Deploy the live RTMP/SRT ingest and restream template with OpenTofu

Stand up a CPU ingest VM that accepts an RTMP push and fans out to downstream RTMP endpoints using the validated OpenTofu template live-ingest-restream. The template provisions NGINX-RTMP or SRS on CPU only; multi-rung ABR ladders are bounded on CPU, so prefer pass-through restream where possible.

Prerequisites#

You need:

• A Quake AI account with application credentials
• OpenTofu 1.6.0 or later (installation guide)
• OpenStack credentials sourced into the shell (source openrc.sh). See the OpenStack CLI guide.
• An SSH key pair already uploaded to the project. See Add an SSH key.
• A copy of the live-ingest-restream template from the template reference page
• One floating IP available in your project quota
• An encoder (OBS Studio or a hardware RTMP source) that can push to a public RTMP URL
• Enough project quota for one c2a.large instance, one 40 GB boot volume, one private network, one router, and one floating IP
• EC2-compatible Object Storage credentials in terraform.tfvars (required for tofu plan even when HLS replay is disabled)

Step 1: Configure variables#

Mint EC2-compatible credentials with openstack ec2 credentials create and copy terraform.tfvars.example to terraform.tfvars:

key_name = "YOUR_KEY_NAME"

encoder_cidr = "203.0.113.10/32"
admin_cidr   = "203.0.113.10/32"

application_name = "live"

restream_targets = [
  "rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2/YOUR_YOUTUBE_STREAM_KEY",
]

s3_access_key = "YOUR_EC2_ACCESS_KEY"
s3_secret_key = "YOUR_EC2_SECRET_KEY"

Replace CIDR values with your studio egress IP. Defaults for ingest_server, ingest_flavor, and HLS replay options are documented on the Live RTMP/SRT ingest and restream reference page.

Step 2: Apply the template#

From the template directory, run:

tofu init
tofu plan
tofu apply

Type yes when prompted. Provisioning takes a few minutes while cloud-init installs the ingest software.

When the run finishes, note rtmp_publish_url and ingest_floating_ip from the outputs. Append your stream_key to the URL when you set one in terraform.tfvars.

Step 3: Verify the ingest endpoint#

In OBS Studio, open Settings > Stream, choose Custom service, and set:

• Server: the rtmp_publish_url output (for example rtmp://207.x.x.x/live)
• Stream key: your configured key, or leave blank when stream_key is empty

Start a short test stream. Confirm the ingest instance status is Active in the Console.

From your workstation, confirm the floating IP responds on port 1935:

nc -zv "$(tofu output -raw ingest_floating_ip)" 1935

A successful probe reports the port open. If OBS cannot connect, verify encoder_cidr includes your encoder's public egress address.

When you configured restream_targets, check each downstream platform's live dashboard for an incoming signal after you start streaming.

Next steps#

• Live RTMP/SRT ingest and restream template
• Live streaming and restream
• Set ingest_server = "srs" when your encoder pushes SRT instead of RTMP

Clean up#

If you enabled HLS replay, empty the bucket before destroy. Run tofu destroy from the project directory when finished.