live555 - Enhanced Fork

This is an enhanced fork of the live555 streaming media library with several robustness improvements for production use.

Build Instructions

./genMakefiles linux
make -j4

Replace "linux" with your platform, e.g. avr32-linux, cygwin, freebsd, iphoneos, linux, linux-64bit, macosx, openbsd, solaris-64bit, etc (see config.PLATFORM files)

Key Executables

After building, you'll find these important executables:

./testProgs/testRTSPClient - Basic RTSP client for receiving streams
./testProgs/openRTSP - Full-featured RTSP client with many options
./proxyServer/live555ProxyServer - RTSP proxy server with enhanced reliability
./mediaServer/live555MediaServer - RTSP media server for serving static files

Enhanced Features

This fork includes several improvements over the upstream live555 library:

1. Increased Buffer Sizes

OutPacketBuffer::maxSize increased from 60KB to 2MB across all components
StreamParser bank size increased from 150KB to 600KB
fileSinkBufferSize increased from 100KB to 600KB

Benefits: Better compatibility with high-bitrate streams and buggy IP cameras that send oversized frames.

2. RTSP Server Port Reuse

Added -DALLOW_RTSP_SERVER_PORT_REUSE=1 compile flag
Enables immediate port reuse when restarting services

Benefits: Faster service restarts without waiting for TIME_WAIT state. Warning: Never run multiple instances on the same port!

3. RTCP Error Handling

Fixed CPU spinning issue with buggy RTP/RTCP-over-TCP implementations
Added graceful buffer reset instead of infinite loops
Enhanced logging for troubleshooting network issues

Benefits: Prevents 100% CPU usage when dealing with malformed RTCP packets from buggy cameras.

4. Dead Stream Detection (Proxy Server)

New -D <seconds> option for inter-packet gap monitoring (default: 10 seconds)
Automatic detection and reset of dead upstream streams
Configurable timeout for different network conditions

Usage:

# Use default 10-second timeout
./proxyServer/live555ProxyServer rtsp://camera.example.com/stream

# Use custom 30-second timeout  
./proxyServer/live555ProxyServer -D 30 rtsp://camera.example.com/stream

# Disable dead stream detection
./proxyServer/live555ProxyServer -D 0 rtsp://camera.example.com/stream

Benefits: Automatically recovers from network interruptions, camera reboots, and upstream server issues.

Production Reliability

These enhancements make live555 significantly more robust for production deployments:

Handles buggy IP cameras with oversized frames and malformed packets
Automatically recovers from network interruptions and dead streams
Prevents resource exhaustion from CPU spinning and memory issues
Faster service recovery with port reuse functionality
Better observability with enhanced logging for troubleshooting

Compatibility

All changes maintain full API compatibility with upstream live555. Existing applications will benefit from the improvements without code changes.

Live555

Install / Use

README