Using libstreaming with Wowza Media Server

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

• Introduction
  • Goal
  • Prerequisites
• Four steps to use the example 3 with Wowza
  • Step 1 - Compilation of the example 3
  • Step 2 - Configuration of the Wowza Media Server
    • 1 - Create a Wowza application
    • 2 - Set a password for the RTSP server of Wowza
    • 3 - Restart your Wowza Media Server
  • Step 3 - Streaming to the Wowza Media Server
  • Step 4 - Reception of the stream in the flash player
    • 1 - Install the demo site on the HTTP server
    • 2 - Browse the demo site
• The example 3 in action

Introduction

Goal

The goal here is to be able to stream audio/video from an Android powered device running Android 4, or more recent, to a Wowza Media Server. The stream will be available for clients to see through a web page containing an embedded flash player, JWPlayer.

The app example 3, which is a simple user interface built around libstreaming, will be used here to stream AAC encoded audio and H.264 encoded video to Wowza.

If your are not comfortable with the set of protocols that are involved here (RTSP, RTP, RTCP, SDP, RTMP), you may be interested in [this page of the wiki](Short introduction to the set of protocols involved in libstreaming).

Prerequisites

• A fresh install of a Wowza Media Server. This tutorial won't cover the installation of the Wowza Media Server, but don't worry, folks at Wowza have written pretty detailled tutorials about that.
• An HTTP server like Apache 2, it will serve a page containing the flash player that will play the stream.
• Those two servers should obviously be accessible from the web, and could be running on the same computer.
• Some basic knowledge about how to build an Android app. You will need the Android SDK of the API level 18, and the ADT (Android Developer Tools) (adb, the SDK manager, etc.).
• An Android powered device running at least Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich, API level 14).

Four steps to use the example 3 with Wowza

Step 1 - Compilation of the example 3

Start by cloning this repository, it contains the source code of three different examples demonstrating how libstreaming can be used.

git clone https://github.com/fyhertz/libstreaming-examples.git

We will compile the example 3 from the command line here:

cd libstreaming-examples/example3/app
android update project --path . --target android-18
ant debug

If your command line interpreter complains about the command android not existing, it means that you may have not installed the ADT or that you did not add them to your PATH.

And if the ant command is missing, you may need to install Ant, and add it to your path.

You could also build the app from Eclipse.

Note: we are compiling the app against the API level 18, if your phone is running an older version of the API (API level 14 is the minimum required for this example), don't worry, it is not a problem.

You may now install the app on your phone with:

adb install bin/MainActivity-debug.apk

Step 2 - Configuration of the Wowza Media Server

As of october 21th of 2013, the latest release of Wowza is the version 3.6.2, I assume that your are using this version of Wowza, or a more recent one. If something in this tutorial has become obsolete, do not hesitate to inform me.

I will assume here that you are working on Linux, and more specifically on Ubuntu/Debian, if you are working on another OS, your install folder location may be different.

1 - Create a Wowza application

First, we need to create a Wowza application that we will call live. We are actually going to install one of the sample applications presented here. To do that, start by creating a folder called "live" in your [wowza-install-dir]/applications folder:

cd /usr/local/WowzaMediaServer
sudo mkdir applications/live

And another directory called live in your [wowza-install-dir]/conf/ directory:

cd /usr/local/WowzaMediaServer/conf/
sudo mkdir live

Then, download and copy this file in the "live" directory. On most Linux distributions, you can simply do that:

cd live
sudo wget http://www.wowza.com/downloads/tutorials/live/Application.xml

Note: if you have configured Wowza to not run as root (and you should have), make sure that the live folder and the Application.xml file are accessible from the proper user.

2 - Set a password for the RTSP server of Wowza

The RTSP server of Wowza can be configured to require user authentication. By default, it is configured to require user authentication to publish a stream, but not to play one. The example 3 will need this login and password pair to successfully stream to Wowza. That is why you have to add one in the [install-dir]/conf/admin.password file.

You can also choose to disable user authentication to publish a stream. To do that, replace digest with none in your live/Application.xml in this field:

<PublishMethod>digest</PublishMethod>

Note: as of libstreaming 3.0, digest authentication is the only authentication scheme supported by the RTSP client.

3 - Restart your Wowza Media Server

Finally, you need to restart Wowza.

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo service WowzaMediaServer restart

Find out how to start/stop your WowzaMediaServer here

Step 3 - Streaming to the Wowza Media Server

Start the app called "example3" on your phone. Normally, you should see the video from the front camera of the phone as soon as the app starts. Fill the fields login and password with the username and password you chose earlier in the publish.password file. Then fill the URI field with something like "rtsp://public-ip-of-the-wowza-server:1935/live/test". Finally, press "start". The form will be saved in the SharedPreferences of the app, so you won't have to fill it anymore.

If you see an error saying "failed to connect to blablabla", it means that your Wowza Media Server is not visible from your phone. Here are some things you could try to find the issue:

• Check that you can ping the IP of your Wowza Media Server from your phone. The command ping exists on Android, all you have to do is to install this app for example, and write that in the terminal:

ping ip-address-of-wowza

If that doesn't work, you may have connection issues, firewall issues or NAT issues.

• Check the firewall configuration of the server that hosts Wowza: it should be configured to allow incoming TCP connections to the port 1935 which is the port used by default by Wowza (if you changed it, then of course you need to configure your firefall accordingly). Incoming connection from the outside is something that a computer running Windows may forbid by default, so be carefull if you use Windows.

• You will find plenty of useful logs in logcat.

Step 4 - Reception of the stream in the flash player

1 - Install the demo site on the HTTP server

First, copy the "web" directory in libstreaming-examples/example3/ in a directory accessible from the HTTP server. On most distribution the root directory served by Apache 2 is /var/www. This is where you will want to copy the "web" directory.

Some remarks:

• This HTTP server can be running on any computer as long as the Wowza Media Server is visible from it, it does not have to run on the same computer as Wowza.

• The flash player embedded in the index.htm page will open a TCP connection to the RTMP server of Wowza, that means that it will be able to receive the stream even if the browser is behind a NAT.

2 - Browse the demo site

Visit the /web/index.htm page of your HTTP server with your favorite browser, and in the field below the flash player write exactly the same URI as the one you chose in the example 3, but replace rtsp with rtmp.

Finally, press the "Start" button, you should then see/hear the stream from your phone.

The example 3 in action