xplex

Multistreaming for the people

xplex is:

• free and open source
• self-hosted (YOU run/use/own it)
• performance & resource efficient
• multi-streaming service
• in a box (docker container, i.e.)

NOTE: This readme is meant for developers, trying to look under the hood of the technology stack. If you're a streamer, looking for certain information about getting xplex to work - the website should be where you find it. If you can't find what you're looking for in the website, it's a problem - so, please let us know, and we'll fix it.

Abstract

We're using nginx-rtmp-module to build & deploy a custom NGINX server instance, which uses multiple push directives inside rtmp::server::application configuration context, to split the incoming stream into n-number of identical streams (without any transcoding) to all the push ingests.

As long as the network bandwidth is capable of handling (n+1)*bitrate, this should work fine, as the other system resource requirements are quite bare minimal.

At a more abstract level, xplex is a docker container, with custom NGINX server built-in and running to handle RTMP connections, and is optimized to split incoming audio/video streams into multiple preconfigured ingest points (but can be used to do other things as well).

Development

To get set up and hacking on xplex, you'd need a (preferably linux) workstation with:

• Git (guide)
• Docker (guide)
• NodeJS & npm (download)
• Terminal emulator(s) & text editor(s) of your choice
• [Optional] VLC media player (download)
• [Optional] OBS Studio (download/guide)

Next up, you'd want to clone the repo first:

git clone https://github.com/debloper/xplex.git
cd xplex

At this point, if docker service is up, then try running:

./build.sh lite
# convenience script for `docker build --target lite -t xplex/lite:latest .`

If everything went alright, you should have a new image created called xplex/lite:latest which you can now run with:

docker run -it -p 80:80 -p 1935:1935 xplex/lite

Open your browser, and visit localhost - you should see the NGINX default welcome page, which (somewhat) ensures that things are pretty smooth so far.

---

Now, to confirm if the RTMP streaming is working, you'd need:

• streaming account(s) on Twitch/YouTube/Mixer etc. services
  • review all the settings in the streamers' dashboard(s)
  • get ingest URLs for respective services from the dashboard(s)
• a stream broadcasting tool (OBS Studio recommended)
  • create a scene with desktop capture or webcam input to stream
  • set File::Settings::Stream::URL to rtmp://localhost:1935/live
  • change other settings as per streaming service guidelines, for e.g.
    • Twitch
    • YouTube
    • Mixer

Then in the terminal, run:

docker run -it -e "INGESTS=url1 url2" -p 80:80 -p 1935:1935 xplex/lite

# URLs are the ingest points to the streaming services
# e.g. rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/1234-5678-1357-2468
# or, rtmp://live-abc.twitch.tv/app/live_12345678_xxxxxxxx
# make sure they're space separated, to be properly parsed

Alternatively, use/verify the xplex/full image by running:

docker run -it -p 80:80 -p 1935:1935 xplex/full

# This will also start a NodeJS app server inside the container
# Open `http://localhost` in your browser to set stream ingests
# "Apply Changes" to restart NGINX with these new configuration

Once the container started, start the stream from OBS, and you should be able to visit your channel(s) to watch it live.

Contribute

Whether it's a suggestion, feature request or a patch itself, contributions to xplex are highly appreciated. A software can never be a very good one when it's just one lone-wolf's pipe dream; please gather around and make it better together.

There's no restrictive & pedantic contributing guideline(s), however:

• don't break conventions
• assume good faith
• be considerate
• be concise

Pull Requests are most preferred & most valued form of contributions, Issues are second by far. Tweets, reddit threads etc. come a long way after.

By contributing to xplex with code-examples/pull-requests, you agree to have those codes published as permissive open source software, as detailed in the next section.

License

Unless otherwise mentioned, all individual components, files, and also as a whole - xplex is available under MPL 2.0. Non-text files (images, icons, PDFs etc.), unless otherwise mentioned, are available under CC-BY-SA-3.0. If you're building something on/with xplex, you have my best wishes, and I'd love to hear about it!