Publish stream via UDP with rtsp-simple-server

[aduzsardi]

Which version are you using?

v0.9.15

Which operating system are you using?

Windows - as the publisher , running rtsp-simple-server
Linux - as the client with an ffmpeg process and a hls endpoint

Question

There's this quiestion #82 which asks for forcing TCP connections , i would like to know the opposite , forcing UDP between the rtsp-simple-server and the ffmpeg process (in docker) running on the linux host

Do you have an example configuration for this ? Like what ports are required to be opened between the hosts , what configuration options should be enabled or disabled and maybe ffmpeg flags that need to be added.

Description

I'm asking this because the connection between the linux host and the windows host is not the most reliable and are in two remote locations from each-other , so tcp will most likely not be the best option to stream video across the VPN

[aler9]

Hello,
If the system architecture is the one you've written, i think you want to "read streams with UDP", rather than publishing streams with UDP. To use UDP when reading with ffmpeg, use the -rtsp-transport udp flag before the input:

ffmpeg -rtsp_transport udp -i rtsp://server/path ...

To force all clients to use UDP, disable TCP in the configuration of rtsp-simple-server:

protocols: [tcp]

Regarding UDP inside a VPN, it will perform in the way you want (an unreliable connection which allows frame drops) only if the VPN is based on UDP too - if the VPN is TCP-based, UDP packets will be encapsulated in TCP packets, which do not allow frame drops, so forcing UDP is useless.
I can suggest wireguard, which is a UDP-based VPN with clients for both Windows and Linux.

[aduzsardi]

Unfortunately i can't decide what protocol and/or software is used for the VPN setup.

Thank you for the clarification, i'll have to ask what protocol is used on the VPN