_rtsp-simple-server_ is a simple, ready-to-use and zero-dependency RTSP server and RTSP proxy, 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.
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:
To change the configuration, it's enough to edit the file `conf.yml`, provided with the executable. The default configuration is [available here](conf.yml).
An RTSP proxy is usually deployed in one of these scenarios:
* when there are multiple users that are receiving a stream and the bandwidth is limited, so the proxy is used to receive the stream once. Users can then connect to the proxy instead of the original source.
* when there's a NAT / firewall between a stream and the users, in this case the proxy is installed in the NAT and makes the stream available to the outside world.
Edit `conf.yml` and replace everything inside section `paths` with the following content:
Users can then connect to `rtsp://localhost:8554/proxied`, instead of connecting to the original url. The server supports any number of source streams, it's enough to add additional entries to the `paths` section.
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: