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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 theNginx 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 isa 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 clients actions.On the other
side, HTTP is a stateless application protocol used to deliver 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
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
doesnt have to wait for the video file to load before jumping ahead, as is the case

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, lets 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:
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cd~
mkdirnginx
cdnginx

Install the necessary software and dependencies:

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#forcompilerandgit
aptgetinstallgitgccmake

#fortheHTTPrewritemodulewhichrequiresthePCRElibrary
aptgetinstalllibpcre3dev

#forSSLmodules
aptgetinstalllibssldev

Clone Nginx RTMP module source code from Github:

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gitclonehttps://github.com/arut/nginxrtmpmodule

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:
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wgethttp://nginx.org/download/nginx1.4.3.tar.gz
tarzxpvfnginx1.4.3.tar.gz
cdnginx1.4.3

Lets compile Nginx:

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./configureaddmodule=/root/nginx/nginxrtmpmodule/withhttp_ssl_moduleprefix=/usr/local
make
makeinstall

Now it is the time to create a configuration file for Nginx.Go to:

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cd/usr/local/nginxstreaming/conf
mvnginx.confnginx.cong.bkp
nanonginx.conf

and paste the configuration below. This configuration is suggested by the

documentation of the RTMP module.
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worker_processes1

events{
worker_connections1024
}

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rtmp{
server{
listen1935

chunk_size4000

#videoondemandforflvfiles
applicationvod{
play/var/flvs
}

#videoondemandformp4files
applicationvod2{
play/var/mp4s
}
}
}

#HTTPcanbeusedforaccessingRTMPstats
http{
access_log/var/log/nginx/accessstreaming.log
error_log/var/log/nginx/errorstreaming.log

server{
#incasewehaveanotherwebserveronport80
listen8080

#ThisURLprovidesRTMPstatisticsinXML
location/stat{
rtmp_statall
rtmp_stat_stylesheetstat.xsl
}

location/stat.xsl{
#XMLstylesheettoviewRTMPstats.
#Copystat.xslwhereveryouwant
#andputthefulldirectorypathhere
root/var/www/
}

location/hls{
#ServeHLSfragments
types{
application/vnd.apple.mpegurlm3u8
video/mp2tts
}
alias/tmp/app
expires1
}
}
}

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.
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mkdir/var/www
cp/root/nginx/nginxrtmpmodule/stat.xsl/var/www/

And (re)start the Nginx server with:

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/usr/local/nginxstreaming/sbin/nginx

Its 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:
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rtmp://<IP_OF_THE_SERVER>:1935/vod2/sample.mp4

Where <IP_OF_THE_SERVER> 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
Flowplayeror 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<IP_OF_THE_SERVER>and the

/path/to/flowplayer.rtmp-3.2.12.swf.
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<html>
<head>
<!flowplayerjavascriptcomponent>
<scriptsrc="http://releases.flowplayer.org/js/flowplayer3.2.12.min.js"></script>
</head>

<body>
<divid="player"style="width:644pxheight:276pxmargin:0autotextalign:center">
<imgsrc="/path/to/background.png"height="260"width="489"/></div>
<script>

$f("player","http://releases.flowplayer.org/swf/flowplayer3.2.16.swf",{
clip:{
url:'sample.mp4',
scaling:'fit',
provider:'hddn'
},

plugins:{
hddn:{
url:"/path/to/flowplayer.rtmp3.2.12.swf",

//netConnectionUrldefineswherethestreamsarefound
netConnectionUrl:'rtmp://<IP_OF_THE_SERVER>:1935/vod2'
}
},
canvas:{
backgroundGradient:'none'
}
})
</script>
</body>
</html>

Thats 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.

November20,2013 RazvanTudorica(InnovationEngineer) SystemAdministration,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 | Rzvan Tudoric

Yoga Darma

December4,2013at9:14am

hi, im trying to make streaming VOD that running on web. im using your HTML
code but it doesnt want to running the video. but when i using vlc its working. can
you please help me? sorry i cant speak English well. thank you

Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer)

December4,2013at10:11am

@Yoga: Please share some more information about you Nginx configuration, without
that it is hard to help you.

Pingback: HLS Video on Demand streaming | Rzvan Tudoric

Yoga Darma
December6,2013at9:20am

@Maurits i only follow this tutorial. so my configuration will be the same as this
tutorials configuration. am i doing something wrong ??if yes can you tell me what it
is??
thank you so much

Yoga Darma
December6,2013at9:29am

@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. thats make me curious. thank you so much

inan
January12,2014at10:28pm

Hey,
nice tutorial great job. Its possible to secure the streaming? Maybe with htaccess or
whatever

inan

January12,2014at10:49pm

Hey me again
When im 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
January13,2014at8:54am

Hello,
i solved the Problem. I was in the wrong directory
Its possible to restream from my Live stream from my VLC Server?

razvan
January22,2014at10:55am

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.
February17,2014at6:26pm

When I stream from OBS to my nginx rtmp VPS server occasionally itll 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 whats going on with nginx?
-Jamie M.

david
February27,2014at10:33pm

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
April16,2014at11:55am

Hi , how to make nginx start on startup? without making it manually.

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Pingback: Links interesantes del mes! | Gustavo Alejandro Pilla

Pingback: How to do VoD with nginx | Razvan Tudorica

Pingback: HLS Video on Demand streaming | Razvan Tudorica

WowzaAdmirer
October14,2014at10:55am

Thanks for a post. Ive 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
December14,2014at7:03pm

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 dont 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 havent 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 lets the live-stream through. If the streamer
disconnects it plays again randomly files from the above folder.
Hopefully youve an idea how to do this.
Thanks in advance!
Best,
Tim

Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer)

December15,2014at9:37am

@Tim: Thanks for your comment. It seems like you have a good setup already. What
player are you using? Cant 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
December16,2014at1:29am

Hi, Maurits Im streaming the content to Twitch. So unfortunately I have no access

to the player :/

Robin
December29,2014at8:47pm

How can I configure the rtmp to rtmps?

Maurits van der Schee (Innovation Engineer)

December30,2014at1:07am

@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 wont work or did you not try that (yet)? Sorry that I cant help you
better. Keep us posted on the solution!

Arjun
April22,2015at10:54am

Do anyone know how to get the published stream name in config file?

Ioannis
July25,2015at8:47pm

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)

July26,2015at6:27am

@Ioannis: Thank you for this link. Im going to have a look at it!

Rizal
July30,2015at4:41am

Hello sir, how to run video streaming rtmp on xbmc/kodi ? thx

Thor
September17,2015at9:10pm

Im 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 isnt active?

Harpreet
November6,2015at9:08pm

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 cant 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
November22,2015at5:43am

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