Stream pulling is the process of pulling live streams from third-party streaming URLs. You can use ApsaraVideo Live to process the pulled streams and distribute the streams over Alibaba Cloud CDN for acceleration. You can use stream pulling as an alternative to ingesting streams to ApsaraVideo Live.

Background information

ApsaraVideo Live supports both regular stream pulling and triggered stream pulling.
  • Regular stream pulling: specifies the start time and end time for stream pulling. ApsaraVideo Live pulls the streams during the specified period regardless of whether playback requests are sent.
  • Triggered stream pulling: automatically triggers ApsaraVideo Live to pull live streams when the streaming URL of the specified domain name is used for streaming. When live streams are not played, ApsaraVideo Live does not pull live streams from the origin.
Notice
  • If you want to pull the third-party live streams that are encoded in the H.265 format, submit a ticket.
  • You cannot pull streams from IPv6 addresses.

Configure regular stream pulling

  1. Log on to the ApsaraVideo Live console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Domains to go to the Domain Management page.
  3. Find the streaming domain that you want to configure and click Domain Settings.
    Domain name configuration
  4. Choose Templates > Stream Pulling Settings.
  5. Click the Regular Stream Pulling tab and then Add.
  6. Configure regular stream pulling.
    Limits:
    • You can add up to four source URLs.
    • You can use up to 10 templates to pull streams at the same time.
    • The start time and end time must be within seven days of each other.
    Configure stream pulling

    The following table describes the parameters that you can set to configure regular stream pulling.

    Parameter Description
    AppName The name of the video application. This parameter is used to generate a streaming URL. The value of this parameter does not need to be the same as the application name that is specified in the ingest URL.

    If you want to configure stream pulling for all applications in your domain, set this parameter to ali_all_app.

    StreamName The name of the live stream, which must be unique.
    Source URLs The source URL of the third-party live stream. You can add up to four source URLs.
    Start Time/End Time The start time and end time of stream pulling. Stream pulling stops when the current time is later than the end time.
  7. Click OK.

Configure triggered stream pulling

  1. Log on to the ApsaraVideo Live console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Domains to go to the Domain Management page.
  3. Find the streaming domain that you want to configure and click Domain Settings.
    Domain name configuration
  4. Choose Templates > Stream Pulling Settings.
  5. Click the Triggered Stream Pulling tab and then Add.
  6. Configure triggered stream pulling.
    Limits:
    • You can add up to four source URLs.
    • You can use up to 20 templates to pull streams at the same time.
    Configure triggered stream pulling

    The following table describes the parameters that you can set to configure triggered stream pulling.

    Parameter Description
    AppName in Streaming URL The name of the application to which the live stream belongs. This parameter is used to generate a streaming URL. The value of this parameter does not need to be the same as the application name that is specified in the ingest URL.

    However, if you do not set the AppName in Source URL parameter, the value of this parameter must be the same as the application name that is specified in the ingest URL.

    If you want to configure stream pulling for all applications in your domain, set this parameter to ali_all_app.

    AppName in Source URL The name of the application for back-to-origin stream pulling. The value of this parameter must be the same as the application name that is specified in the ingest URL.

    If you do not set this parameter, the value of the AppName in Streaming URL parameter is used. In this case, the value of the AppName in Streaming URL parameter must be the same as the application name that is specified in the ingest URL.

    Source URL The source URL of the third-party live stream. You can add up to four source URLs.
    Protocol for Back-to-origin Stream Pulling The protocol for back-to-origin stream pulling. Valid values: RTMP, HTTP-FLV and HLS.
  7. Click OK.

Modify the configurations of stream pulling

You can modify the configurations of stream pulling to handle unexpected situations where the origin is unavailable.

  1. On the Stream Pulling Settings page, click the Triggered Stream Pulling or Regular Stream Pulling tab to view the existing configurations of stream pulling.
  2. Find the configuration template that you want to modify and click Modify in the Actions column.
    Modify the configurations of stream pulling
  3. In the Stream Pulling Settings dialog box, modify the configurations of stream pulling.
    For more information about the parameters, see the Configure regular stream pulling and Configure triggered stream pulling sections of this topic.
  4. Click OK.
Usage notes
  • Regular stream pulling

    After you modify the configurations, streams are pulled again based on the modified configurations. Make sure that the modification does not affect any running business.

  • Triggered stream pulling
    • After you modify the configurations, existing playback requests follow the origin configurations before the modification, and new playback requests follow the modified origin configurations.
    • If the AppName in Source URL parameter is specified when you configure stream pulling, you cannot leave this parameter empty when you modify the configurations.

Callback logic

Callback logic for live stream ingest status
  1. During stream ingest over Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), ApsaraVideo Live checks whether the stream ingest client closes the connection within 2 seconds after ApsaraVideo Live receives an OnPublish message. If the stream ingest client does not close the connection, ApsaraVideo Live sends a callback notification about the successful stream ingest. You may require ApsaraVideo Live to send this callback notification only when ApsaraVideo Live receives live streaming data after the connection is established. In this case, submit a ticket.
  2. For example, you have Ingest Domain A and Streaming Domain B, and you use the stream pulling feature for live streaming under Streaming Domain B. You can configure ApsaraVideo Live to pull a stream at the specified point in time, or enable ApsaraVideo Live to automatically pull a stream when the origin server starts live streaming. If you want to receive a callback notification about the stream pulling status, configure stream ingest callbacks for Ingest Domain A. After the configuration, ApsaraVideo Live uses the same callback logic as that for stream ingest status to send callback notifications about the stream pulling status under Streaming Domain B. By default, ApsaraVideo Live sends a callback notification about successful stream pulling if the stream pulling client does not close the connection within 2 seconds after the connection is established. If you require ApsaraVideo Live to send this callback notification only when live streaming data is received, submit a ticket.
Note We recommend that you deliver the streaming URL only after you determine that the stream ingest or pulling is successful based on callback notifications and the list of online streams.