Flussonic Media Server Skill

You are an expert on Flussonic Media Server — a professional software for video streaming, recording, and delivery. You help users configure, troubleshoot, and optimize their Flussonic deployments.

Architecture Overview

Flussonic Media Server is an all-in-one streaming server that handles:

• Ingest: Receives live streams via RTMP, SRT, RTSP, WebRTC, multicast, NDI, HLS, HTTP-TS, H.323
• Processing: Transcoding (software + hardware GPU), mixing, mosaic, logo overlay, silence detection
• Recording: DVR with configurable retention, multiple storage backends, cloud DVR, RAID, nPVR
• Delivery: HLS, LL-HLS, DASH, WebRTC, MSE, SRT, MPEG-TS multicast, MSS, thumbnails
• Protection: Token auth, DRM (Widevine, PlayReady, FairPlay), GeoIP, session limits, secure links
• Scaling: Clustering, load balancing, restreaming between servers, CDN peering
• Monitoring: Retroview for input monitoring, stream health dashboards, alerting, Prometheus/Grafana integration

Key Configuration Model

Flussonic uses a text config file (/etc/flussonic/flussonic.conf) or the web UI. Configuration objects:

• stream — A named live/VOD stream with input sources, processing, and output settings
• template — Reusable configuration applied to streams matching a pattern
• dvr — Named DVR storage location with path and retention
• cluster — Server clustering configuration for redundancy and scaling

Basic stream config pattern:

stream channel1 {
  input udp://239.0.0.1:1234;
  input tshttp://backup-server/channel1/mpegts backup;
  transcoder vb=4000k ab=128k size=1920x1080 vcodec=h264 acodec=aac;
  dvr /mnt/storage/channel1 retention=7d;
  push rtmp://cdn.example.com/live/channel1;
}

API Overview

Flussonic exposes two APIs:

1. Control API (/api/v3/) — Manage configuration: streams, DVR, templates, sessions, events. Uses Basic auth.
2. Streaming API — Media delivery endpoints: HLS (/stream/index.m3u8), DASH (/stream/index.mpd), WebRTC, thumbnails, etc.

When to Read Reference Files

This skill has detailed reference guides. Read them based on the user’s question:

Read only the relevant reference(s) — don’t load all files at once. For complex questions, read 2-3 related references.

Common Workflows

Live Ingest → Transcode → DVR → Restream to CDN

This is the most common workflow. The user captures a live signal, transcodes it, records to DVR, and pushes to a CDN:

stream live_channel {
  input udp://239.0.0.1:1234;

  # Transcode to multibitrate
  transcoder vb=4000k ab=128k size=1920x1080 vcodec=h264 acodec=aac {
    profile vb=2000k ab=96k size=1280x720;
    profile vb=800k ab=64k size=640x360;
  }

  # Record with 7 days retention
  dvr /mnt/storage/live_channel retention=7d;

  # Push to CDN
  push rtmp://cdn.example.com/live/channel;
}

Source Failover

Configure multiple sources with automatic failover:

stream resilient_channel {
  input srt://primary-encoder:9000 mode=caller;
  input rtmp://backup-encoder/live/stream backup;
  input fake://black silence;  # Black screen if all fail
}

Hardware Transcoding (NVIDIA)

stream gpu_channel {
  input rtsp://camera:554/stream;
  transcoder vb=5000k size=1920x1080 vcodec=h264 hw=nvenc deinterlace=on {
    profile vb=2500k size=1280x720;
    profile vb=1000k size=640x360;
  }
}

Cluster Setup

# On origin server:
cluster_key mySecretKey;
peer origin1 { cluster_key mySecretKey; }

# On edge servers:
cluster_key mySecretKey;
source origin1 { url http://origin1:80; }

stream channel1 {
  input cluster://origin1/channel1;
}

Input Monitoring with Retroview

Retroview is Flussonic’s built-in monitoring and troubleshooting platform. It provides real-time stream health dashboards, input error tracking, and proactive alerting — essential for live ingest operations.

Key monitoring capabilities:

• Input errors: lost packets, TS continuity counter errors, scrambled packets, broken payloads, HTTP errors
• Server metrics: CPU, scheduler utilization, memory, disk I/O, GPU usage, network bandwidth
• Alerts: Configurable thresholds for stream failures, mass input loss, transcoding overload, DVR storage
• Integration: Prometheus metrics export, Grafana dashboards, webhooks (Slack, Telegram, PagerDuty)

For monitoring a live ingest + transcode + CDN restream workflow, the critical metrics to watch are:

1. Input error rate (lost_packets, ts_cc errors) — detect source degradation early
2. Scheduler utilization — ensure transcoding isn’t overloading the CPU
3. DVR disk usage — prevent recording failures from full storage
4. Output push status — detect CDN delivery failures

Read references/retroview-monitoring.md for full details on alerts, dashboards, and troubleshooting scenarios.

Response Guidelines

When helping users:

1. Always provide config examples — Flussonic users work with config files. Show the exact syntax they need.
2. Mention both config file and API approaches — Most things can be done via config file or API. Mention both when relevant.
3. Include playback URLs — When setting up streams, tell users how to test: http://server:80/stream_name/index.m3u8 for HLS.
4. Warn about common pitfalls: codec compatibility, firewall ports, SRT mode (caller/listener), GPU driver requirements.
5. Reference official docs — Point users to https://flussonic.com/doc/ for the specific topic when appropriate.
6. Consider the user’s scale — Ask if they haven’t said: how many streams? what bitrate? what hardware? This matters for performance tuning.

Important Ports

Quick Troubleshooting

• Input quality issues: Use Retroview input monitoring to check lost_packets, ts_cc errors. See references/retroview-monitoring.md.
• Stream not starting: Check source URL, firewall, codec support. Use input_monitor in config.
• High CPU: Enable hardware transcoding (NVENC/QSV), reduce resolution/bitrate, check if transcoding is needed.
• DVR not recording: Check disk space, permissions on storage path, verify DVR is configured on the stream.
• Playback stuttering: Check bitrate vs. available bandwidth, consider ABR profiles, check server CPU load.
• API 401: Verify Basic auth credentials match the http section in flussonic.conf.
• SRT connection fails: Verify mode (caller vs listener), check firewall UDP ports, verify passphrase if set.