Owncast

One-click-install with DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean

Using the Owncast 1-Click-Install on DigitalOcean’s Marketplace you can get Owncast installed and configured with SSL support easily. Follow the below steps to get up and running.

As a bonus you’ll get $100 worth of service for free if you sign up with DigitalOcean, and the Owncast Project may receive referral credit so it’s an easy way to support the project.

Create a Droplet on Digital Ocean

What you need

  1. A domain name and access to your DNS settings. This is required for supporting SSL.
  2. A DigitalOcean account.

Create your new server

  1. Visit the Owncast page on DigitalOcean and create a new Droplet.
  2. Keep in mind when selecting a monthly plan that the more CPU you can provide, the better quality and flexibility you’ll have in the end. Read more about CPU usage with Owncast.

Setting up DNS

  1. Login to your DNS provider.
  2. Add an “A Record” pointing to your_droplet_ip and the hostname you wish to use for Owncast.
  3. Wait approximately 5 minutes, but it may take longer depending on your DNS provider.
  4. When http://your_droplet_ip:8080 in your browser loads then your install is complete.
  5. Reboot your new server so the SSL proxy starts.

Setting up SSL

  1. Login to your server by SSH’ing your new server: ssh root@_your_droplet_ip_
  2. Enter the hostname you added to your DNS provider above, and your email address. These are only used to configure SSL on your new server so it’ll be accessible via HTTPS.

Test

  1. In your browser visit http://_your_droplet_ip_:8080 and verify Owncast is running.
  2. In your browser visit the hostname you configured above https://hostname.mydomain.com and verify Owncast is accessible via SSL.
  3. Start a stream using RTMP your software to this hostname or rtmp://your_droplet_ip/live using abc123 as the stream key. Visit the start streaming instructions for more details

Configure

With Owncast running you can begin to configure your new server by visiting the Admin located at /admin. Visit the Configuration Instructions to learn how you can change your video settings, web page content, and more.

Notes

  • Owncast is installed in /opt/owncast. You’ll find all your data files there. This is also where you can upgrade your Owncast server in the future.

Upgrading

Since the DigitalOcean droplet comes with Owncast pre-installed you might find that it becomes out of date when a new version of Owncast is released. You can update it with these steps.

  1. ssh into your droplet as root: ssh root@_your_droplet_ip
  2. Run cd /opt/owncast to change directory.
  3. Stop Owncast from running by running systemctl stop owncast
  4. Run the Owncast installer as the owncast user: su -c "curl https://owncast.online/install.sh |bash" owncast
  5. Restart Owncast: systemctl start owncast