Mod Flv Streaming Server Installation

A simple guide to implement lighttpd streaming file server.

What you need:
A dedicated server using Ubuntu
A vps (if you could not afford a dedicated server) on Ubuntu
A basic idea on how to connect to SSH using Putty

Why Ubuntu?
Easier to do and I love Ubuntu

*Please run

Code:

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apt-get update

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before proceeding with this tutorial

[1] Remove any related apache installation which come default or if you don't have any then proceed to step 2.

Code:

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apt-get remove --purge apache2 apache2-common apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils ssl-cert

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[2] Install lighttpd

Code:

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apt-get install lighttpd

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[3] Edit some config files (I'm using nano, you can use pico or any text editor you like)

Code:

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nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

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You should be able to see this on the top of the file so make sure you enable mod_flv_streaming & if you don't have mod_secdownload on the list you can add it. You can follow my example as below

Code:

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server.modules              = (
            "mod_access",
            "mod_alias",
            "mod_accesslog",
            "mod_compress",
            "mod_secdownload",
#          "mod_rewrite",
#          "mod_redirect",
#          "mod_evhost",
#          "mod_usertrack",
#          "mod_rrdtool",
#          "mod_webdav",
#          "mod_expire",
            "mod_flv_streaming",
#          "mod_evasive"
)

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Scroll down to the bottom of file and add this line:

Code:

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flv-streaming.extensions    = ( ".flv" )
secdownload.secret          = "mysupersecretpassword"
secdownload.document-root  = "/var/www/video/"
secdownload.uri-prefix      = "/dl/"
secdownload.timeout        = 3600

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Save & exit.

[4] Restart lighty for the configuration above to take effect

Code:

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/etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

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[5] Nothing else to do? I think so!.. Nahh... you need to install ftp now so vshare can ftp the file to this new server.

FTP installation will not be included on this tutorial so ask big G on how to do it.

Thanks for the info.

Can you list a few numbered reasons why this is an improvement on the current setup, as opposed to the default settings?

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Cheers,

I dont really know much on improvement but some says it does save badwidth by streaming directly from server and you dont have to download to pc (like normal apache streaming)

I have test this on a large video file up to 200mb flv (quite hq) and the result is much more better than normal apache server. But there is only 1 thing which is buggin me right now.

I wonder if mencoder caused some video unable to be skipped (seek bar). Seems like the main is nothing related to streaming server but more on how the video is converted. Perhaps the command line to convert video need to be improved?

It can save bandwidth if visitor need to view some part of the video, he can skip to that part and view it. Also mod_secdownload will take video link expire after time set by you. So even if some one got the FLV download link, it will expire after some time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hostonnet

It can save bandwidth if visitor need to view some part of the video, he can skip to that part and view it. Also mod_secdownload will take video link expire after time set by you. So even if some one got the FLV download link, it will expire after some time.

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Could you give me a ffmpeg command line that match the quality for default mencoder command line?

Also can mencoder use multi threads for flv conversion? I have 8 core xeon nahelem but conversion only use 1 cpu core. I try with command threads=4 but it wont convert. Please enlighten me regarding this.

If you ask in ffmpeg or mplayer mailing list, you may get answers from experts.

thanks for information.

this is a bit incmplete, doe sanyone have an updated version?

what is the video directory? "/root/flvideo"? or "/root/filvideo/randomsubfolder/"?

do we need to change something in the vshare code?

It is path to the folder where FLV files are stored.

I'm wondering whether mod_flv and mod_h264 support for HTTP (allowing HTTP streaming in order to seek into videos) are envisaged in CloudFront?

Has anyone here already setup streaming on LITESPEED? i am planning to change apache to LITESPEED, since Lighttpd dont support Cpanel/WHM stated by my host,

Does it will be better in all aspect, i have installed it (trial version first) but conversion wont work, and MP4 files need to be download first before it plays, unlike on Apache i had make it stream both flv and mp4 using mod_flx and mod_h264

I also want to prevent others to hotlinked my videos, i tried hotlinking using cpanel but videos wont play when enable

Hope for an answer