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.