[FFmpeg-devel] Icecast protocol implementation doesn't parse "/" as a valid mountpoint

[Marvin Scholz]

On 22 Jan 2019, at 20:29, c0re wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Today as I tried to implement transcoding a videofeed to an icecast
> audio-only stream I have encountered some behavior that, in my
> opionion, leaves room for improvement.
>
> The setup used in this scenario consists of 
> * an Open Broadcaster Studio (OBS) instance sending a video/audio feed
> * an nginx endpoint to receive and re-stream said feed to various
> hosts (including localhost) 
> * and lastly an AzuraCast 
> (https://github.com/AzuraCast/AzuraCast)instance which employs 
> Icecast2.4 for audio broadcasting.
>
> AzuraCast allows streamer/DJ accounts to live-broadcast to any of its
> radio-stations by connecting through a Broadcasting software of your
> choice (noteworthy mentions are BUTT or Mixxx) to a dedicated port
> (e.g. 8005) and a static[1] mountpoint "/" and providing credentials.

This sounds quite weird, it would make a lot more sense to just use the
same port and different mountpoints for this.
The lack of multiple mountpoints is an old SHOUTcast limitation and
Icecast does not suffer from it.

>
> [1]static as in there is no easy way for me to change this design
> consideration)
>
> The way in which the icecast protocol is currently implemented in
> ffmpeg, it will check for characters after the trailing slash and
> assume this as a valid mountpoint.
>
> A trailing slash by itself will always be discarded with the following
> error: 
>
> 	"No mountpoint (path) specified!" 
>
> see: https://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/2.5/icecast_8c_source.html 
> [lines 157-161]
>
> so icecast://source:pass@host:port/ is considered invalid by ffmpeg (I
> cannot think of a quick and dirty workaround either).

Hi,
yes indeed Icecast does allow a mountpoint of /, but I would rather not
allow that in the FFMpeg Icecast protocol helper, as IMO using / for a
mountpoint is not a good idea. Users could accidentally use / as mount-
point without this check and would get confused why it does not work out
of the box (as by default / is an internal redirect to the status page).

I wonder why AzuraCast decides to use / as mountpoint and why it does
not even offer you a way to change it.

Regards,
Marvin Scholz

>
> To my understanding assigning a lone slash as a mountpoint name isn't
> considered invalid by the IceCast specification and therefore I
> suggest that it would be an enhancement to lift this current
> limitation on the way that mountpoints are parsed in an ffmpeg+icecast
> instruction.
>
> kind regards,
> c0re_______________________________________________
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