Quick Start#

Get from zero to streaming in under 5 minutes. This guide assumes you have Go 1.21+ and FFmpeg installed.

1. Build the Server#

go build -o rtmp-server ./cmd/rtmp-server

On Windows this produces rtmp-server.exe automatically.

2. Start the Server with Recording#

./rtmp-server -listen :1935 -record-all true -log-level info
FlagDescription
-listen :1935Listen on all interfaces, port 1935 (the standard RTMP port).
-record-all trueAutomatically record every published stream to an FLV file.
-log-level infoShow informational log messages (use debug for more detail).

You should see output like:

{"level":"INFO","msg":"server started","addr":":1935","version":"dev"}

3. Publish a Stream#

Open a second terminal and push a video file:

ffmpeg -re -i test.mp4 -c copy -f flv rtmp://localhost:1935/live/test

Don’t have a video file? Generate a test pattern with synthetic audio:

ffmpeg -re -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=640x480:rate=30 \
  -f lavfi -i sine=frequency=440:sample_rate=44100 \
  -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -tune zerolatency \
  -c:a aac -f flv rtmp://localhost:1935/live/test

4. Watch the Stream#

Open a third terminal:

ffplay rtmp://localhost:1935/live/test

A player window will appear showing the live stream.

5. Verify the Recording#

Once you stop the publisher (Ctrl+C in the FFmpeg terminal), check the recordings directory:

ls recordings/

Play back the recorded file:

ffplay recordings/live_test_*.flv

6. Add More Viewers#

Open additional terminals and run the same ffplay command — each viewer connects independently and receives the stream in real time:

ffplay rtmp://localhost:1935/live/test

7. Try RTMPS (Encrypted Streaming)#

Generate self-signed certificates and start with TLS:

# Generate certs (one-time)
./scripts/generate-certs.sh

# Start with both plain and TLS listeners
./rtmp-server -listen :1935 -tls-listen :1936 \
  -tls-cert scripts/.certs/cert.pem \
  -tls-key scripts/.certs/key.pem \
  -log-level info

RTMPS clients can now connect on port 1936 with rtmps://localhost:1936/live/test. Plain RTMP continues working on port 1935. See the RTMPS Guide for production setup with trusted certificates.

What Just Happened?#

Here is what happened under the hood during the session above:

  1. RTMP Handshake — The server accepted the TCP connection and completed the RTMP v3 handshake (C0/C1/C2 ↔ S0/S1/S2), establishing a reliable bidirectional channel.
  2. Sequence Header Caching — The publisher’s H.264/H.265 SPS/PPS (video decoder configuration) and AAC AudioSpecificConfig (audio decoder configuration) were cached as “sequence headers.” These are essential for any new viewer to initialize their decoders.
  3. FLV Recording — The recording subsystem wrote each incoming audio and video message as FLV tags to a file on disk, producing a standard .flv file playable by any media player.
  4. Live Media Relay — Each subscriber first received the cached sequence headers (so their player could initialize immediately), then received live audio/video messages relayed from the publisher in real time.
  5. Zombie Detection — TCP deadlines (read 90s, write 30s) are reset on every I/O operation. If a connection goes silent, the server automatically closes it — no zombie connections accumulate.

Next Steps#

  • Installation — Download pre-built binaries or cross-compile for other platforms.
  • User Guide — Configure recording, relay, authentication, and event hooks.
  • CLI Reference — See every command-line flag and its default value.
  • RTMPS (TLS) — Set up encrypted RTMP connections.
  • E2E Testing — Run the cross-platform test suite.
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