Allow support for MPEG-TS over unix sockets

[jean343]

Describe the feature

Background

We are operating a high-scale video ingestion pipeline where hundreds of MPEG-TS feeds are streamed into MediaMTX for real-time processing and distribution. Currently, we rely on UDP ports to deliver these streams.

However, this approach has become increasingly difficult to manage and maintain due to:

• Port exhaustion and conflicts, especially in environments with dynamically provisioned feeds.
• Lack of backpressure or error signaling, which is typical with UDP.
• Fragility in containerized or orchestrated environments where port mappings and host-level networking complicate deployment.

Proposal

We request support for receiving MPEG-TS streams over Unix domain sockets as a new input transport option in MediaMTX.

Benefits

• Simplified Port Management: Eliminate the need to manage hundreds of distinct UDP ports. Each feed can be associated with a well-named socket file.
• Improved Reliability: Unix sockets offer connection-oriented semantics, improved error detection, and automatic cleanup on disconnection.
• Better Integration with Local Producers: For tightly coupled pipelines (e.g., processes on the same host), Unix sockets provide low-latency and secure IPC.
• Enhanced Deployment Flexibility: Especially in Docker/Kubernetes environments, volume-mounted socket paths are more portable and easier to manage than host network bindings.

Use Case

We envision feed-producing applications piping MPEG-TS data to MediaMTX by connecting to a domain socket (e.g., /var/run/mediafeeds/camera123.sock). MediaMTX would treat this as a live input stream, similarly to a UDP listener, but initiated over a stream-oriented UDS.

For testing

Settings:

paths:
  ffmpeg:
    source: unix:/tmp/ffmpeg.socket

Populate unix socket:

ffmpeg -re -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=1280x720:rate=30 \
-c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset ultrafast -b:v 600k \
-f mpegts "unix:/tmp/ffmpeg.socket"

Play the video:

ffplay -i rtsp://localhost:8554/ffmpeg