NGINX RTMP Streaming Server Installation Guide

Personally, I find NGINX the best choice as a web server, and so this website runs on NGINX too. Today I found out about the NGINX RTMP module, originally developed by Roman Arutyunyan. This module allows you to expand NGINX with RTMP capabilities so you can use NGINX as a media streaming server! You can build it by compiling NGINX with a separate module which can be done manually or by using this bash script:

#!/bin/bash

echo 
echo   NGINX RTMP SERVER INSTALLER V2
echo   COPYLEFT BARTSIMONS.ME, 2016
echo 

## CHECKING FOR ROOT ACCESS...
user=$(whoami)
if [[ $user != "root" ]]; then
	echo "You are not root. Please run this script as superuser!"
	exit
fi

## GLOBAL VARIABLES AND PACKAGE CACHE UPDATE
nginx_url="http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.11.4.tar.gz"
nginx_tar="nginx-1.11.4.tar.gz"
nginx_fld="nginx-1.11.4"
rtmp_url="https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module.git"

echo "Updating package cache..."
apt -qqq update

## CONTINUE WHEN USER IS ROOT & INSTALL WGET IF NOT INSTALLED...
long_out_wget_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep wget)
short_out_wget_check=${long_out_wget_check:0:2}
wget_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_wget_check == "ii" ]]; then
	wget_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing wget..."
	apt install -qqq -y wget
fi

## INSTALL BUILD-ESSENTIAL IF NOT INSTALLED...
long_out_be_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep build-essential)
short_out_be_check=${long_out_be_check:0:2}
be_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_be_check == "ii" ]]; then
	be_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing build-essential..."
	apt install -qqq -y build-essential
fi

## INSTALL LIBPCRE3 DEV HEADERS IF NOT INSTALLED...
long_out_pcre_dev_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep libpcre3-dev)
short_out_pcre_dev_check=${long_out_pcre_dev_check:0:2}
pcre_dev_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_pcre_dev_check == "ii" ]]; then
	pcre_dev_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing libpcre3 development headers..."
	apt install -qqq -y libpcre3-dev
fi

## INSTALL LIBPCRE IF NOT INSTALLED...
long_out_pcre_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep libpcre3-dev)
short_out_pcre_check=${long_out_pcre_check:0:2}
pcre_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_pcre_check == "ii" ]]; then
	pcre_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing libpcre3..."
	apt install -qqq -y libpcre3
fi

## INSTALL GIT IF NOT INSTALLED
long_out_git_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep "git ")
short_out_git_check=${long_out_git_check:0:2}
git_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_git_check == "ii" ]]; then
	git_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing git..."
	apt install -qqq -y git
fi

## INSTALL LIBSSL DEV HEADERS IF NOT INSTALLED...
long_out_libssl_dev_check=$(dpkg-query --list | grep libssl-dev)
short_out_libssl_dev_check=${long_out_libssl_dev_check:0:2}
libssl_dev_installed=0

if [[ $short_out_libssl_dev_check == "ii" ]]; then
	libssl_dev_installed=1
else
	echo "Installing libssl-dev..."
	apt install -qqq -y libssl-dev
fi

## DOWNLOAD AND UNTAR NGINX SOURCE CODE
echo "Downloading nginx source code..."
wget --quiet $nginx_url
echo "Unpacking nginx source code..."
tar -xzf $nginx_tar

## CLONE NGINX-RTMP-MODULE
echo "Cloning nginx RTMP module git repository..."
git clone $rtmp_url

## CONFIGURE, COMPILE AND INSTALL!
cd $nginx_fld
./configure --add-module=../nginx-rtmp-module
make
make install

## CLEANUP TIME!
echo "Cleaning up left over folders & files..."
rm -rf $nginx_fld
rm -rf $nginx_tar
rm -rf nginx-rtmp-module

if [[ $git_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "git was not installed earlier. Uninstalling git"
	apt remove --purge -qqq git
fi

if [[ $pcre_dev_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "libpcre3-dev was not installed earlier. Uninstalling libpcre3-dev..."
	apt remove --purge -qqq libpcre3-dev
fi

if [[ $be_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "build-essential was not installed earlier. Uninstalling build-essential..."
	apt remove --purge -qqq build-essential
fi

if [[ $wget_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "wget was not installed earlier. Uninstalling wget..."
	apt remove --purge -qqq wget
fi

if [[ $pcre_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "libpcre3 was not installed earlier. Uninstalling libpcre..."
	apt remove --purge -qqq libpcre3
fi

if [[ $libssl_dev_installed == 0 ]]; then
	echo "libssl-dev was not installed earlier. Uninstalling libssl-dev..."
	apt remove --purge -qqq libssl-dev
fi

echo " "
echo "NGINX and the RTMP server module has been installed on your system!"

Please note that this script has been built for Debian-based operating system. Compiling it manually on other systems is not that difficult at all: you just need to include the module with a flag for the configure script.

Configuring NGINX

Once you've got the modified NGINX version installed on your server, it's time to edit the NGINX configuration so that NGINX will serve RTMP traffic.

The default configuration file location for NGINX is /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf
Add the following configuration to the end of this file:

rtmp {
    server {
        listen 1935;
        chunk_size 8192;

        application stream {
            live on;
            record off;

            allow publish 127.0.0.1;
            deny publish all;
            allow play all;
        }
    }
}

Now you are ready to go, you can start nginx on your server

/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx

You can stop nginx like this:

/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -s stop

Thanks for reading and have fun streaming!