EASY MXL turns any Ubuntu box with Docker into a working MXL (EBU Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer) system in minutes. It creates MXL domains in shared memory, launches the DMF-MXL media functions as containers, opens their web interfaces and shows you every flow in the domain live: who writes it, how far behind it is, and whether it is still alive. Logs and a terminal for each container are one click away.

No YAML, no compose files, no SDK build. One install command, one browser tab.

Install

On Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04, as a user with sudo:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/CLOUDflex-broadcast/easy-mxl/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

The installer adds Docker Engine and Node.js 22 when they are missing, installs the latest release to /opt/easy-mxl, starts the easy-mxl service on port 9700 and prints the URL and a random API token. Open http://<host>:9700, enter the token, create a domain, launch the Test Generator, press Open UI and start its pipeline. Your first MXL flows appear under Domains & Flows.

Other ways to run it: the container image ghcr.io/cloudflex-broadcast/easy-mxl, or from source (npm ci && npm run build && npm start). Details, options and upgrades are in the documentation.

What you get

• Domains in shared memory. Create an MXL domain (a directory on tmpfs with its domain_def.json) in one click and bind-mount it into any container. A missing or broken definition is repaired with one button.
• Every flow, live. Group, role, label, format, head index, latency (matching mxl-info), active / inactive / stale status and the container that writes it, detected from the writers' file locks on the host.
• The DMF-MXL apps, ready to launch. Test Generator, MXL Info GUI, MXL to WebRTC (with MediaMTX), File Player, HLS to MXL, Input Selector, HTML5 Keyer, WebRTC to MXL, the hands-on writer, reader and clip player. Pick a domain and a host port, and EASY MXL pulls the image, wires the mounts and environment, resolves dependencies and opens the UI.
• Container operations. Start, stop, restart, remove, live logs and an in-browser terminal for every container on the host, not only the ones EASY MXL started.
• Locally delivered images. Apps shipped as a .tar are supported with a tag picker instead of a registry pull.
• Your own catalog. Add media functions with a small JSON file: image, ports, domain mount, environment, parameters, named volumes, dependencies.

How it works

An MXL domain is a directory on a tmpfs filesystem; flows are memory-mapped files inside it. EASY MXL keeps domains under /dev/shm/mxl/<name> and bind-mounts them into containers at the path each app expects (/mxl-domain for the GStreamer apps, /domain for the hands-on writer and reader). It reads each flow's flow_def.json and binary header directly, finds the writer's flock() in /proc/locks and maps that PID to a container through /proc/<pid>/cgroup. Everything runs as one Node.js process talking to the Docker socket; there is no database.

 browser  ──HTTP/WS──▶  EASY MXL  ──/var/run/docker.sock──▶  Docker Engine
                           │                                     │
                           ├─ /dev/shm/mxl/<domain>/*.mxl-flow ◀─┤ bind mounts
                           └─ /proc/locks, /proc/<pid>/cgroup    │ media-function containers

Read more: How it works, Apps and catalog, Configuration and security, HTTP API, Troubleshooting.

Requirements

• Ubuntu 24.04 (22.04 works) with Docker Engine; the installer can add Docker.
• Node.js 20 or newer (22 recommended); the installer can add it.
• Network access to ghcr.io for the app images. python3 is optional and gives an exact TAI offset for latency figures.

EASY MXL controls the Docker daemon, which is root-equivalent. It binds to 127.0.0.1 by default; the installer's service binds to all interfaces with a token, and browser requests from other origins are rejected. Put a TLS reverse proxy in front for anything beyond a lab network. See Configuration.

Development

git clone https://github.com/CLOUDflex-broadcast/easy-mxl.git && cd easy-mxl
npm ci
npm test              # build + unit tests, no Docker needed
npm run dev           # rebuild on change and restart

TypeScript compiled by tsc to dist/, Express 5, ws, dockerode, a vanilla frontend with xterm.js; no framework, no bundler. The design contract documents every module and endpoint. Contributions are welcome: see CONTRIBUTING.md and SECURITY.md.

Acknowledgements

EASY MXL builds on the MXL SDK by the EBU Dynamic Media Facility community and on the media-function containers and exercises of CBC/Radio-Canada's mxl-hands-on. WebRTC relaying uses MediaMTX.

License

MIT.