rtsp-simple-server

rtsp-simple-server is a simple, ready-to-use and zero-dependency RTSP server, a program that allows multiple users to read or publish 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 and read or write data. The server is then responsible of linking the publisher stream with 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
Publish multiple streams at once, each in a separate path, that can be read by multiple users
Each stream can have multiple video and audio tracks
Supports the RTP/RTCP streaming protocol
Supports authentication for publishers
Run 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

Precompiled binaries are available in the release page. Just download and extract the executable.

Usage

Basic usage

Start the server:
```
./rtsp-simple-server
```
In another terminal, publish something with FFmpeg (in this example it's a video file, but it can be anything you want):
```
ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i file.ts -c copy -f rtsp rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream
```

Open the stream with VLC:

vlc rtsp://localhost:8554/mystream

you can alternatively use GStreamer:

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

Publisher authentication

Start the server and set a username and a password:

./rtsp-simple-server --publish-user=admin --publish-pass=mypassword

Only publishers that know 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

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 software that can receive existing streams, re-encode them and publish them. Therefore, rtsp-simple-server alone cannot change the format, codec or compression of a stream.

Nothing forbids from using 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 modified 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

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
  --protocols="udp,tcp"  supported protocols
  --rtsp-port=8554       port of the RTSP TCP listener
  --rtp-port=8000        port of the RTP UDP listener
  --rtcp-port=8001       port of the RTCP UDP listener
  --read-timeout=5s      timeout for read operations
  --write-timeout=5s     timeout for write operations
  --publish-user=""      optional username required to publish
  --publish-pass=""      optional password required to publish
  --read-user=""         optional username required to read
  --read-pass=""         optional password required to read
  --pre-script=""        optional script to run on client connect
  --post-script=""       optional script to run on client disconnect

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