Mediacast Server

Version 0.0.1

This project provides a webserver for static content with support for virtual-hosts, path-aliases, per-host/-ip traffic-shaping capabilities, reverse-proxing with internal url-translation and multicast-DNS (bonjour) service-advertisement written in Python.

Why another webserver ?

The main purpose of this webserver is bandwidth-limiting, utilizing the token-bucket algorithm. The server is therefore ideal to be used in multimedia-production toolchains, in order to verify http-video- and audio-streaming bandwidth-usage and browser behavior in this context. Currently it serves any static file content, like those produced by Apple's “mediastreamsegmenter” or f4f-streams as specified by Adobe in the f4f file format specification.

The implementation is based upon the fantastic Twisted-Framework and is implemented as a plugin therein.

As Twisted supports integration into the Win32, Mac OSX and of course Linux operating systems, the server may work in these environments in future releases. Currently only Mac OSX 10.6.x are tested and supported. Apple's default python-installation and twisted-package is sufficient in order to run the webserver. That also means that at this time only python 2.6 is verified.

Installation

Instructions for installing this software are in INSTALL.

Usage

Execute PYTHONPATH=path/to/mediacastserver twistd mediacastserver --help to get a detailed command usage reference. If you do so you should get something like:

Usage: twistd [options] mediacastserver [mediacastserver options]
Options:
-n, --notracebacks      Display tracebacks in broken web pages. Displaying
                      tracebacks to users may be security risk!
-l, --logfile=          Path to web CLF (Combined Log Format) log file.
  --help              Display this help and exit.
-s, --shape=            Limit download bandwidth server-wide, optionally with
                      server-wide initial burst, per client-connection
                      rate-limit and per client-connection initial burst:
                      server-wide-rate[,per-client-rate[,server-wide-burst[,per-client-burst]]]
  --ignore-ext=       Specify an extension to ignore. These will be
                      processed in order.
-p, --port=             strports description of the port to start the server
                      on.
-i, --index=            Add the name of a file used to check for directory
                      indexes. [default: index, index.html]
-a, --alias=            Alias(es) mapping a (virtual) path to a (real) path,
                      eg.: alias/path[,real/path]
  --version
  --mime-type=        Specify the default mime-type for static files.
  --monster=          add a vhost monster child-path intended to connect a reverse proxy.

                      This makes it possible to put it behind a reverse proxy transparently. Just have
                      the reverse proxy proxy to

                      host,port,/vhost-monster-child-path/http/external-host:port/

                      and on redirects and other link calculation, the external-host:port will be
                      transmitted to this client.

-v, --vhost=            Additional vhost(s) to run, eg.: host.domain.tld
-h, --host=             port number (not strports description!) to start an
                      additional server on.
-u, --user              Makes a server with ~/public_html and ~/.twistd-web-pb
                      support for users.
  --allow-ignore-ext  Specify whether or not a request for 'foo' should
                      return 'foo.ext'
  --path=             <path> is either a specific file or a directory to be
                      set as the root of the web server.
  --bonjour=          override or append additional bonjour (mDNS/zeroconf)
                      record. the first occurrence per host overrides the
                      default description, subsequent occurrences append
                      additional records. eg.: 'computer %s on port %d'
  --reverse=          run a reverse proxy, either as the whole server or on
                      a direct child-path (leaf) only eg.:
                      host.domain.tld[,port-number[,path/to/proxy[,path/on/this/server]]]

Documentation and Support

Sorry, but you have to use the force and read the source. Help might also be available on the Twisted mailing list If you need more inspiration, feel free to contact me.

TODOs

• Write a setup.py
• Write unit-tests (a shame that it's not yet done, i know)
• Get rid of the Apple-specific bonjour and hostname implementation, test and support Avahi-Daemon
• Make mDNS-support optional anyway, as it creates an additional dependency to pybonjour-package
• Test and support Win32-environments

Copyright

All of the code in this distribution is © copyright 2011-2017 Stephan Jorek.

The included LICENSE file describes this in detail. Twisted itself is made available under the MIT license.

Warranty

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU.

IN NO EVENT WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE LIBRARY, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Again, see the included LICENSE file for specific legal details.