How to get started with Ant Media Server?

[Khan Honney]

How to get started with Ant Media Server ?

[Eugene Bally]

Ant Media Server is a software that can stream live and VOD videos. 

It supports adaptive streaming on the fly and records live videos in several formats like HLS, MP4, etc.

Features

• Receive live streams in RTMP, RTSP and WebRTC
• Records live streams in MP4, FLV, HLS and Dash Formats
• Transcodes live streams into lower resolutions on the fly for adaptive streaming
• Play live streams with RTMP, RTSP, WebRTC, HLS and Dash Formats

Installation

Linux (Ubuntu)

1. Download Ant Media Server

Download and save the Ant Media Server Community/Enterprise Edition from http://antmedia.io to your disk. Ant Media Server is being tested on ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 versions on CI.

2. Open Terminal and Go to Directory

Open a terminal and go to the directory where you have downloaded Ant Media Server Zip file

cd path/to/where/ant-media-server....zip

3. Download Installation Script

Download the install_ant-media-server.sh shell script

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ant-media/Scripts/master/install_ant-media-server.shchmod 755 install_ant-media-server.sh

4. Run the Installation Script

Call the download script file by giving ant-media-server zip file. The command below installs Ant Media Server and starts the service. Ant Media Server zip files are in format ant-media-server-<community|enterprise>-<version>-<date>.zip

sudo ./install_ant-media-server.sh ant-media-server*.zip 

You can check the service if it is running

sudo service antmedia status

You can stop/start the service anytime you want

sudo service antmedia stopsudo service antmedia start

Accessing Web panel

Open your browser and type http://SERVER_IP_ADDRESS:5080 to go to the web panel. If you're having difficulty in accessing the web panel, there may be a firewall that blocks accessing the 5080 port.

Server Ports

In order to server run properly you need to open some network ports. Here are the ports server uses

• TCP:1935 (RTMP)
• TCP:5080 (HTTP)
• TCP:5443 (HTTPS)
• TCP:5554 (RTSP)
• UDP:5000-65000 (WebRTC and RTSP)

Forward Default http(80), https(443) Ports to 5080 and 5443

Generally port forwarding is used to forward default ports to the server's ports in order to have easy of use. For instance let's forward 80 to 5080, just type the command below.

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 5080sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 5443

After running the command above, the request goes to 80, 443 is being forwarded to 5080, 5443 consecutively

List and Delete Current Port Forwardings

To List port forwarding run the command below

sudo iptables -t nat --line-numbers -L

To delete a port forwarding run the command below

iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING [LINE_NUMBER_IN_PREVIOUS_COMMAND]

Make Port Forwarding Persistent

If you want the server to reload port forwarding after reboot, we need to install iptables-persistent package and save rules like below

sudo apt-get install iptables-persistent

Above command will install iptables-persistent package, after that just run the command below everytime you make a change and want it to be persistent

sudo sh -c "iptables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v4"