LeaseWeb labs
Streaming Video on Demand with nginx and RTMP Module In this tutorial we will show a simple way to stream different types of video files using the Nginx server and RTMP modules. Before starting the work, we will try to offer a small overview over the advantages of using RTMP versus HTTP video delivery. Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) was initially developed by Macromedia, for streaming on-demand and live media to Adobe Flash applications. It is a TCP-based TCP-based protocol which maintains persistent connections and is defined as a “stateful” protocol. This means that from the first time a client connects until the time it disconnects, the streaming server keeps track of the client’s actions. On the other side, HTTP is a “stateless” application protocol used to deliver hypermedia hypermedia information across the Internet worldwide. Advantages of HTTP over RTMP: Less likely to be blocked by firewalls at different levels in the network; RTMP uses default port 1935, which can be blocked sometimes, especially within corporate corporate firewalls Supported by more CDNs (it supports easier mirroring and edge caching) More expertise in customizing HTTP Advantages of RTMP over HTTP: Ability to provide multicast support Security and IP protection, using TLS/SSL or RTMPE Seeking: particularly advantageous for long-duration content because the viewer
for HTTP-delivered video Reconnect: if there is a network disruption, the client can re-establish a connection, while the video continues to play from the buffer; when the client reconnects, the buffer will begin filling to avoid any disruption in video or audio flow And now, let’s start to build our streaming server. To achieve this, we will compile the Nginx source code together with RTMP modules on a Ubuntu 12.04 box. Logged in as root: 1 2 3
cd ~ mkdir nginx cd nginx
Install the necessary software and dependencies: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
# for compiler and git apt-get install git gcc make #for the HTTP rewrite module which requires the PCRE library apt-get install libpcre3-dev # for SSL modules apt-get install libssl-dev
Clone Nginx RTMP module source code from Github: 1
git clone https://githu b.com/arut/ngin x-rtmp-module
Download the Nginx source code and extract it from the archive. At the time when we are writing this blog post, the current version is 1.4.3: 1 2 3
wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.4.3.tar.gz tar zxpvf nginx-1.4.3.tar.gz cd nginx-1.4.3
Let’s compile Nginx: 1 2 3
./configure --add-module=/root/nginx/nginx-rtmp-module/ --with-http_ssl_module --pre make make install
Now it is the time to create a configuration file for Nginx. Go to: 1 2 3
cd /usr/local/nginx-streaming/conf mv nginx.conf nginx.cong.bkp nano nginx.conf
and paste the configuration below. This configuration is suggested by the documentation of the RTMP module. 1 2 3 4
worker_processes
1;
events { worker_connec tions
1024;
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rtmp { server { listen 1935; chunk_size 4000; # video on demand for flv files application vod { play /var/flvs; } # video on demand for mp4 files application vod2 { play /var/mp4s; } } } # HTTP can be used for accessing RTMP stats http { access_log /var/log/nginx/ access-streamin g.log; error_log /var/log/ngin x/error-streamin g.log; server { # in case we have another web server on port 80 listen 8080; # This URL provides RTMP statistics in XML location /stat { rtmp_stat all; rtmp_stat_style sheet stat.xsl; } location /stat.xsl { # XML stylesheet to view RTMP stats. # Copy stat.xsl wherever you want # and put the full directory path here root /var/www/; } location /hls { # Serve HLS fragments types { application/vn d.apple.mpegurl m3u8; video/mp2t ts; } alias /tmp/app; expires -1; } } }
To be able to see some nice statistics about the streaming, we must to copy stats.xml in the folder specified in the configuration above. 1 2
mkdir /var/www cp /root/nginx/nginx-rtmp-module/stat.xsl /var/www/
And (re)start the Nginx server with: 1
/usr/local/nginx-streaming/sbin/nginx
It’s time to play! As we defined in the Nginx configuration, the server can find some mp4 files in /var/mp4s or flv files in /var/flvs. You can download an mp4 file here, right click and save it in /var/mp4s with the name sample.mp4.
Now, if you have a video player which supports RTMP protocol (eg: VLC), you can play it directly there. From the VLC menu, Media->Open Network Stream. In the URL field we input: 1
rtmp://
:1935/vod2/sample.mp4
Where is the IP or the hostname of the server where we installed Nginx.
And click play.
If you want to show this video on a website, you can use a flash player as Flowplayer or JW Player. Below we will show how to use Flowplayer to achieve this. First we need to download flowplayer.rtmp-3.2.12.swf (see the download link at the bottom of the page). The html code below shows how to implement RTMP using Flowplayer. You should just replace the /path/to/background.png, the and the
/path/to/flowplayer.rtmp-3.2.12.swf. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
<script src="http://rel eases.flowplayer .org/js/flowpla yer-3.2.12.min. js"> 
<script> $f("player", "http://releases.flowplayer.org/swf/flowplayer-3.2.16.swf", { clip: { url: 'sample.mp4', scaling: 'fit', provider: 'hddn' }, plugins: { hddn: { url: "/path/to/flowp layer.rtmp-3.2. 12.swf", // netConnectionUrl defines where the streams are found netConnectionUr l: 'rtmp://:193 5/vod2' } }, canvas: { backgroundGradi ent: 'none' } });
That’s all. Of course the solution presented in the post above is minimalist and if you need to scale globally with your Video on Demand product, probably you need a CDN solution.
November 20, 2013 Razvan Tudorica (Innovation Engineer) System Administration, Tools
cdn, nginx, rtmp, streaming, video
30 thoughts on “Streaming Video on Demand with nginx and RTMP Module”
Pingback: How to do VoD with nginx | R ăzvan Tudorică
Yoga Darma
December 4, 2013 at 9:14 am
hi, i’m trying to make streaming VOD that running on web. i’m using your HTML code but it doesn’t want to running the video. but when i using vlc it’s working. can you please help me? sorry i can’t speak English well. thank you
Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer) December 4, 2013 at 10:11 am
@Yoga: Please share some more information about you Nginx configuration, without that it is hard to help you.
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Yoga Darma December 6, 2013 at 9:20 am
@Maurits i only follow this tutorial. so my configuration will be the same as this tutorial’s configuration. am i doing something wrong ??if yes can you tell me what it is?? thank you so much
Yoga Darma December 6, 2013 at 9:29 am
@Razvan Tudorica : maybe i should try the HLS streaming. can you tell me what is the difference? and why my HTML code is not working? i doing all your instruction in this tutorial. that’s make me curious. thank you so much
inan January 12, 2014 at 10:28 pm
Hey, nice tutorial – great job. It’s possible to secure the streaming? Maybe with htaccess or whatever…
inan
January 12, 2014 at 10:49 pm
Hey me again When i’m typing the command make i get a error like this: make: *** No rule to make target `build’, needed by `default’. Stop How can i solve this problem?
inan January 13, 2014 at 8:54 am
Hello, i solved the Problem. I was in the wrong directory It’s possible to restream from my Live stream from my VLC Server?
razvan January 22, 2014 at 10:55 am
Hi inan, You can secure your stream as described in this blog post http://rarut.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/secure-links-in-nginx-rtmp/ written by the author of the rtmp modules.
Jamie M. February 17, 2014 at 6:26 pm
When I stream from OBS to my nginx rtmp VPS server occasionally it’ll lose contact with nginx. The only way to get it to connect back to nginx is to “sudo killall -9 nginx” then “sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx” and tada, OBS reconnects automatically and starts streaming again like a champ. Can you let me know any specific way to test and see what’s going on with nginx? -Jamie M.
david February 27, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Hi, Great tutorial thanks, only problem I have is when I try to start the NGINX server I get the following error.. nginx: [emerg] unknown directive “worker_processes ” in /usr/local/nginxstreaming//conf/nginx.conf:1 Any ideas why..?
Mazen April 16, 2014 at 11:55 am
Hi , how to make nginx start on startup? without making it manually.
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WowzaAdmirer October 14, 2014 at 10:55 am
Thanks for a post. I’ve been using WMSPanel which is a reporting panel for media servers and now I see that they support reporting for nginx-rtmp-module. I hope this will be useful for you guys: https://wmspanel.com/nginx
Tim Beyer December 14, 2014 at 7:03 pm
Hey there, I have setup nginx with the rtmp-module on an Ubuntu machine. Right now my rtmp section looks like this and works perfect:
rtmp { server { listen 1935; chunk_size 4096; application live { live on; record off; push rtmp://server/app/key; } } } The thing is I don’t want it to drop the stream when someone disconnects with OBS. Instead I want to hold it at least with a black screen, image or better, to play randomly local files from the server. Now I have for testing purposes a .mp4 uploaded to var/mp4s, but haven’t been able yet to make it working. Could you maybe help me out on this one? In general I want to make it stream 24/7 – if someone connects with a livestream it stops the videofile playing and let’s the live-stream through. If the streamer disconnects it plays again randomly files from the above folder. Hopefully you’ve an idea how to do this. Thanks in advance! Best, Tim
Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer) December 15, 2014 at 9:37 am
@Tim: Thanks for your comment. It seems like you have a good setup already. What player are you using? Can’t you implement a smart player that detects the stream (un)availability and gets another playlist on failure? That is probably the way that I would go.
Tim Beyer December 16, 2014 at 1:29 am
Hi, Maurits – I’m streaming the content to Twitch. So unfortunately I have no access to the player… :/
Robin December 29, 2014 at 8:47 pm
How can I configure the rtmp to rtmps?
Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer) December 30, 2014 at 1:07 am
@Robin: Thank you for your comment. I know FMS and Red5 support RTMPS, but I am not aware of a solution for Nginx. I suppose just terminating the SSL in a reverse proxy setup won’t work or did you not try that (yet)? Sorry that I can’t help you better. Keep us posted on the solution!
Arjun April 22, 2015 at 10:54 am
Do anyone know how to get the published stream name in config file?
Ioannis July 25, 2015 at 8:47 pm
Hi, Try my project for this https://github.com/upggr/UPG.GR-MEDIA-SERVER Easier, a single command and you are done
Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer) July 26, 2015 at 6:27 am
@Ioannis: Thank you for this link. I’m going to have a look at it!
Rizal July 30, 2015 at 4:41 am
Hello sir, how to run video streaming rtmp on xbmc/kodi ? thx
Thor September 17, 2015 at 9:10 pm
I’m trying to figure out what @Tim was trying to do. Anyone end up finding out how to make the application automatically play files from /var/mp4s when there a live feed isn’t active?
Harpreet November 6, 2015 at 9:08 pm
Hi, Thanks for such details information. I followed the instructions and setup Nginx-rtmp on my ubuntu 14.04 system. Nginx server is working fine as it is showing me default Nginx page on localhost. But RTMP is not working, neither through VLC nor web player. Following is my config : #user nobody; worker_processes 1; error_log /var/log/nginx/nginx_error.log; #error_log logs/error.log notice; #error_log logs/error.log info; #pid logs/nginx.pid; user www-data www-data; events { worker_connections 1024; } rtmp { server { listen 1935; chunk_size 4000; # video on demand for flv files application vod { play /var/flvs; }
# video on demand for mp4 files application vod2 { play /var/mp4s; } } } # HTTP can be used for accessing RTMP stats http { access_log /var/log/nginx/http_access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/http_error.log; server { # in case we have another web server on port 80 listen 8000; # This URL provides RTMP statistics in XML location /stat { rtmp_stat all; rtmp_stat_stylesheet stat.xsl; } location /stat.xsl { # XML stylesheet to view RTMP stats. # Copy stat.xsl wherever you want # and put the full directory path here root /var/www/; } location /hls { # Serve HLS fragments types { application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8; video/mp2t ts; } alias /tmp/app; expires -1; } } } When I try to stream it through VLC it gives me following error : Your input can’t be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘rtmp://localhost:1935/vod2/sample.mp4’. Check the log for details. Please help me to figure it out. Thanks Harpreet Gill
kunal November 22, 2015 at 5:43 am
Hi, this is really a good tutorial about the VOD on Demand. but i have a question if you might can help me. I am looking for a way to deal with MXF Files to first convert into MP4 and then Play within VLC Player. suppose if a user open a vlc Player and wants to Play the VIdeo rtmp://10.30.0.345:1935/vod/video-ID01 can we do that ? any help will be really Helpful. thanks
