@chapter Protocols @c man begin PROTOCOLS Protocols are configured elements in Libav which allow to access resources which require the use of a particular protocol. When you configure your Libav build, all the supported protocols are enabled by default. You can list all available ones using the configure option "--list-protocols". You can disable all the protocols using the configure option "--disable-protocols", and selectively enable a protocol using the option "--enable-protocol=@var{PROTOCOL}", or you can disable a particular protocol using the option "--disable-protocol=@var{PROTOCOL}". The option "-protocols" of the av* tools will display the list of supported protocols. A description of the currently available protocols follows. @section concat Physical concatenation protocol. Allow to read and seek from many resource in sequence as if they were a unique resource. A URL accepted by this protocol has the syntax: @example concat:@var{URL1}|@var{URL2}|...|@var{URLN} @end example where @var{URL1}, @var{URL2}, ..., @var{URLN} are the urls of the resource to be concatenated, each one possibly specifying a distinct protocol. For example to read a sequence of files @file{split1.mpeg}, @file{split2.mpeg}, @file{split3.mpeg} with @command{avplay} use the command: @example avplay concat:split1.mpeg\|split2.mpeg\|split3.mpeg @end example Note that you may need to escape the character "|" which is special for many shells. @section file File access protocol. Allow to read from or read to a file. For example to read from a file @file{input.mpeg} with @command{avconv} use the command: @example avconv -i file:input.mpeg output.mpeg @end example The av* tools default to the file protocol, that is a resource specified with the name "FILE.mpeg" is interpreted as the URL "file:FILE.mpeg". @section gopher Gopher protocol. @section hls Read Apple HTTP Live Streaming compliant segmented stream as a uniform one. The M3U8 playlists describing the segments can be remote HTTP resources or local files, accessed using the standard file protocol. The nested protocol is declared by specifying "+@var{proto}" after the hls URI scheme name, where @var{proto} is either "file" or "http". @example hls+http://host/path/to/remote/resource.m3u8 hls+file://path/to/local/resource.m3u8 @end example Using this protocol is discouraged - the hls demuxer should work just as well (if not, please report the issues) and is more complete. To use the hls demuxer instead, simply use the direct URLs to the m3u8 files. @section http HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). This protocol accepts the following options: @table @option @item chunked_post If set to 1 use chunked Transfer-Encoding for posts, default is 1. @item content_type Set a specific content type for the POST messages. @item headers Set custom HTTP headers, can override built in default headers. The value must be a string encoding the headers. @item multiple_requests Use persistent connections if set to 1, default is 0. @item post_data Set custom HTTP post data. @item user_agent Override the User-Agent header. If not specified a string of the form "Lavf/" will be used. @item mime_type Export the MIME type. @item icy If set to 1 request ICY (SHOUTcast) metadata from the server. If the server supports this, the metadata has to be retrieved by the application by reading the @option{icy_metadata_headers} and @option{icy_metadata_packet} options. The default is 1. @item icy_metadata_headers If the server supports ICY metadata, this contains the ICY-specific HTTP reply headers, separated by newline characters. @item icy_metadata_packet If the server supports ICY metadata, and @option{icy} was set to 1, this contains the last non-empty metadata packet sent by the server. It should be polled in regular intervals by applications interested in mid-stream metadata updates. @item offset Set initial byte offset. @item end_offset Try to limit the request to bytes preceding this offset. @end table @section Icecast Icecast (stream to Icecast servers) This protocol accepts the following options: @table @option @item ice_genre Set the stream genre. @item ice_name Set the stream name. @item ice_description Set the stream description. @item ice_url Set the stream website URL. @item ice_public Set if the stream should be public or not. The default is 0 (not public). @item user_agent Override the User-Agent header. If not specified a string of the form "Lavf/" will be used. @item password Set the Icecast mountpoint password. @item content_type Set the stream content type. This must be set if it is different from audio/mpeg. @item legacy_icecast This enables support for Icecast versions < 2.4.0, that do not support the HTTP PUT method but the SOURCE method. @end table @section mmst MMS (Microsoft Media Server) protocol over TCP. @section mmsh MMS (Microsoft Media Server) protocol over HTTP. The required syntax is: @example mmsh://@var{server}[:@var{port}][/@var{app}][/@var{playpath}] @end example @section md5 MD5 output protocol. Computes the MD5 hash of the data to be written, and on close writes this to the designated output or stdout if none is specified. It can be used to test muxers without writing an actual file. Some examples follow. @example # Write the MD5 hash of the encoded AVI file to the file output.avi.md5. avconv -i input.flv -f avi -y md5:output.avi.md5 # Write the MD5 hash of the encoded AVI file to stdout. avconv -i input.flv -f avi -y md5: @end example Note that some formats (typically MOV) require the output protocol to be seekable, so they will fail with the MD5 output protocol. @section pipe UNIX pipe access protocol. Allow to read and write from UNIX pipes. The accepted syntax is: @example pipe:[@var{number}] @end example @var{number} is the number corresponding to the file descriptor of the pipe (e.g. 0 for stdin, 1 for stdout, 2 for stderr). If @var{number} is not specified, by default the stdout file descriptor will be used for writing, stdin for reading. For example to read from stdin with @command{avconv}: @example cat test.wav | avconv -i pipe:0 # ...this is the same as... cat test.wav | avconv -i pipe: @end example For writing to stdout with @command{avconv}: @example avconv -i test.wav -f avi pipe:1 | cat > test.avi # ...this is the same as... avconv -i test.wav -f avi pipe: | cat > test.avi @end example Note that some formats (typically MOV), require the output protocol to be seekable, so they will fail with the pipe output protocol. @section rtmp Real-Time Messaging Protocol. The Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is used for streaming multimedia content across a TCP/IP network. The required syntax is: @example rtmp://[@var{username}:@var{password}@@]@var{server}[:@var{port}][/@var{app}][/@var{instance}][/@var{playpath}] @end example The accepted parameters are: @table @option @item username An optional username (mostly for publishing). @item password An optional password (mostly for publishing). @item server The address of the RTMP server. @item port The number of the TCP port to use (by default is 1935). @item app It is the name of the application to access. It usually corresponds to the path where the application is installed on the RTMP server (e.g. @file{/ondemand/}, @file{/flash/live/}, etc.). You can override the value parsed from the URI through the @code{rtmp_app} option, too. @item playpath It is the path or name of the resource to play with reference to the application specified in @var{app}, may be prefixed by "mp4:". You can override the value parsed from the URI through the @code{rtmp_playpath} option, too. @item listen Act as a server, listening for an incoming connection. @item timeout Maximum time to wait for the incoming connection. Implies listen. @end table Additionally, the following parameters can be set via command line options (or in code via @code{AVOption}s): @table @option @item rtmp_app Name of application to connect on the RTMP server. This option overrides the parameter specified in the URI. @item rtmp_buffer Set the client buffer time in milliseconds. The default is 3000. @item rtmp_conn Extra arbitrary AMF connection parameters, parsed from a string, e.g. like @code{B:1 S:authMe O:1 NN:code:1.23 NS:flag:ok O:0}. Each value is prefixed by a single character denoting the type, B for Boolean, N for number, S for string, O for object, or Z for null, followed by a colon. For Booleans the data must be either 0 or 1 for FALSE or TRUE, respectively. Likewise for Objects the data must be 0 or 1 to end or begin an object, respectively. Data items in subobjects may be named, by prefixing the type with 'N' and specifying the name before the value (i.e. @code{NB:myFlag:1}). This option may be used multiple times to construct arbitrary AMF sequences. @item rtmp_flashver Version of the Flash plugin used to run the SWF player. The default is LNX 9,0,124,2. (When publishing, the default is FMLE/3.0 (compatible; ).) @item rtmp_flush_interval Number of packets flushed in the same request (RTMPT only). The default is 10. @item rtmp_live Specify that the media is a live stream. No resuming or seeking in live streams is possible. The default value is @code{any}, which means the subscriber first tries to play the live stream specified in the playpath. If a live stream of that name is not found, it plays the recorded stream. The other possible values are @code{live} and @code{recorded}. @item rtmp_pageurl URL of the web page in which the media was embedded. By default no value will be sent. @item rtmp_playpath Stream identifier to play or to publish. This option overrides the parameter specified in the URI. @item rtmp_subscribe Name of live stream to subscribe to. By default no value will be sent. It is only sent if the option is specified or if rtmp_live is set to live. @item rtmp_swfhash SHA256 hash of the decompressed SWF file (32 bytes). @item rtmp_swfsize Size of the decompressed SWF file, required for SWFVerification. @item rtmp_swfurl URL of the SWF player for the media. By default no value will be sent. @item rtmp_swfverify URL to player swf file, compute hash/size automatically. @item rtmp_tcurl URL of the target stream. Defaults to proto://host[:port]/app. @end table For example to read with @command{avplay} a multimedia resource named "sample" from the application "vod" from an RTMP server "myserver": @example avplay rtmp://myserver/vod/sample @end example To publish to a password protected server, passing the playpath and app names separately: @example avconv -re -i -f flv -rtmp_playpath some/long/path -rtmp_app long/app/name rtmp://username:password@@myserver/ @end example @section rtmpe Encrypted Real-Time Messaging Protocol. The Encrypted Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMPE) is used for streaming multimedia content within standard cryptographic primitives, consisting of Diffie-Hellman key exchange and HMACSHA256, generating a pair of RC4 keys. @section rtmps Real-Time Messaging Protocol over a secure SSL connection. The Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMPS) is used for streaming multimedia content across an encrypted connection. @section rtmpt Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTP. The Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTP (RTMPT) is used for streaming multimedia content within HTTP requests to traverse firewalls. @section rtmpte Encrypted Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTP. The Encrypted Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTP (RTMPTE) is used for streaming multimedia content within HTTP requests to traverse firewalls. @section rtmpts Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTPS. The Real-Time Messaging Protocol tunneled through HTTPS (RTMPTS) is used for streaming multimedia content within HTTPS requests to traverse firewalls. @section librtmp rtmp, rtmpe, rtmps, rtmpt, rtmpte Real-Time Messaging Protocol and its variants supported through librtmp. Requires the presence of the librtmp headers and library during configuration. You need to explicitly configure the build with "--enable-librtmp". If enabled this will replace the native RTMP protocol. This protocol provides most client functions and a few server functions needed to support RTMP, RTMP tunneled in HTTP (RTMPT), encrypted RTMP (RTMPE), RTMP over SSL/TLS (RTMPS) and tunneled variants of these encrypted types (RTMPTE, RTMPTS). The required syntax is: @example @var{rtmp_proto}://@var{server}[:@var{port}][/@var{app}][/@var{playpath}] @var{options} @end example where @var{rtmp_proto} is one of the strings "rtmp", "rtmpt", "rtmpe", "rtmps", "rtmpte", "rtmpts" corresponding to each RTMP variant, and @var{server}, @var{port}, @var{app} and @var{playpath} have the same meaning as specified for the RTMP native protocol. @var{options} contains a list of space-separated options of the form @var{key}=@var{val}. See the librtmp manual page (man 3 librtmp) for more information. For example, to stream a file in real-time to an RTMP server using @command{avconv}: @example avconv -re -i myfile -f flv rtmp://myserver/live/mystream @end example To play the same stream using @command{avplay}: @example avplay "rtmp://myserver/live/mystream live=1" @end example @section rtp Real-Time Protocol. @section rtsp RTSP is not technically a protocol handler in libavformat, it is a demuxer and muxer. The demuxer supports both normal RTSP (with data transferred over RTP; this is used by e.g. Apple and Microsoft) and Real-RTSP (with data transferred over RDT). The muxer can be used to send a stream using RTSP ANNOUNCE to a server supporting it (currently Darwin Streaming Server and Mischa Spiegelmock's @uref{http://github.com/revmischa/rtsp-server, RTSP server}). The required syntax for a RTSP url is: @example rtsp://@var{hostname}[:@var{port}]/@var{path} @end example The following options (set on the @command{avconv}/@command{avplay} command line, or set in code via @code{AVOption}s or in @code{avformat_open_input}), are supported: Flags for @code{rtsp_transport}: @table @option @item udp Use UDP as lower transport protocol. @item tcp Use TCP (interleaving within the RTSP control channel) as lower transport protocol. @item udp_multicast Use UDP multicast as lower transport protocol. @item http Use HTTP tunneling as lower transport protocol, which is useful for passing proxies. @end table Multiple lower transport protocols may be specified, in that case they are tried one at a time (if the setup of one fails, the next one is tried). For the muxer, only the @code{tcp} and @code{udp} options are supported. Flags for @code{rtsp_flags}: @table @option @item filter_src Accept packets only from negotiated peer address and port. @item listen Act as a server, listening for an incoming connection. @end table When receiving data over UDP, the demuxer tries to reorder received packets (since they may arrive out of order, or packets may get lost totally). This can be disabled by setting the maximum demuxing delay to zero (via the @code{max_delay} field of AVFormatContext). When watching multi-bitrate Real-RTSP streams with @command{avplay}, the streams to display can be chosen with @code{-vst} @var{n} and @code{-ast} @var{n} for video and audio respectively, and can be switched on the fly by pressing @code{v} and @code{a}. Example command lines: To watch a stream over UDP, with a max reordering delay of 0.5 seconds: @example avplay -max_delay 500000 -rtsp_transport udp rtsp://server/video.mp4 @end example To watch a stream tunneled over HTTP: @example avplay -rtsp_transport http rtsp://server/video.mp4 @end example To send a stream in realtime to a RTSP server, for others to watch: @example avconv -re -i @var{input} -f rtsp -muxdelay 0.1 rtsp://server/live.sdp @end example To receive a stream in realtime: @example avconv -rtsp_flags listen -i rtsp://ownaddress/live.sdp @var{output} @end example @section sap Session Announcement Protocol (RFC 2974). This is not technically a protocol handler in libavformat, it is a muxer and demuxer. It is used for signalling of RTP streams, by announcing the SDP for the streams regularly on a separate port. @subsection Muxer The syntax for a SAP url given to the muxer is: @example sap://@var{destination}[:@var{port}][?@var{options}] @end example The RTP packets are sent to @var{destination} on port @var{port}, or to port 5004 if no port is specified. @var{options} is a @code{&}-separated list. The following options are supported: @table @option @item announce_addr=@var{address} Specify the destination IP address for sending the announcements to. If omitted, the announcements are sent to the commonly used SAP announcement multicast address 224.2.127.254 (sap.mcast.net), or ff0e::2:7ffe if @var{destination} is an IPv6 address. @item announce_port=@var{port} Specify the port to send the announcements on, defaults to 9875 if not specified. @item ttl=@var{ttl} Specify the time to live value for the announcements and RTP packets, defaults to 255. @item same_port=@var{0|1} If set to 1, send all RTP streams on the same port pair. If zero (the default), all streams are sent on unique ports, with each stream on a port 2 numbers higher than the previous. VLC/Live555 requires this to be set to 1, to be able to receive the stream. The RTP stack in libavformat for receiving requires all streams to be sent on unique ports. @end table Example command lines follow. To broadcast a stream on the local subnet, for watching in VLC: @example avconv -re -i @var{input} -f sap sap://224.0.0.255?same_port=1 @end example Similarly, for watching in avplay: @example avconv -re -i @var{input} -f sap sap://224.0.0.255 @end example And for watching in avplay, over IPv6: @example avconv -re -i @var{input} -f sap sap://[ff0e::1:2:3:4] @end example @subsection Demuxer The syntax for a SAP url given to the demuxer is: @example sap://[@var{address}][:@var{port}] @end example @var{address} is the multicast address to listen for announcements on, if omitted, the default 224.2.127.254 (sap.mcast.net) is used. @var{port} is the port that is listened on, 9875 if omitted. The demuxers listens for announcements on the given address and port. Once an announcement is received, it tries to receive that particular stream. Example command lines follow. To play back the first stream announced on the normal SAP multicast address: @example avplay sap:// @end example To play back the first stream announced on one the default IPv6 SAP multicast address: @example avplay sap://[ff0e::2:7ffe] @end example @section tcp Transmission Control Protocol. The required syntax for a TCP url is: @example tcp://@var{hostname}:@var{port}[?@var{options}] @end example @table @option @item listen Listen for an incoming connection @example avconv -i @var{input} -f @var{format} tcp://@var{hostname}:@var{port}?listen avplay tcp://@var{hostname}:@var{port} @end example @end table @section tls Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) The required syntax for a TLS url is: @example tls://@var{hostname}:@var{port} @end example The following parameters can be set via command line options (or in code via @code{AVOption}s): @table @option @item ca_file A file containing certificate authority (CA) root certificates to treat as trusted. If the linked TLS library contains a default this might not need to be specified for verification to work, but not all libraries and setups have defaults built in. @item tls_verify=@var{1|0} If enabled, try to verify the peer that we are communicating with. Note, if using OpenSSL, this currently only makes sure that the peer certificate is signed by one of the root certificates in the CA database, but it does not validate that the certificate actually matches the host name we are trying to connect to. (With GnuTLS, the host name is validated as well.) This is disabled by default since it requires a CA database to be provided by the caller in many cases. @item cert_file A file containing a certificate to use in the handshake with the peer. (When operating as server, in listen mode, this is more often required by the peer, while client certificates only are mandated in certain setups.) @item key_file A file containing the private key for the certificate. @item listen=@var{1|0} If enabled, listen for connections on the provided port, and assume the server role in the handshake instead of the client role. @end table @section udp User Datagram Protocol. The required syntax for a UDP url is: @example udp://@var{hostname}:@var{port}[?@var{options}] @end example @var{options} contains a list of &-separated options of the form @var{key}=@var{val}. Follow the list of supported options. @table @option @item buffer_size=@var{size} set the UDP buffer size in bytes @item localport=@var{port} override the local UDP port to bind with @item localaddr=@var{addr} Choose the local IP address. This is useful e.g. if sending multicast and the host has multiple interfaces, where the user can choose which interface to send on by specifying the IP address of that interface. @item pkt_size=@var{size} set the size in bytes of UDP packets @item reuse=@var{1|0} explicitly allow or disallow reusing UDP sockets @item ttl=@var{ttl} set the time to live value (for multicast only) @item connect=@var{1|0} Initialize the UDP socket with @code{connect()}. In this case, the destination address can't be changed with ff_udp_set_remote_url later. If the destination address isn't known at the start, this option can be specified in ff_udp_set_remote_url, too. This allows finding out the source address for the packets with getsockname, and makes writes return with AVERROR(ECONNREFUSED) if "destination unreachable" is received. For receiving, this gives the benefit of only receiving packets from the specified peer address/port. @item sources=@var{address}[,@var{address}] Only receive packets sent to the multicast group from one of the specified sender IP addresses. @item block=@var{address}[,@var{address}] Ignore packets sent to the multicast group from the specified sender IP addresses. @end table Some usage examples of the udp protocol with @command{avconv} follow. To stream over UDP to a remote endpoint: @example avconv -i @var{input} -f @var{format} udp://@var{hostname}:@var{port} @end example To stream in mpegts format over UDP using 188 sized UDP packets, using a large input buffer: @example avconv -i @var{input} -f mpegts udp://@var{hostname}:@var{port}?pkt_size=188&buffer_size=65535 @end example To receive over UDP from a remote endpoint: @example avconv -i udp://[@var{multicast-address}]:@var{port} @end example @section unix Unix local socket The required syntax for a Unix socket URL is: @example unix://@var{filepath} @end example The following parameters can be set via command line options (or in code via @code{AVOption}s): @table @option @item timeout Timeout in ms. @item listen Create the Unix socket in listening mode. @end table @c man end PROTOCOLS