ApsaraVideo Live collects and distributes live streams and provides real-time media processing for live streams on the server side. To implement these features, you must add domain names to ApsaraVideo Live and configure the domain names. This topic describes the streaming domains and how to add and associate domain names. This topic also describes the features that are supported for streaming domains.
Overview
To ingest and play streams, you must add an ingest domain and a streaming domain to ApsaraViedo Live.
An ingest domain is a domain name that is used to ingest streams. To add an ingest domain, set the Domain Type parameter to Ingest Domain.
A streaming domain is a domain name that is used to play streams. To add a streaming domain, set the Domain Type parameter to Streaming Domain.
To ingest and play streams, you must add an ingest domain and a streaming domain and associate them with each other. You cannot use the same domain name as an ingest domain and a streaming domain at the same time.
Limits
You can add up to 20 domain names within each Alibaba Cloud account. If you want to increase the quota, submit a ticket to contact Alibaba Cloud technical support. For more information, see Contact us.
Add a domain name
To add a domain name to ApsaraVideo Live, perform the following steps:
Check the compliance of the domain name
ApsaraVideo Live uses Alibaba Cloud CDN to accelerate content delivery. Before you add a domain name to ApsaraVideo Live, make sure that the domain name meets the compliance requirements. This prevents losses that can be caused by non-compliance. For more information, see Verify a domain name.
Verify the ownership of the domain name
The first time you add the domain name to ApsaraVideo Live, ApsaraVideo Live verifies the ownership of the domain name. For more information, see Verify the ownership of a domain name.
Add the domain name to ApsaraVideo Live by using the ApsaraVideo Live console or by calling the AddLiveDomain operation
When you add a domain name to ApsaraVideo Live, you must configure the Domain Name, Live Center, Domain Type, and Acceleration Region parameters.
Console parameter
API parameter
Description
Domain Name
DomainName
The domain name that you want to add. Do not specify a domain name that is already added to another Alibaba Cloud service. Otherwise, the The specified domain already exists error message appears and the domain name fails to be added.
If you use the ApsaraVideo Live console to add domain names, you can specify subdomain names. Wildcard domain names are not supported.
If you use the ApsaraVideo Live API to add domain names, you can specify wildcard domain names that start with periods (.).
Live Center
Region
The region used as the live center of ApsaraVideo Live. To associate an ingest domain with a streaming domain, you must specify the same live center for both the domain names. This parameter cannot be modified once configured.
For more information about how to select a live center, see How do I select a live center?.
Domain Type
LiveDomainType
The type of the domain name. You can add an ingest domain or a streaming domain. This parameter cannot be modified once configured.
Acceleration Region
Scope
The acceleration region in which you want to accelerate content delivery. Valid values:
Chinese Mainland:
For an ingest domain, if the streamers are located in the Chinese mainland, set the value to Chinese Mainland.
For a streaming domain, if the viewers are located in the Chinese mainland, set the value to Chinese Mainland.
You must apply for an Internet content provider (ICP) filing for the domain name from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China.
Global:
For an ingest domain, if the streamers are located in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), and other countries and regions, set the value to Global.
For a streaming domain, if the viewers are located in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), and other countries and regions, set the value to Global.
You must apply for an ICP filing for the domain name from the MIIT of China.
Outside Chinese Mainland:
For an ingest domain, if the streamers are located in countries and regions outside the Chinese mainland, including Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), and Taiwan (China), set the value to Outside Chinese Mainland.
For a streaming domain, if the viewers are located in countries and regions outside the Chinese mainland, including Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), and Taiwan (China), set the value to Outside Chinese Mainland.
You do not need to apply for an ICP filing for the domain name from the MIIT of China.
NoteUnit prices of Alibaba Cloud CDN bandwidth and traffic for live streaming vary based on the acceleration region. CDN acceleration is supported only when users make playback requests in a specific acceleration region and bills are generated based on the unit prices for the acceleration region. If you set this parameter to Global and only users in the Chinese mainland make playback requests, fees for content delivery outside the Chinese mainland are not generated. For more information about the billing rules, see Billing of standard streaming and the ApsaraVideo Live pricing.
Resolve a domain name
After you add a domain name to ApsaraVideo Live, you must map the domain name to the CNAME that is assigned to ApsaraVideo Live. This way, requests sent to the domain name can be redirected to points of presence (POPs) for content delivery. For more information, see Add a CNAME record.
NoteFor more information about DNS resolution and DNS records, see What is DNS resolution?.
After you add an ingest domain and a streaming domain to ApsaraVideo Live, you must configure CNAME records to allow the domain names to take effect.
A time-to-live (TTL) value is specified in the CNAME record of a domain name to indicate how long the CNAME record can be cached on the DNS resolver. If you modify the CNAME record of the domain name, the new settings take effect after the cache expires, which takes approximately 10 minutes.
Associate the domain names
After you add an ingest domain and a streaming domain to ApsaraVideo Live, you must associate them with each other to ingest and play streams.
ApsaraVideo Live uses edge ingest to preferentially ingest streams to the optimal POPs, ensuring the optimal quality for the upstream network.
The live center ingest feature of ApsaraVideo Live is being phased out. Streaming domains that are added after February 21, 2019 do not support the live center ingest feature. All streaming domains must be associated with an ingest domain.
You can associate multiple ingest domains with multiple sub-streaming domains. The following figure shows the working principle, which is to use a main streaming domain as the intermediary.
Associate a main streaming domain with multiple ingest domains.
An ingest domain can be associated with only one main streaming domain. To play an ingested stream by using multiple streaming domains, specify one streaming domain as the main streaming domain and bind other streaming domains to the main streaming domain.
You can do so by using the ApsaraVideo Live console or by calling the AddLiveDomainMapping operation.
Bind the main streaming domain to multiple sub-streaming domains. This maps the associated ingest domains to the sub-streaming domains.
Sub-streaming domains inherit the settings of the main streaming domain, such as the settings of stream ingest and transcoding. The settings that you independently configure for sub-streaming domains do not take effect. For example, transcoding templates are valid only for main streaming domains. For more information about whether a setting is valid for a streaming domain, see Features supported for streaming domains.
You can do so by using the ApsaraVideo Live console or by calling the AddLiveDomainPlayMapping operation.
Features supported for streaming domains
After you add domain names to ApsaraVideo Live, you must configure the domain names to ingest and play streams. The following table describes the features that are supported for main streaming domains and sub-streaming domains.
Feature | Main streaming domain | Sub-streaming domain | |
Live stream management | View details of streams, including online streams, historical streams, and disabled streams | ✓ | - |
Configure disabled streams | ✓ | - | |
Recording management | View recordings | ✓ | - |
Edit index files | ✓ | - | |
View snapshots | ✓ | - | |
Domains | Modify an acceleration region | - | ✓ |
Add or remove stream ingest information | ✓ | - | |
Add a sub-streaming domain | ✓ | A sub-streaming domain cannot be nested within another sub-streaming domain. | |
Configure the origin host for an HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) video | ✓ | The origin host header of a sub-streaming domain must be specified as the main streaming domain. | |
Configure streaming latency | - | ✓ | |
Configure HTTP headers | - | ✓ | |
Configure security settings, including the HTTPS configuration and the settings for hotlink protection, URL signing, and IP address blacklist or whitelist | - | ✓ | |
Monitor the peak bandwidth | - | ✓ | |
Configure IPv6 settings | - | ✓ | |
Media processing | Configure transcoding templates | ✓ | - |
Configure recording templates and recording callbacks | ✓ | - | |
Configure snapshots and snapshot callbacks | ✓ | - | |
Configure time shifting | ✓ | - | |
Configure streaming latency | ✓ | - | |
Configure stream pulling | ✓ | - | |
Monitoring | Resource monitoring: Monitor the downstream bandwidth | - | ✓ |
Resource monitoring: Collect back-to-origin statistics | - | ✓ | |
Resource monitoring: Monitor HTTP status codes | - | ✓ | |
Real-time monitoring: Monitor the bandwidth and traffic | - | ✓ | |
Real-time monitoring: Monitor quality | - | ✓ | |
Access statistics | Unique visitors | - | ✓ |
User distribution | - | ✓ | |
Resource usage query | Streaming bandwidth and traffic | - | ✓ |
Number of ingested streams | ✓ | - | |
Transcoding duration | ✓ | - | |
Snapshots | ✓ | - | |
Time shifting | ✓ | - | |
Log management | Download logs | - | ✓ |