Owncast

Owncast is an open source, self-hosted live video and chat server for use with existing popular broadcasting software. With streaming + chat out of the box you can take control over your content by running it yourself.

Software Included

Creating an App using the Control Panel

Click the Deploy to DigitalOcean button to create a Droplet based on this 1-Click App. If you aren’t logged in, this link will prompt you to log in with your DigitalOcean account.

Creating an App using the API

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Owncast 1-Click App using the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API. As an example, to create a 4GB Owncast Droplet in the SFO2 region, you can use the following curl command. You need to either save your API access token) to an environment variable or substitute it in the command below.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
         -H 'Authorization: Bearer '$TOKEN'' -d \
        '{"name":"choose_a_name","region":"sfo2","size":"s-2vcpu-4gb","image": "owncast-10"}' \
        "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"

Getting Started After Deploying Owncast

Create your new server

Keep in mind when selecting a monthly plan that the more CPU you can provide, the better quality and flexibility you’ll have in the end. Read more about CPU usage with Owncast.

Setting up DNS

1. Login to your DNS provider.
2. Add an “A Record” pointing to your_droplet_public_ipv4 and the hostname you wish to use for Owncast.
3. Wait approximately 5 minutes, but it may take longer depending on your DNS provider.
4. When http://your_droplet_public_ipv4:8080 in your browser loads then your install is complete.
5. Reboot your new server so the SSL proxy starts.

Setting up SSL

1. Login to your server by SSH’ing: ssh root@your_droplet_public_ipv4
2. When prompted, enter the hostname you added to your DNS provider above, and your email address. These are only used to configure SSL on your new server so it’ll be accessible via HTTPS.

Test

1. In your browser visit http://your_droplet_public_ipv4:8080 and verify Owncast is running.
2. In your browser visit the hostname you configured above https://hostname.mydomain.com and verify Owncast is accessible via SSL.
3. Start a stream using RTMP your software to this hostname or rtmp://your_droplet_public_ipv4/live using abc123 as the stream key. Visit the start streaming instructions for more details

Configure

With Owncast running you can begin to configure your new server by visiting the Admin located at /admin. Visit the Configuration Instructions to learn how you can change your video settings, web page content, and more.

To start, you will want to change your stream key.

Notes

• Owncast is installed in /opt/owncast. You’ll find all your data files there. This is also where you can upgrade your Owncast server in the future.