README.md

   1 # PeerTube
   2
   3 [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube)
   4
   5 Prototype of a decentralized video streaming platform using P2P (bittorrent) directly in the web browser with [webtorrent](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent).
   6
   7 [![js-standard-style](https://cdn.rawgit.com/feross/standard/master/badge.svg)](https://github.com/feross/standard)
   8
   9 ## Why
  10
  11 We can't build a FOSS video streaming alternatives to YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo... with a centralized software. One organization alone cannot have enought money to pay bandwith and video storage of its server.
  12
  13 So we need to have a decentralized network (as [Diaspora](https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora) for example).
  14 But it's not enought because one video could become famous and overload the server.
  15 It's the reason why we need to use a P2P protocol to limit the server load.
  16 Thanks to [webtorrent](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent), we can make P2P (thus bittorrent) inside the web browser right now.
  17
  18 ## Features
  19
  20 - [ ] Frontend
  21   - [X] Simple frontend (All elements are generated by jQuery)
  22   - [ ] AngularJS frontend
  23 - [ ] Join a network
  24   - [X] Generate a RSA key
  25   - [X] Ask for the friend list of other pods and make friend with them
  26   - [ ] Get the list of the videos owned by a pod when making friend with it
  27   - [ ] Post the list of its own videos when making friend with another pod
  28 - [X] Upload a video
  29   - [X] Seed the video
  30   - [X] Send the meta data to all other friends
  31 - [X] Remove the video
  32 - [X] List the videos
  33 - [X] Search a video name (local index)
  34 - [X] View the video in an HTML5 page with webtorrent
  35 - [ ]  Manage user accounts
  36   - [ ] Inscription
  37   - [ ] Connection
  38   - [ ] Account rights (upload...)
  39 - [X] Make the network auto sufficient (eject bad pods etc)
  40 - [ ] Manage API breaks
  41 - [ ] Add "DDOS" security (check if a pod don't send too many requests for example)
  42
  43
  44 ## Usage
  45
  46 ### Front compatibility
  47
  48   * Chromium
  49   * Firefox (>= 42 for MediaSource support)
  50
  51 ### Dependencies
  52
  53   * NodeJS == 0.12
  54   * Grunt-cli (npm install -g grunt-cli)
  55   * OpenSSL (cli)
  56   * MongoDB
  57   * xvfb-run libgtk2.0-0 libgconf-2-4 libnss3 libasound2 libxtst6 libxss1 (for electron)
  58
  59 ### Test It!
  60
  61     $ git clone https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
  62     $ cd PeerTube
  63     # npm install -g electron-prebuilt
  64     $ npm install
  65     $ npm start
  66
  67 ### Test with 3 fresh nodes
  68
  69     $ scripts/clean_test.sh
  70     $ scripts/run_servers.sh
  71
  72 Then you will can access to the three nodes at http://localhost:900{1,2,3}. If you call "make friends" on http://localhost:9002, the pod 2 and 3 will become friends. Then if you call "make friends" on http://localhost:9001 it will become friend with the pod 2 and 3 (check the configuration files). Then the pod will communicate with each others. If you add a video on the pod 3 you'll can see it on the pod 1 and 2 :)
  73
  74 ### Dockerfile
  75
  76 You can test it inside Docker with the [PeerTube-Docker repository](https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube-Docker). Moreover it can help you to check how to create an environment with the required dependencies for PeerTube on a GNU/Linux distribution.
  77
  78 ## Architecture
  79
  80 See [ARCHITECTURE.md](https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE.md) for a more detailed explication.
  81
  82 ### Backend
  83
  84   * The backend whould be a REST API
  85   * Servers would communicate with each others with it
  86     * Each server of a network has a list of all other servers of the network
  87     * When a new installed server wants to join a network, it just has to get the list of the servers via one server and tell them "Hi I'm new in the network, communicate with me too please"
  88     * Each server has its own users who query it (search videos, where the torrent URI of this specific video is...)
  89     * Server begins to seed and sends to the other servers of the network the video information (name, short description, torrent URI) of a new uploaded video
  90     * Each server has a RSA key to encrypt and sign communications with other servers
  91   * A server is a tracker responsible for all the videos uploaded in it
  92   * Even if nobody watches a video, it is seeded by the server where the video was uploaded
  93   * A server would run webtorrent-hybrid to be a bridge with webrtc/standard bittorrent protocol
  94   * A network can live and evolve by expelling bad pod (with too many downtimes for example)
  95
  96 See the ARCHITECTURE.md for more informations. Do not hesitate to give your opinion :)
  97
  98 Here are some simple schemes:
  99
 100 ![Decentralized](http://lutim.cpy.re/aV2pawRz)
 101
 102 ![Watch a video](http://lutim.cpy.re/AlOeoVPi)
 103
 104 ![Watch a video P2P](http://lutim.cpy.re/fb0JH6C3)
 105
 106 ![Join a network](http://lutim.cpy.re/ijuCgmpI)
 107
 108 ![Many networks](http://lutim.cpy.re/iz8mXHug)
 109
 110 ### Frontend
 111
 112 There would be a simple frontend (Bootstrap, AngularJS) but since the backend is a REST API anybody could build a frontend (Web application, desktop application...).
 113 The backend uses bittorrent protocol, so users could use their favorite bittorrent client to download/play the video after having its torrent URI.