SRS Simple Realtime Server - Live Streaming Media Server

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

Overview

SRS (Simple Realtime Server) is a high-performance, open-source live streaming and real-time media server trusted by a large global community of developers and broadcasters. This AMI delivers SRS 6.0 fully installed and running behind an nginx reverse proxy, with a bundled web console and test player, so a working streaming server is serving within minutes of launch on your own AWS infrastructure.

Why This AMI Over DIY Deployment

Self-installing SRS requires configuring systemd services, setting up nginx as a reverse proxy, hardening credentials, resolving public IP for WebRTC, and attaching storage - tasks that typically take hours. This AMI eliminates that work entirely. Compared to managed streaming platforms, you retain full control of your media pipeline, pay only for EC2 compute, and keep all streams within your own VPC with no vendor lock-in.

Application Stack

The official SRS 6.0 server runs as a systemd-managed container with host networking, so RTMP (port 1935) and WebRTC UDP media ports bind directly to the instance for correct low-latency delivery without NAT traversal issues that plague bridged networking. nginx serves the console, player and stream output on port 80 and reverse-proxies the SRS HTTP API, protected by HTTP Basic authentication. A health endpoint answers without authentication for load-balancer and uptime checks.

Multi-Protocol Ingest and Delivery

Ingest live video over RTMP, SRT or WebRTC and deliver the same stream simultaneously as RTMP, HLS, HTTP-FLV and WebRTC. WebRTC delivery targets sub-second glass-to-glass latency for interactive use cases, while HLS provides broad device compatibility. Point a browser at the bundled console to see live streams, connected clients and server statistics, and use the built-in player to watch a stream end to end. A JSON HTTP API reports streams, clients, versions and summaries for automation and monitoring.

Security and Encryption

On first boot a one-shot service generates a fresh admin password unique to that instance, stored in a file only the root user can read. No shared or default credentials ship in the image. The instance public address is resolved automatically so WebRTC connectivity works out of the box. nginx supports TLS termination - configure a Let's Encrypt certificate or your own certificate to enable HTTPS for the console, API and HLS delivery. SRT ingest is encrypted by default at the protocol level. The dedicated data disk can be encrypted using AWS KMS for recordings at rest. We recommend placing the instance in a VPC with security groups restricting ingest ports to known publisher IPs.

Dedicated Data Disk

Live media output and recordings reside on a dedicated, independently resizable EBS volume. This prevents root volume exhaustion during extended recordings and lets you scale storage without downtime or instance replacement.

Use Cases

• Live event broadcasting: An event production team pushes RTMP from OBS Studio to this server, which delivers HLS to thousands of viewers on a branded web page - all within a single c5.xlarge instance.
• Interactive video and education: A fitness studio or online classroom uses WebRTC ingest and delivery for sub-second interaction between instructor and participants.
• Broadcast origin server: A video platform uses this AMI as an origin, with CloudFront as the CDN edge, to scale HLS delivery to large audiences while keeping ingest infrastructure private.

Getting Started

1. Launch the AMI and ensure your security group opens TCP 1935 (RTMP), TCP 80 (HTTP), TCP 443 (HTTPS, optional), and UDP 8000-8100 (WebRTC media).

2. SSH into the instance and retrieve the generated admin password from /root/.srs_admin_password.

3. Open http://your-instance-ip in a browser, log in with the admin credentials, and explore the console.

4. Publish a test stream from OBS or ffmpeg to rtmp://your-instance-ip/live/stream and watch it play back in the bundled player over HLS, HTTP-FLV or WebRTC.

cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and live chat. Our engineers assist with deployment architecture, HTTPS and Let's Encrypt configuration, RTMP, SRT and WebRTC publishing, HLS segment tuning for low latency, recording to S3, storage scaling and upgrade planning.

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