Building and Running rtp2httpd

rtp2httpd is a C daemon (CMake build system) that converts RTP multicast / RTSP / HTTP streams to HTTP unicast. This skill covers local development builds — not OpenWrt cross-compilation.

Build

Always prefer production builds unless the user explicitly asks for debug.

# 1. If web-ui/src/ has changed, rebuild the frontend first (generates src/embedded_web_data.h)
pnpm run web-ui:build            # production (preferred)
pnpm run web-ui:build:debug      # debug: unminified, with source maps

# 2. Configure & compile the C binary
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_AGGRESSIVE_OPT=ON
cmake --build build -j$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN)

The binary lands at build/rtp2httpd. Skip step 1 when only C code changed — the generated embedded_web_data.h is committed so Node.js is not required for C-only builds.

CMake options

Run

# Minimal: no config file, verbose, listen on port 8080
./build/rtp2httpd -C -v -v -v -v -l 8080

# With a config file
./build/rtp2httpd -c rtp2httpd.conf

# Override specific settings via CLI
./build/rtp2httpd -c rtp2httpd.conf -l 5140 -m 20 -v -v

Commonly used CLI flags

Run ./build/rtp2httpd --help for the complete flag list.

Configuration

The config file is INI-style with three sections: [global], [bind], [services].

• Reference config: rtp2httpd.conf in the project root — all options are documented with comments
• Full docs: docs/reference/configuration.md

When both CLI flags and config file settings are present, CLI flags take precedence.

Quick config example

[global]
verbosity = 3

[bind]
* 5140

[services]
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,Channel One
rtp://239.253.64.120:5140
#EXTINF:-1,RTSP Channel
rtsp://10.0.0.50:554/live
#EXTINF:-1,HTTP Channel
http://upstream.example.com/stream

URL formats

Constructing correct URLs is critical when testing rtp2httpd. The path prefix determines the protocol handler — getting it wrong gives a 404 or unexpected behavior.

For the full URL reference with all query parameters (fcc, fec, playseek, tvdr, r2h-ifname, r2h-token, r2h-seek-name, r2h-seek-offset, etc.), read docs/guide/url-formats.md.

Verify it works

# Status page
curl http://127.0.0.1:5140/status

# M3U playlist (if services configured)
curl http://127.0.0.1:5140/playlist.m3u

# Stream a channel (replace with actual multicast addr)
curl http://127.0.0.1:5140/rtp/239.253.64.120:5140 --max-time 3 -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}"

Troubleshooting

• Port in use: change -l port or kill the old process