FAQ.md

   1 # FAQ
   2
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   6
   7
   8 - [Why did you create PeerTube?](#why-did-you-create-peertube)
   9 - [I don't like the name "PeerTube"](#i-dont-like-the-name-peertube)
  10 - [If nobody watches a video, is it seeded?](#if-nobody-watches-a-video-is-it-seeded)
  11 - [What is WebSeed?](#what-is-webseed)
  12 - [If a client requests each chunk of a video through HTTP, will the server be overloaded?](#if-a-client-requests-each-chunk-of-a-video-through-http-will-the-server-be-overloaded)
  13 - [Will an index of all the videos of servers you follow be too large for small servers?](#will-an-index-of-all-the-videos-of-servers-you-follow-be-too-large-for-small-servers)
  14 - [Which container formats can I use for the videos I want to upload?](#which-container-formats-can-i-use-for-the-videos-i-want-to-upload)
  15 - [I want to change my domain name. How can I do that?](#i-want-to-change-my-domain-name-how-can-i-do-that)
  16 - [Why do we have to put our Twitter username in PeerTube configuration?](#why-do-we-have-to-put-our-twitter-username-in-peertube-configuration)
  17 - [How are video views counted?](#how-are-video-views-counted)
  18 - [Should I have a big server to run PeerTube?](#should-i-have-a-big-server-to-run-peertube)
  19 - [Can I seed videos with my classic BitTorrent client (Transmission, rTorrent...)?](#can-i-seed-videos-with-my-classic-bittorrent-client-transmission-rtorrent)
  20 - [Why host on GitHub and Framagit?](#why-host-on-github-and-framagit)
  21 - [Are you going to use the Steem blockchain?](#are-you-going-to-use-the-steem-blockchain)
  22 - [Are you going to support advertisements?](#are-you-going-to-support-advertisements)
  23 - [What is "creation dynamic" and why not modify it?](#what-is-creation-dynamic-and-why-not-modify-it)
  24 - [I have found a security vulnerability in PeerTube. Where and how should I report it?](#i-have-found-a-security-vulnerability-in-peertube-where-and-how-should-i-report-it)
  25 - [Does PeerTube ensure federation compatibility with previous version?](#does-peertube-ensure-federation-compatibility-with-previous-version)
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  28
  29 ## Why did you create PeerTube?
  30
  31 We can't build a FOSS video streaming alternative to YouTube, Dailymotion,
  32 Vimeo... with centralized software. One organization alone may not have
  33 enough money to pay for bandwidth and video storage of its servers.
  34
  35 Our stance is that only a decentralized network of servers can provide an
  36 acceptable answer to technical issues (bandwidth, transcoding expenses, etc.)
  37 and social answers (need for a particular moderation policy, preserving
  38 content, etc.).
  39
  40 While a paragraph is not enough to answer all these problems, PeerTube has
  41 very early prided itself on using a contributory design, both for creating
  42 communities as federated nodes (as [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) for
  43 example), and for seeding videos (instances can seed each other's videos). But that's not
  44 enough because one video could become popular and overload the server. That is
  45 why we need to use a P2P protocol to limit the server load. Thanks to
  46 [WebTorrent](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent), we can use BitTorrent
  47 inside most modern web browsers, and users become seeds as the video gets
  48 more viewers.
  49
  50
  51 ## I don't like the name "PeerTube"
  52
  53 PeerTube is just the name of the software. You can install it on your
  54 server, and choose a name you want. For example, [this instance](https://framatube.org/)
  55 is named "Framatube".
  56
  57
  58 ## If nobody watches a video, is it seeded?
  59
  60 Yes, the origin server always seeds videos uploaded on it thanks to
  61 [Webseed](http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0019.html).
  62 It can also be helped by other servers using [redundancy](https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/contribute-architecture?id=redundancy-between-instances).
  63
  64
  65 ## What is WebSeed?
  66
  67 It is a BitTorrent extension that allows a server to seed a file through HTTP.
  68 It just needs to statically serve a file, then the clients will request chunks
  69 with a `Content-Range` HTTP header.
  70
  71
  72 ## If a client requests each chunk of a video through HTTP, will the server be overloaded?
  73
  74 Not really. Reverse proxies like Nginx handle static file requests very well. In my tests, it can send chunks at 10MB/s without consuming more than 5% CPU on a very small VPS.
  75
  76
  77 ## Will an index of all the videos of servers you follow be too large for small servers?
  78
  79 In our benchmarks, 1,000,000 videos consume around 2GB of PostgreSQL storage.
  80 We think that is acceptable for a video platform.
  81
  82
  83 ## Which container formats can I use for the videos I want to upload?
  84
  85 WEBM, MP4 or OGV videos are supported by default (they are streamable formats),
  86 but instance administrators can additionally enable support for MKV, MOV, AVI
  87 and FLV formats when transcoding is enabled on their instance.
  88
  89
  90 ## I want to change my domain name, how can I do that?
  91
  92 It's not officially supported, but you can try the `update-host` script: https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/maintain-tools?id=update-hostjs
  93
  94
  95 ## Why do we have to put our Twitter username in the PeerTube configuration?
  96
  97 You don't have to: we set a default value if you don't have a Twitter account.
  98 We need this information because Twitter requires an account for links share/videos embed on their platform.
  99
 100
 101 ## How are video views counted?
 102
 103 Your web browser sends a view to the server after 30 seconds of playback. If a video is less than 30 seconds in length, a view is sent after 75% of the video. After giving a view, that IP address cannot add another view in the next hour.
 104 Views are buffered, so don't panic if the view counter stays the same after you watched a video.
 105
 106
 107 ## Should I have a big server to run PeerTube?
 108
 109 PeerTube should run happily on a virtual machine with 2 threads/vCPUs, at least 1 Gb of RAM and enough storage for videos. In terms of bandwidth, a lot will depend on which PeerTube instances you federate with and what your relation with them is (more about that below).
 110
 111 As a real life example, the PeerTube demonstration server [https://peertube.cpy.re](https://peertube.cpy.re) runs on 2 vCores and 2GB of RAM. Average consumption is:
 112  * **CPU**: nginx ~ 20%, peertube ~ 10%,   postgres ~ 1%, redis ~ 3%
 113  * **RAM**: nginx ~ 6MB, peertube ~ 120MB, postgres ~ 10MB, redis ~ 5MB
 114
 115 ### CPU
 116
 117 Except for video transcoding, a PeerTube instance is not CPU bound. Neither Nginx, PeerTube itself, PpostgreSQL nor Redis require a lot of computing power. If it were only for those, one could easily get by with just one thread/vCPU.
 118
 119 You will hugely benefit from at least a second thread though, because of transcoding. Transcoding _is_ very cpu intensive. It serves two purposes on a PeerTube instance: it ensures all videos can be played optimally in the web interface, and it generates different resolutions for the same video. PeerTube support for offloading transcoding to other machines is being discussed, but not yet implemented. See https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/947 .
 120
 121 ### RAM
 122
 123 1 Gb of RAM should be plenty for a basic PeerTube instance, which usually takes at most 150 Mb in RAM. The only reason you might want more would be if you colocate your Redis or PostgreSQL services on a non-SSD system.
 124
 125 ### Storage
 126
 127 There are two important angles to storage: disk space usage and sustained read speed.
 128
 129 To make a rough estimate of your disk space usage requirements, you want to know the answer to three questions:
 130 - What is the total size of the videos you wish to stream?
 131 - Do you want to enable transcoding? If so, do you want to provide multiple resolutions per video? Try this out with a few videos and you will get an idea of how much extra space is required per video and estimate a multiplication factor for future space allocation.
 132 - Which sharing mechanisms do you want to enable? Just WebTorrent, or also HLS with p2p? If you want both, this will double your storage needs.
 133
 134 In terms of read speed, you want to make sure that you can saturate your network uplink serving PeerTube videos. This should not be a problem with SSD disks, whereas traditional HDD should be accounted for: typical sustained read rates for [a well tuned system](support/doc/production.md#tcpip-tuning) with a 7200rpm hard disk should hover around 120 MB/s or 960 Mbit/s. The latter should be enough for a typical 1 Gbit/s network uplink.
 135
 136 ### Network
 137
 138 A rough estimate of a traditional server's video streaming network capacity is usually quite straightforward. You simply divide your server's available bandwidth by the average bandwidth per stream, and you have an upper bound.
 139
 140 Take a server for example with a 1 Gbit/s uplink for example pushing out 1080p60 streams at 5 Mbit/s per stream. That means the absolute theoretical upper capacity bound is 200 simultaneous viewers if your server's disk i/o can keep up. Expect a bit less in practice.
 141
 142 But what if you need to serve more users? That's where PeerTube's federation feature shines. If other PeerTube instances following yours, chances are they have decided to mirror part of your instance! The feature is called "server redundancy" and caches your most popular videos to help serve additional viewers. While viewers themselves contribute a little additional bandwidth while watching the video in their browsers (mostly during surges), mirroring servers have a much greater uplink and will help your instance with sustained higher concurrent streaming.
 143
 144 If all your preparations and friends' bandwidth is not enough, you might prefer serving files from a CDN ; see our [remote storage guide](https://docs.joinpeertube.org/#/admin-remote-storage).
 145
 146 ## Can I seed videos with my classic BitTorrent client (Transmission, rTorrent...)?
 147
 148 Yes you can, but you won't be able to send data to users that watch the video in their web browser.
 149 The reason is they connect to peers through WebRTC whereas your BitTorrent client uses classic TCP/UDP.
 150 You can check if your BitTorrent client supports WebTorrent in this issue: https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent/issues/369
 151
 152
 153 ## Why host on GitHub and Framagit?
 154
 155 The project was initially hosted on GitHub by Chocobozzz. A full migration to [Framagit](https://framagit.org/framasoft/peertube/PeerTube) would be ideal now that Framasoft supports PeerTube, but it would take a lot of time and is an ongoing effort.
 156
 157
 158 ## Are you going to use the Steem blockchain?
 159
 160 Short answer: no, since like most appchains/votechains, it modifies the dynamic of creation, and as such cannot be integrated into mainline PeerTube. Read more about that in [the dedicated section](#what-is-creation-dynamic-and-why-not-modify-it).
 161
 162 Long answer is that the Steem blockchain goes astray of its promises of fairness and decentralization: the deliberate relaunching of the currency to ensure centralization, and the stake-based voting power, makes manipulation by wealthy users inevitable ([source here](https://decentralize.today/the-ugly-truth-behind-steemit-1a525f5e156)).
 163 Worse, money generated primarily goes to stakeholders ([source here](https://steemit.com/steemit/@orly/how-the-steem-pyramid-scheme-really-works) ).
 164 For more information, read the complete whitepaper analysis done by [Tone Vays](https://twitter.com/ToneVays/status/761975587451928576).
 165
 166 ## Are you going to support advertisements?
 167
 168 Short answer: no, we don't want advertisers to dictate which content should be financed.
 169 That would modify the dynamic of creation; as such it cannot be integrated into mainline PeerTube.
 170 Read more about that in [the dedicated section](#what-is-creation-dynamic-and-why-not-modify-it).
 171
 172 The long answer is probably more subtle. YouTube has shaped generations of video creators by making it easy to place ads;
 173 but making big money with the platform can be a challenge.
 174 A typical video ad runs between $.10 and $.30 per 1000 views (as of March 2018).
 175 More than 70% of video creators use ads as the main way to make money on YouTube, yet less than 3% of video creators make a living out of their YouTube activity (with partnerships and commissions, otherwise counting only ad revenue it drops to 1%).
 176 Read more about it in the 2018 study by Mathias Bärtl, [*YouTube channels, uploads and views: A statistical analysis of the past 10 years*](https://www.dropbox.com/s/0cq4wtxm83s95t2/10.1177%401354856517736979.pdf?dl=0).
 177 To the best of our knowledge, small and medium-community creators are better off getting support from their community on platforms such as Liberapay, Tipeee or Patreon.
 178 Moreover, don't forget that advertisers already pay considering YouTube's large user base; with PeerTube's way smaller user base and refusal of user profiling, a pay-per-view that's lower than YouTube's could only be expected.
 179
 180 ## What is "creation dynamic" and why not modify it?
 181
 182 We define creation dynamic as the way any original content, regardless of its monetary value, is created and incentivized.
 183 We want to stay neutral by limiting the influence of our platform on authors as much as possible. We are not curators, and want to limit the scope of PeerTube instance owners and administrators' responsibilities to moderation tasks only.
 184
 185 If you still want to use a functionality potentially altering that state of things, then you could interface with our upcoming plug-in system, which will be the place to integrate such features in the near future.
 186
 187 With that being said, know that we are not against these features *per se*.
 188 We are always open to discussion about potential PRs bringing in features, even of that kind. But we certainly won't dedicate our limited resources to develop them ourselves when there is so much to be done elsewhere.
 189
 190 ## I have found a security vulnerability in PeerTube. Where and how should I report it?
 191
 192 We have a policy for contributions related to security. Please refer to [SECURITY.md](./SECURITY.md)
 193
 194 ## Does PeerTube ensure federation compatibility with previous version?
 195
 196 We **try** to keep compatibility with the latest minor version (2.3.1 with 2.2 for example).
 197 We don't have resources to keep compatibility with other versions.