Compile NGINX with RTMP and setup Multi-Streaming

1 NGINX RTMP-Server Setup for local Streams.md

Compile NGINX with RTMP and setup Multi-Streaming

These Scripts will install NGINX with the RTMP Module in the usual directories similar to installation with apt-get.

The RTMP-Server you get with this can then be used to do one ore more of the following:

• deliver streams in a local network
• deliver streams to websites similar to youtube
• transcode rtmp streams to hls video
• publish to multiple streaming providers
• record livestreams to a harddrive
• many, many more: Check the Docs on Nginx RTMP-Module

And it also runs flawless on the Raspberry Pi 4!

Installation

If git is not present, install it: Download Git

Get the Scripts:

git clone https://gist.github.com/489c5c0cf5a561a32f757d7513465344.git install_nginx

Change into the directory:

cd install_nginx

Then Run the main Script:

sudo install_nginx.sh

Pulish to your new RTMP-Server:

Publish from OBS or another Streaming-Device to the following URL (where hostname is the Name or IP of your server).

rtmp://hostname:1935/live

If you have an api-key for example to publish to youtube, either set it in your OBS or alter the URL like so:

rtmp://hostname:1935/live/your-api-key

Explanation and Options

This script installs a rtmp-config which accepts Livestreams and accepts client-connections to play them.

By default the following options are disabled in the configuration file nginx.conf but you can enable and alter them according to your scenario:

Publishing to Streaming-Service (i.e. Youtube):

If you enable the push option, every published stream will also be pushed to the provided server, by default youtube.

local VLC Playback (i.e. on Raspberry Pi):

The second option is very handy if you want to Livestream into the internet but have to also Stream into another Room/Location at your site where an audience is watching.

The command after exec_publish will be executed when starting a livestream and will be killed on stop.

remote VLC Playback

The Command can be altered to start the VLC-Window on another device if you use it with ssh.

To get this running you will have to do some things first, replace username and remote-client with the values fitting your setup:

sudo -u www-data ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
sudo -u www-data ssh-copy-id username@remote-client

After that you can enable an option similar to this:

ssh -o "StrictHostKeyChecking no" user@remote-client "export DISPLAY=:0.0 && vlc -f --video-on-top --no-video-title-show --mouse-hide-timeout 1 rtmp://localhost/live/$name";

To see what the Scripts do exactly or what the config means, look into the Files below.

install_nginx.sh

# update repository index and update
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
# install build tools and NGINX requirements
sudo apt install -y git build-essential ffmpeg libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev
# retrieve the latest RTMP-Module
git clone https://github.com/sergey-dryabzhinsky/nginx-rtmp-module.git
# retrieve NGINX (if you want the latest release update this path according to the NGINX Website: http://nginx.org/en/download.html
wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.18.0.tar.gz
# extract the .tar.gz archive
tar -xf nginx-1.18.0.tar.gz
# change into the nginx directorx update this too if you are using another version!
cd nginx-1.18.0/

# configure nginx to desired settings before making, more infos about these options: https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/tutorials/installoptions/
./configure --prefix=/usr/share/nginx \
            --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx \
            --modules-path=/usr/lib/nginx/modules \
            --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf \
            --error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log \
            --http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log \
            --pid-path=/run/nginx.pid \
            --lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock \
            --user=www-data \
            --group=www-data \
            --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body \
            --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi \
            --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy \
            --http-scgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/scgi \
            --http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/uwsgi \
            --with-compat \
            --with-file-aio \
            --with-threads \
            --with-http_addition_module \
            --with-http_auth_request_module \
            --with-http_dav_module \
            --with-http_flv_module \
            --with-http_gunzip_module \
            --with-http_gzip_static_module \
            --with-http_mp4_module \
            --with-http_random_index_module \
            --with-http_realip_module \
            --with-http_slice_module \
            --with-http_ssl_module \
            --with-http_sub_module \
            --with-http_stub_status_module \
            --with-http_v2_module \
            --with-http_secure_link_module \
            --add-module=../nginx-rtmp-module \
            --with-mail \
            --with-mail_ssl_module \
            --with-stream \
            --with-stream_realip_module \
            --with-stream_ssl_module \
            --with-stream_ssl_preread_module \

# make with above options ( -j 1 limits it to one job)
make -j 1
# install nginx
sudo make install
# leave the nginx directory
cd ..

# remove the old nginx conf and replace it with the one from this gist.
sudo rm /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
sudo cp nginx.conf /etc/nginx/

# remove no longer needed folders and tarballs
rm -r nginx-1.18.0 nginx-rtmp-module
rm *.tar.gz

# place the service description into correct directory
sudo cp nginx.service /etc/systemd/system/

# initially start the nginx service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service

# enable the service to start at desired runtimes
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

nginx.conf

# automatically generate workers not limited to a fixed amount: http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#worker_processes
worker_processes  auto;

events {
  # maximum connections per worker process: http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#worker_connections
  worker_connections  1024;
}

# RTMP configuration: https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module/wiki/Directives
rtmp {
  # a server can contain several applications
  server {
    listen 1935; # Listen on standard RTMP port
    chunk_size 4000; # the bigger the lower cpu-overhead: https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module/wiki/Directives#chunk_size
    
    # application "live" results in a url like rtmp://localhost:1935/live
    application live {
      live on; # enable live-streaming
      record off; # disable recording to local drive
      
      # remove the first # to enable the following options
      # Push incoming streams to youtube
      # push rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2;
      
      # start a local vlc displaying the incoming stream as soon as one is published to this server:
      # exec_publish "export DISPLAY=:0.0 && vlc -f --video-on-top --no-video-title-show --mouse-hide-timeout 1 rtmp://localhost/live/$name";
    }
  }
}

nginx.service

[Unit]
Description=A high performance web server and a reverse proxy server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/nginx.pid
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g 'daemon on; master_process on;'
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;'
ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' -s reload
ExecStop=-/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid
TimeoutStopSec=5
KillMode=mixed

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Keep getting this error after running the sudo install install_nginx.sh command: "install: missing destination file operand after 'install_nginx.sh', do I have to create the nginx directory in etc? Tried that and listed it after the command but all it did was copy the shell command to the nginx folder. What am I doing wrong?

Have you tried just typing sudo install_nginx.sh?

That should work. I will update the Readme accordingly.

Tried as you suggested and got 'install_nginx.sh: command not found'. I must be missing something, thought I did everything called for in the instructions, but may have screwed up somewhere. Digging deeper. Really appreciate your response. Thanks!

Just figured it out. There are several options for executing a script in Linux, I chose 'sudo sh install_nginx.sh' and it worked!

Okay, are you in the Directory "install_nginx"?
When you list the files in your current Directory (via ls -als) do you see a file named install_nginx.sh?

The above file should be marked as executable, you can see that on the x-flag similar to this:
8 -rwxr--r-- 1 user group 183 20 Sep 2020 install_nginx.sh