Getting started with nginx rtmp

Download, build and install

CD to build directory (home)

cd /usr/build

Download & unpack latest nginx-rtmp (you can also use http)

git clone git://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module.git

Download & unpack nginx (you can also use svn)

wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.2.4.tar.gz
tar xzf nginx-1.2.4.tar.gz
cd nginx-1.2.4

Build nginx with nginx-rtmp

./configure --add-module=/usr/build/nginx-rtmp-module
make
make install

For nginx 1.3.4-1.5.0 more options are needed

./configure --add-module=/usr/build/nginx-rtmp-module --with-http_ssl_module
make
make install

Set up live streaming

To set up RTMP support you need to add rtmp{} section to nginx.conf (can be found in PREFIX/conf/nginx.conf). Stock nginx.conf contains only http{} section.

Use this nginx.conf instead of stock config:

#user  nobody;
worker_processes  1;

error_log  logs/error.log debug;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    sendfile        on;
    keepalive_timeout  65;

    server {
        listen       8080;
        server_name  localhost;

        # sample handlers
        #location /on_play {
        #    if ($arg_pageUrl ~* localhost) {
        #        return 201;
        #    }
        #    return 202;
        #}
        #location /on_publish {
        #    return 201;
        #}

        #location /vod {
        #    alias /var/myvideos;
        #}

        # rtmp stat
        location /stat {
            rtmp_stat all;
            rtmp_stat_stylesheet stat.xsl;
        }
        location /stat.xsl {
            # you can move stat.xsl to a different location
            root /usr/build/nginx-rtmp-module;
        }

        # rtmp control
        location /control {
            rtmp_control all;
        }

        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
            root   html;
        }
    }
}

rtmp {
    server {
        listen 1935;
        ping 30s;
        notify_method get;

        application myapp {
            live on;

            # sample play/publish handlers
            #on_play http://localhost:8080/on_play;
            #on_publish http://localhost:8080/on_publish;

            # sample recorder
            #recorder rec1 {
            #    record all;
            #    record_interval 30s;
            #    record_path /tmp;
            #    record_unique on;
            #}

            # sample HLS
            #hls on;
            #hls_path /tmp/hls;
            #hls_sync 100ms;
        }

        # Video on demand
        #application vod {
        #    play /var/Videos;
        #}

        # Video on demand over HTTP
        #application vod_http {
        #    play http://localhost:8080/vod/;
        #}
    }
}

Statistics

Navigate your browser to http://localhost:8080/stat to see current streaming statistics, connected clients, bandwidth etc.

Publishing with ffmpeg

The easiest way to publish live video stream is using ffmpeg (or avconv). It's already installed on most systems and easy to install on others.

RTMP supports only a limited number of codecs. The most popular RTMP video codecs are H264, Sorenson-H263 (aka flv) and audio codecs AAC, MP3, Nellymoser, Speex. If your video is encoded with these codecs (the most common pair is H264/AAC) then you do not need any conversion. Otherwise you need to convert video to one of supported codecs.

We'll stream test file /var/videos/test.mp4 to server with ffmpeg.

Streaming without conversion (given test.mp4 codecs are compatible with RTMP)

ffmpeg -re -i /var/Videos/test.mp4 -c copy -f flv rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Streaming and encoding audio (AAC) and video (H264), need libx264 and libfaac

ffmpeg -re -i /var/Videos/test.mp4 -c:v libx264 -c:a libfaac -ar 44100 -ac 1 -f flv rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Streaming and encoding audio (MP3) and video (H264), need libx264 and libmp3lame

ffmpeg -re -i /var/Videos/test.mp4 -c:v libx264 -c:a libmp3lame -ar 44100 -ac 1 -f flv rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Streaming and encoding audio (Nellymoser) and video (Sorenson H263)

ffmpeg -re -i /var/Videos/test.mp4 -c:v flv -c:a nellymoser -ar 44100 -ac 1 -f flv rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Publishing video from webcam

ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -c:v libx264 -an -f flv rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Playing with ffplay

ffplay rtmp://localhost/myapp/mystream

Publishing and playing with flash

See test/rtmp-publisher directory for test flash applets and html.