ATAK-UAS-RTSP

mediamtx is a ready-to-use and zero-dependency server and proxy that allows users to publish, read and proxy live video and audio streams through various protocols:

protocol	description	publish	read	proxy
RTSP	fastest way to publish and read streams	✔️	✔️	✔️
RTMP	allows to interact with legacy software	✔️	✔️	✔️
HLS	allows to embed streams into a web page	❌	✔️	✔️

Features:

• Publish live streams to the server
• Read live streams from the server
• Act as a proxy and serve streams from other servers or cameras, always or on-demand
• Each stream can have multiple video and audio tracks, encoded with any codec, including H264, H265, VP8, VP9, MPEG2, MP3, AAC, Opus, PCM, JPEG
• Streams are automatically converted from a protocol to another. For instance, it's possible to publish a stream with RTSP and read it with HLS
• Serve multiple streams at once in separate paths
• Authenticate users; use internal or external authentication
• Query and control the server through an HTTP API
• Read Prometheus-compatible metrics
• Redirect readers to other RTSP servers (load balancing)
• Run external commands when clients connect, disconnect, read or publish streams
• Reload the configuration without disconnecting existing clients (hot reloading)
• Compatible with Linux, Windows and macOS, does not require any dependency or interpreter, it's a single executable

Update the server instance

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot -h now

Download the latest rtsp-simple-server

For AWS E2 use Linux 22.04 LTS t3.large (2v CPU and 8GB RAM) For AWS LightSail use Linux_AMD64

wget https://github.com/aler9/mediamtx/releases/download/v1.0.0/mediamtx_v1.0.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz

Extract the binary and a yaml config file

tar -zxvf mediamtx_v1.0.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz

Give Root access to folder /usr/local/etc/

sudo chmod a+rwx /usr/local/etc/

Copy the mediamtx binary to /usr/local/bin/

sudo cp mediamtx /usr/local/bin/mediamtx

Copy the mediamtx.yml binary to /usr/local/etc/

sudo cp mediamtx.yml /usr/local/etc/mediamtx.yml

Copy the configuration file to use with ATAK to /usr/local/etc

sudo curl -K https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aerial-defence/ATAK-UAS-RTSP/main/mediamtx.yml -o /usr/local/etc/mediamtx.yml

Create a server file

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/mediamtx.service >/dev/null << EOF
[Unit]
After=network.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mediamtx /usr/local/etc/mediamtx.yml
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Enable the newly created mediamtx service

sudo systemctl enable mediamtx

Start mediamtx and tail syslog to see how things look

sudo systemctl start mediamtx && tail -f /var/log/syslog

Check that the service is running

systemctl status mediamtx.service

Then try to broadcast video, you should see this in /var/log/syslog:

Jan 12 23:55:41 rtsp-atak rtsp-simple-server[17053]: 2022/01/12 23:55:41 INF [RTSP] [conn 192.168.86.60:52250] opened Jan 12 23:55:41 rtsp-atak rtsp-simple-server[17053]: 2022/01/12 23:55:41 INF [RTSP] [session 343057601] opened by 192.168.86.60:52250 Jan 12 23:55:41 rtsp-atak rtsp-simple-server[17053]: 2022/01/12 23:55:41 INF [RTSP] [session 343057601] is publishing to path 'live/ATAK', 1 track with TCP

Then test with VLC -> Open Network Stream, adjust path name according:

rtsp://ipaddress:8554/live/ATAK

HLS instructions coming soon.

AWS Port Forwarding

For AWS, I have the following ports forwarded

ATAK UAS Plugin Settings (current for UASTool 12.0)

In ATAK UAS Tool use the following Network Preferences (Video Broadcast Preferences):

• Video Broadcast Destination: RTSP-Push (VMS systems)
• Video Destination IP Address: i.e. - 192.168.86.232
• Video Destination Port: 8554
• Use SSL: No
• Video Broadcast Identifier: live/ATAK
• Reliable P2P Connection (TCP): Yes

(The live/ATAK can be changed, but make sure to not put an ending slash)