path: root/README.md

<h1 align="center">
  PeerTube
</h1>

<h4 align="center">
Prototype of a decentralized video streaming platform using P2P (bittorrent) directly in the web browser with <a href="https://github.com/feross/webtorrent">WebTorrent</a>.
</h4>

<p align="center">
  <strong>Client</strong>

  <br />

  <a href="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube?path=client">
    <img src="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube.svg?path=client" alt="Dependency Status" />
  </a>

  <a href="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube?path=client#info=devDependencies">
    <img src="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/dev-status.svg?path=client" alt="devDependency Status" />
  </a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <strong>Server</strong>

  <br />

  <a href="https://travis-ci.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube">
    <img src="https://travis-ci.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube.svg?branch=master" alt="Build Status" />
  </a>

  <a href="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube">
    <img src="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube.svg" alt="Dependencies Status" />
  </a>

  <a href="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube#info=devDependencies">
    <img src="https://david-dm.org/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/dev-status.svg" alt="devDependency Status" />
  </a>

  <a href="https://codeclimate.com/github/Chocobozzz/PeerTube">
    <img src="https://codeclimate.com/github/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/badges/gpa.svg" alt="Code climate" />
  </a>

  <br />

  <a href="https://github.com/feross/standard">
    <img src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/feross/standard/master/badge.svg" alt="js-standard-style" />
  </a>
</p>

![screenshot](https://lutim.cpy.re/vC2loRww)

## Demonstration

Want to see in action?

   * You can directly test in your browser with this [demo server](http://peertube.cpy.re). Don't forget to use the latest version of Firefox/Chromium/(Opera?) and check your firewall configuration (for WebRTC)
   * You can find [a video](https://vimeo.com/164881662 "Yes Vimeo, please don't judge me") to see how the "decentralization feature" looks like

## Why

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.

So we need to have a decentralized network (as [Diaspora](https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora) for example).
But it's not enought because one video could become famous and overload the server.
It's the reason why we need to use a P2P protocol to limit the server load.
Thanks to [WebTorrent](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent), we can make P2P (thus bittorrent) inside the web browser right now.

## Features

- [X] Frontend
  - [X] ~~Simple frontend (All elements are generated by jQuery)~~
  - [X] Angular 2 frontend
- [X] Join a network
  - [X] Generate a RSA key
  - [X] Ask for the friend list of other pods and make friend with them
  - [X] Get the list of the videos owned by a pod when making friend with it
  - [X] Post the list of its own videos when making friend with another pod
- [X] Quit a network
- [X] Upload a video
  - [X] Seed the video
  - [X] Send the meta data to all other friends
- [X] Remove the video
- [X] List the videos
- [X] Search a video name (local index)
- [X] View the video in an HTML5 page with WebTorrent
- [X] Manage admin account
  - [X] Connection
  - [X] Account rights (upload...)
- [X] Make the network auto sufficient (eject bad pods etc)
- [ ] Validate the prototype (test PeerTube in a real world with many pods and videos)
- [ ] Manage API breaks
- [ ] Add "DDOS" security (check if a pod don't send too many requests for example)
- [ ] Admin panel
  - [ ] Stats about the network (how many friends, how many requests per hour...)
  - [ ] Stats about videos
  - [ ] Manage users (create/remove)


## Installation

### Front compatibility

  * Chromium
  * Firefox (>= 42 for MediaSource support)

### Dependencies

  * **NodeJS >= 4.2**
  * OpenSSL (cli)
  * MongoDB
  * ffmpeg xvfb-run libgtk2.0-0 libgconf-2-4 libnss3 libasound2 libxtst6 libxss1 libnotify-bin (for electron)

#### Debian

  * Install NodeJS 4.2: [https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions](https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions)
  * Add jessie backports to your *source.list*: http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
  * Run:

        # apt-get update
        # apt-get install ffmpeg mongodb openssl xvfb curl sudo git build-essential libgtk2.0-0 libgconf-2-4 libnss3 libasound2 libxtst6 libxss1 libnotify-bin
        # npm install -g electron-prebuilt

#### Other distribution... (PR welcome)


### Sources

    $ git clone https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
    $ cd PeerTube
    $ npm install
    $ npm run build

## Usage

### Development

    $ npm start

### Test with 3 fresh nodes

    $ npm run clean:server:test
    $ npm run play

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 :)

### Production

If you want to run PeerTube for production (bad idea for now :) ):

    $ cp config/production.yaml.example config/production.yaml

Then edit the `config/production.yaml` file according to your webserver configuration.

Finally, run the server with the `production` `NODE_ENV` variable set.

    $ NODE_ENV=production npm start

### Other commands

To print all available command run:

    $ npm run help

## Dockerfile

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.

## Architecture

See [ARCHITECTURE.md](https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE.md) for a more detailed explication.

### Backend

  * The backend whould be a REST API
  * Servers would communicate with each others with it
    * Each server of a network has a list of all other servers of the network
    * 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"
    * Each server has its own users who query it (search videos, where the torrent URI of this specific video is...)
    * 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
    * Each server has a RSA key to encrypt and sign communications with other servers
  * A server is a tracker responsible for all the videos uploaded in it
  * Even if nobody watches a video, it is seeded by the server where the video was uploaded
  * A server would run webtorrent-hybrid to be a bridge with webrtc/standard bittorrent protocol
  * A network can live and evolve by expelling bad pod (with too many downtimes for example)

See the ARCHITECTURE.md for more informations. Do not hesitate to give your opinion :)

Here are some simple schemes:

<p align="center">

<img src="https://lutim.cpy.re/Q7mnNdJP" alt="Decentralized" />

<img src="https://lutim.cpy.re/0riSzAp1" alt="Watch a video" />

<img src="https://lutim.cpy.re/OzMSOtxG" alt="Watch a P2P video" />

<img src="https://lutim.cpy.re/uVjNNRa9" alt="Join a network" />

<img src="https://lutim.cpy.re/udTMqcb0" alt="Many networks"

</p>

### Frontend

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...).
The backend uses bittorrent protocol, so users could use their favorite bittorrent client to download/play the video after having its torrent URI.