[release] XBMC BlastDAV - small performant streaming server
#1
Hello,

I wanted to announce the release of version 1.0 of XBMC BlastDAV.

http://www.warmenhoven.co/software/xbmc-blastdav/

It is a small, performant streaming media server using a partial implementation of WebDAV.
The reason for WebDAV is that it can be disseminated using all the normal HTTP infrastructure/software.

It is released into the public domain and source is available on GitHUB (the version at GitHUB is a bit further developed than the release; it has symlinks working).

Features:

- Runs on Windows, MacOSX, FreeBSD, Raspberry PI. 32-bit/64-bit
- No dependencies, just fire up the executable and it works. No config files/temp dirs either.
- Source available. No dependencies on other libraries.
- Thoroughly tested; it has run, without a restart, over 6 months with an average of 12 clients watching SD/HD content simultaneously.
- It's free and you can do whatever you want with the source

With kind regards,
Adrianus Warmenhoven
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#2
So what does this server do that the built-in upnp server doesn't?
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#3
Well, nothing, but as far as I know I never made any hints at it being a replacement or alternative for that Smile

The main reason for making BlastDAV is that I want to be able to have a headless server with a low memory footprint that can handle a large number of clients and for which the protocol can be routed via all the HTTP infrastructure available.

That and that it should not need any installation or config files.

Mind you, UPnP is not usable outside of your LAN (well, the webserver it points to is, but UPnP is UDP broadcast, which only points back to a server with a different protocol, and unless you have your firewall/router on suicidal, that never leaves your home).

But hey, it is released into Public Domain, including source. So if there is anything you need to add that is not provided by the built-in UPnP or by the current release of BlastDAV, you are free to add and/or modify it as you see fit.

It just fits my needs quite well and I'd thought I'd give the code to the community.
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#4
So if I understand you correctly awarmenhoven, BlastDAV is a way of accessing securely to your media if you are not on your LAN (in a secure way)? Is that a correct?
Pretty interesting and thanks for sharing it with the community.
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#5
(2013-02-21, 20:54)Temhil Wrote: So if I understand you correctly awarmenhoven, BlastDAV is a way of accessing securely to your media if you are not on your LAN (in a secure way)? Is that a correct?
Pretty interesting and thanks for sharing it with the community.

Well not quite. But the gist of it is:

- It uses WebDAV, which is a superset of HTTP (with which you are looking at websites)
- There are a lot of tunnels, reverse proxies etc for HTTP traffic (because of websites)
- You can combine BlastDAV and these softwares to securely and remotely stream your content.

An example:
- You start BlastDAV on a server with -listenaddress 127.0.0.1 -port 8080
- You start Stunnel (https://www.stunnel.org/index.html) on your public IP and forward all requests to 127.0.0.1:8080
- You now can use ssl streaming

Another example:
- You have a small NAS with all your content
- You start the ARM version of BlastDAV on your NAS
- You now can stream all content directly over HTTP to any device and you do not need to let the firewall allow other types of traffic

And another example:
- You have a public website and want people to be able to watch video's on XBMC
- You forward a part of your website to BlastDAV (say: /myvideos/)
- People can now see the video's and photo's you put on that site, over the Internet, even on public WiFi (since a lot of public WiFi providers only allow HTTP traffic, but that is not a problem anymore)

I hope this makes it a bit clearer.

Also, I released it in Public Domain, meaning you can copy it, rip it apart, use only parts of it and even make closed source commercial stuff from it.

It's just that since it works so well for me and a lot of others that I made it available.

Ow, and it uses little memory on my Raspberry Pi too Wink
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#6
This may not be the best place to ask, but, is there a way to make blastdav require webdav clients to use a username and password? Or perhaps someway to make stunnel or some other "go-between" program handle that?

btw Many Thanks for Blastdav, it's preformed worlds better for me than trying to use webdav in nginx or apache
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