works best with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)

The first step is to install the dependencies via the following script:

sudo bash scripts/install_dependencies.sh

The project uses Nginx 1.14.2 and depends on Nginx RTMP module for push streams. If you wish to use a newer version of Nginx or the current version is no longer supported, you can modify the version number in the installation script here

The following script would place the server configuration and webpage index in the appropraite directories:

sudo bash scripts/install_files.sh

To launch the server, run this nginx command:

sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx

To stop the server, run this nginx command:

sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -s stop

You may find other nginx commands in the guide in the References section. If you have any problems with the above commands, see TroubleShooting.

To push a video stream to your server, you can use any streaming software like OBS and stream to the following address with the stream key stream, where YOUR_SERVER_IP is the ip address of your server:

rtmp://YOUR_SERVER_IP/show

The video will be viewable at:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/

You may also play your video with an HLS player like VLC with this address:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP/hls/stream.m3u8

Now, go to assets/index1.html and change YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME to the domain name that you have certified. Perform the same action for assets/nginx1.conf.

Finally, install these two files with:

sudo bash scripts/install_files_tls.sh

And your server will be ready for https connections.

Before you enable https connections, you would need to own a domain name which points to your server's ip address. Once you have this step done, you can proceed to generate an SSL certificate with certbot. First, install the required dependencies with the folowing script:

sudo bash scripts/install_dependencies_tls.sh

Then, run the following command to obtain your certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx

If you are prompted to choose whether or not to redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, you can choose 1: No redirect to keep the http link or 2: Redirect to enable only https.

Optionally, remove the nginx installation used by certbot:

sudo bash scripts/remove_nginx.sh 

Now, go to assets/index1.html and replace YOUR_DOMAIN_NAME with the domain name you used for certification. Perform the same action for assets/nginx1.conf.

Finally, install these two files with the following script:

sudo bash scripts/install_files_tls.sh 

And your server will be ready to accept https connections.

This error might show up if some other application is taking the defualt port 80 or 443, or if you ran the launch server comand multiple times. To inspect which application is using which port, run:

sudo lsof -i -P -n | grep LISTEN

To free up the port (i.e. port 80), run:

sudo fuser -k 80/tcp

If you are using an AWS EC2 instance, you might need to edit your firewall settings.

Goto Your EC2 Instance -> Security Group -> Actions -> Edit Inbound Rules. Add custom TCP rules for port 1935 (rtmp), 80 and 443. Set the source to be Anywhere.

This project is adapted from this Youtube Tutorial from Jacob Kauffmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-9kVF6bWr4

Original reference and configuration assets belongs to this guide: https://docs.peer5.com/guides/setting-up-hls-live-streaming-server-using-nginx/