mediamtx/README.md

# rtsp-simple-server

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_rtsp-simple-server_ is a simple, ready-to-use and zero-dependency RTSP server, a software that allows multiple users to publish and read live video and audio streams. RTSP is a standardized protocol that defines how to perform these operations with the help of a server, that is contacted by both readers and publishers in order to negotiate a streaming protocol. The server is then responsible of relaying the publisher streams to the readers.

This software was developed with the aim of simulating a live camera feed for debugging purposes, and therefore to use files instead of real streams. Another reason for the development was the deprecation of _FFserver_, the component of the _FFmpeg_ project that allowed to create a RTSP server (but this server is not bounded to _FFmpeg_ and can be used with any software that supports publishing to RTSP).

Features:
* Read and publish streams via UDP and TCP
* Each stream can have multiple video and audio tracks, encoded in any format
* Publish multiple streams at once, each in a separate path, that can be read by multiple users
* Supports the RTP/RTCP streaming protocol
* Supports authentication
* Supports running a script when a client connects or disconnects
* Compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac, does not require any dependency or interpreter, it's a single executable

## Installation and basic usage

1. Download and extract a precompiled binary from the [release](https://github.com/aler9/rtsp-simple-server/releases) page.

2. Start the server:
   ```
   ./rtsp-simple-server
   ```

3. Publish a stream. For instance, you can publish a video file with _FFmpeg_:
   ```
   ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i file.ts -c copy -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream
   ```

4. Open the stream. For instance, you can open the stream with _VLC_:
   ```
   vlc rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream
   ```

   or _GStreamer_:
   ```
   gst-launch-1.0 -v rtspsrc location=rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream ! rtph264depay ! decodebin ! autovideosink
   ```

   or _FFmpeg_:
   ```
   ffmpeg -i rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream -c copy output.mp4
   ```

## Advanced usage and FAQs

#### Usage with Docker

Download and launch the image:
```
docker run --rm -it --network=host aler9/rtsp-simple-server
```

The `--network=host` argument is mandatory since Docker can change the source port of UDP packets for routing reasons, and this makes RTSP routing impossible. An alternative consists in disabling UDP and exposing the RTSP port, by creating a configuration file named `conf.yml` with the following content:
```yaml
protocols: [tcp]
```

and passing it to the container:
```
docker run --rm -it -v $PWD/conf.yml:/conf.yml -p 8554:8554 aler9/rtsp-simple-server
```

#### Publisher authentication

Create a file named `conf.yml` in the same folder of the executable, with the following content:
```yaml
paths:
  all:
    publishUser: admin
    publishPass: mypassword
```

Start the server:
```
./rtsp-simple-server
```

Only publishers that provide both username and password will be able to publish:
```
ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i file.ts -c copy -f rtsp rtsp://admin:mypassword@localhost:8554/mystream
```

It's also possible to set different credentials for each path:
```yaml
paths:
  path1:
    publishUser: admin
    publishPass: mypassword

  path2:
    publishUser: admin
    publishPass: mypassword
```

WARNING: RTSP is a plain protocol, and the credentials can be intercepted and read by malicious users (even if hashed, since the only supported hash method is md5, which is broken). If you need a secure channel, use RTSP inside a VPN.

#### Remuxing, re-encoding, compression

_rtsp-simple-server_ is an RTSP server: it publishes existing streams and does not touch them. It is not a media server, that is a far more complex and heavy software that can receive existing streams, re-encode them and publish them.

To change the format, codec or compression of a stream, you can use _FFmpeg_ or _Gstreamer_ together with _rtsp-simple-server_, obtaining the same features of a media server. For instance, if we want to re-encode an existing stream, that is available in the `/original` path, and make the resulting stream available in the `/compressed` path, it is enough to launch _FFmpeg_ in parallel with _rtsp-simple-server_, with the following syntax:
```
ffmpeg -i rtsp://localhost:8554/original -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency -b 600k -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:8554/compressed
```

#### Counting clients

The current number of clients, publishers and receivers is printed in each log line; for instance, the line:
```
2020/01/01 00:00:00 [2/1/1] [client 127.0.0.1:44428] OPTION
```

means that there are 2 clients, 1 publisher and 1 receiver.

#### Full configuration file (conf.yml)

```yaml
# supported stream protocols (the handshake is always performed with TCP)
protocols: [udp, tcp]
# port of the TCP rtsp listener
rtspPort: 8554
# port of the UDP rtp listener
rtpPort: 8000
# port of the UDP rtcp listener
rtcpPort: 8001
# timeout of read operations
readTimeout: 5s
# timeout of write operations
writeTimeout: 5s
# script to run when a client connects
preScript:
# script to run when a client disconnects
postScript:
# enable pprof on port 9999 to monitor performance
pprof: false

# these settings are path-dependent. The settings under the path 'all' are
# applied to all paths that does not match another path in the map.
paths:
  all:
    # username required to publish
    publishUser:
    # password required to publish
    publishPass:
    # IPs or networks (x.x.x.x/24) allowed to publish
    publishIps: []

    # username required to read
    readUser:
    # password required to read
    readPass:
    # IPs or networks (x.x.x.x/24) allowed to read
    readIps: []

```

#### Full command-line usage

```
usage: rtsp-simple-server [<flags>]

rtsp-simple-server v0.0.0

RTSP server.

Flags:
  --help     Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
  --version  print version

Args:
  [<confpath>]  path to a config file. The default is conf.yml. Use 'stdin' to
                read config from stdin
```

#### Compile and run from source

Install Go &ge; 1.12, download the repository, open a terminal in it and run:
```
go run .
```

You can perform the entire operation inside Docker with:
```
make run
```

## Links

Related projects
* https://github.com/aler9/rtsp-simple-proxy
* https://github.com/aler9/gortsplib
* https://github.com/flaviostutz/rtsp-relay

IETF Standards
* RTSP 1.0 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2326
* RTSP 2.0 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7826
* HTTP 1.1 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616