srt-xtransmit

srt-xtransmit is a testing utility with support for SRT and UDP network protocols.

Functionality

Live Transmission Commands

• generate - dummy content streaming over SRT for performance tests
• receive - receiving SRT streaming to null for performance tests
• route - route packets between two sockets (UDP/SRT) uni- or bidirectionally

File Transmission Commands

• file send - segment-based file/folder sender (requires C++17: -DENABLE_CXX17=ON)
• file receive - segment-based file/folder receiver (requires C++17: -DENABLE_CXX17=ON)
• file forward - forward packets bidirectionally between two SRT connections (requires C++17: -DENABLE_CXX17=ON)

Build Instructions

Requirements

• C++14 compliant compiler (GCC 4.8+, CLang, MSVC, etc...)
• cmake (as a build configuration system)
• OpenSSL (for encryption - required by SRT)

Note! In order to have absolute timepoint in CSV statistics, GCC v5.0 (instead of v4.8+) and above is required (with support for std::put_time).

Building on Linux/Mac

1. Create the directory for the project and clone the source code in here

mkdir -p projects/srt/srt-xtransmit
cd projects/srt
git clone https://github.com/maxsharabayko/srt-xtransmit.git srt-xtransmit

2. Initialize, fetch and checkout submodules

cd srt-xtransmit
git submodule update --init --recursive

Tip: There is a simpler method for doing the above. If you pass --recurse-submodules to the git clone command, it will automatically initialize and update each submodule in the repository, including nested submodules if any of the submodules in the repository have submodules themselves.

Tip: If you already cloned the project and forgot --recurse-submodules, you can combine the git submodule init and git submodule update steps by running git submodule update --init. To also initialize, fetch and checkout any nested submodules, you can use the foolproof git submodule update --init --recursive.

3. Install submodules dependencies, in particular, SRT library dependencies

Install CMake dependencies and set the environment variables for CMake to find openssl:

Ubuntu 18.04

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install tclsh pkg-config cmake libssl-dev build-essential

CentOS

TODO

MacOS

brew install cmake
brew install openssl
export OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=$(brew --prefix openssl)
export OPENSSL_LIB_DIR=$(brew --prefix openssl)"/lib"
export OPENSSL_INCLUDE_DIR=$(brew --prefix openssl)"/include"

On macOS, you may also need to set

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/pkgconfig" for pkg-config to find openssl. Run brew info openssl to check the exact path.

4. Build srt-xtransmit

Ubuntu 18.04 / CentOS

mkdir _build && cd _build
cmake ../
cmake --build ./

Building on MacOS

mkdir _build && cd _build
cmake ../ -DENABLE_CXX17=OFF
cmake --build ./

Building on Windows

Comprehensive Windows build instructions can be found in the corresponding wiki page.

vcpkg package manager is the easiest way to build the OpenSSL dependency.

md _build && cd _build
cmake ../ -DENABLE_STDCXX_SYNC=ON
cmake --build ./

Docker build

Requirements

• Docker engine - installation guide

Build Alpine docker image

docker build --rm -f docker/Dockerfile.alpine -t srt-xtransmit-alpine:latest .

Build Ubuntu docker image

docker build --rm -f docker/Dockerfile.ubuntu -t srt-xtransmit-ubuntu:latest .

Build with different srt lib version

docker build --rm -f docker/Dockerfile.alpine --build-arg srt_version="v1.4.0" -t srt-xtransmit-alpine:srt1.4.0 .

• srt_version - branch name or commit

Build with specififc build options

docker build --rm -f docker/Dockerfile.alpine --build-arg build_options="-DENABLE_CXX17=ON -DENABLE_BONDING=ON" -t srt-xtransmit-alpine:bonding .

• build_options - list of build options

Building with Nix

If you have Nix installed with flakes enabled, you can build directly from the repository:

nix build .#srt-xtransmit

The binary will be available at ./result/bin/srt-xtransmit.

To run without installing:

nix shell .#srt-xtransmit -c srt-xtransmit --version

Switching SRT version

Before building the project with cmake, checkout the desired SRT library version.

After git submodules are initialized:

git submodule update --init -- recursive

go to srt submodule and checkout, e.g. v1.3.4

cd submodule/srt
git checkout v1.3.4

Example Use Cases

Test Live Transfer Performance

Sender

srt-xtransmit generate "srt://127.0.0.1:4200?transtype=live&rcvbuf=1000000000&sndbuf=1000000000" --msgsize 1316 --sendrate 15Mbps --duration 10s --statsfile stats-snd.csv --statsfreq 100ms

Receiver

srt-xtransmit receive "srt://:4200?transtype=live&rcvbuf=1000000000&sndbuf=1000000000" --msgsize 1316 --statsfile stats-rcv.csv --statsfreq 100ms

Test File CC Performance

Sender

srt-xtransmit generate "srt://127.0.0.1:4200?transtype=file&messageapi=1&payloadsize=1456&rcvbuf=1000000000&sndbuf=1000000000&fc=800000" --msgsize 1456 --num 1000 --statsfile stats-snd.csv --statsfreq 1s

Receiver

srt-xtransmit receive "srt://:4200?transtype=file&messageapi=1&payloadsize=1456&rcvbuf=1000000000&sndbuf=1000000000&fc=800000" --msgsize 1456  --statsfile stats-rcv.csv --statsfreq 1s

Transmit File/Folder

Send all files in folder "srcfolder", and receive into a current folder "./".

Requires C++17 compliant compiler with support for file_system (GCC 8 and higher). See compiler support matrix.
Build with -DENABLE_CXX17=ON build option to enable (default -DENABLE_CXX17=OFF).

Sender

srt-xtransmit file send srcfolder/ "srt://127.0.0.1:4200" --statsfile stats-snd.csv --statsfreq 1s

Receiver

srt-xtransmit file receive "srt://:4200" ./ --statsfile stats-rcv.csv --statsfreq 1s