Config: Geo-location database update

A lot of Nimble Streamer customers use its geo-location balancing or WMSAuth geo-location restriction. This requires having accurate database of IP to geo-location mapping. WMSPanel team uses MaxMind GeoIP database and it's periodically updated by our team for further use within our products.

You may set up your Nimble instance to automatically update geo-location database. Put this parameter into your Nimble config:
update_geoip_database = true
and re-start Nimble

Read this config description for configuration details:
http://blog.wmspanel.com/2013/07/nimble-configs-explained.html

Nimble will be checking the geo base once a day and updating it right away.

I'm trying to setup geo loadbalacing, and try to redirect viewers from Nimble-Origin to Nimble-Edge server. The stream apllication name and stream name are the same by both nimble servers origin en Edge. In JWplayer the stream url points to origin. I made a geo policy in wmspanel, that people from germany will redirect from origin to the edge for the "live" application. Till now this is not working. I tried a second policy with a specific IP, that must be redirect to the edge, but get the same result. JWplayer still plays the stream from the origin.
Only when I use a different streamname on the edge, in the rtmp pulling settings, the viewer will redirect from origin to edge.
I tried geo restriction too, but than the viewer is blocked by origin, and will not be redirected to edge neither.
Must I use dns fallback too, with geo restriction and geo redirect policy, to redirect viewers from origin to edge?
update_geoip_database = true is added in the config file.

Hi Joel,

As we discovered, not all players honor the 302 redirection header so we recommend using other techniques like the one described in this article: http://blog.wmspanel.com/2015/02/hls-dash-media-streaming-load-balancing.html
As example we made reference code for geo-balancing: https://github.com/WMSPanel/http-load-balancing/tree/master/geo-balancing

Later on we'll release reference code for balancing based on each instance load via Nimble API.

Hi Yury, I see. We have to wait, if I still want to use jwplayer

in the maintime I found something interesting on a support page of jwplayer, about 303 redirect. They say, jwplayer don't support 303. (what you said)
instead, use dns loadbalacing, or dynamic m3u8 manifest.

Question:
Is it possible to make a ABR smil file for livestreaming, with links to Nimble origin and edge, with Geo restiction?

see link to support page JWplayer:
http support.jwplayer.com/customer/portal/articles/1430189-about-hls-streaming

An additional limitation to keep in mind is that JW Player does not support 302 redirects on the M3U8 manifest/playlist files, since the Adobe Flash player does not support the combination of crossdomain loading and redirects. We advise to instead use DNS load-balancing or serve up a dynamic M3U8 manifest, containing direct links to the M3U8 playlists on the target servers.

we support absolute path to follow JW recommendations:
http://blog.wmspanel.com/p/nimble-streamer-configuration.html find absolute_path description there.
But problems will be even with such recommendations as player periodically request playlist and get another server from dns pool. in this case it will fail session security checks or as different servers will not have exact the same playlist players will stop working.
Simplest case is to implement load balancing manually: just point users between servers based on server load. You can get server load based on wmspanel api or Nimble API(http://blog.wmspanel.com/2014/11/nimble-streamer-status-api.html) and Nimble API is more preferable way. it's nothing hard to implement - you just get current server load periodically and based on server list and load info decide to what server point users. DNS failover and 302 + absolute path is not 100% working solution unfortunately. But manual load balancing based on servers load will work

Hi Alex, than I will try manual loabalacing with Nimble API.
The Api page you point to, does not exist.
But if I'm correct, i have to setup a seperate server/Arbiter, who will check the connections/load of the nimble servers by nimble API, and do the loadbalacing between the Nimble streamers.
Not something out of the box. It looks hard to make something like that.

Hi Joel,

Sorry, our forum engine got incorrect link highlight, this is the correct one: http://blog.wmspanel.com/2014/11/nimble-streamer-status-api.html

As for arbiter etc. - yes, it requires custom development and we plan releasing reference source code for it soon.

Hi Yury, thanks for the right link. I'm very basic programmer. I can read the connection status of the nimble streamers now, but I will wait for the referentie source code, I think. I can't see the next step.

OK then, we'll keep you posted about updates.

Perfect!

update_geoip_database = true

Does this still work, as this post is 2 years old and a few months ago I asked about geo update and was told we have to update the geo database manually. (But maybe that was for GeoIP Legacy)

Thanks

Hello,

This should work, of course. You might have faced some un-usual system problem - this is when you should contact us via https://wmspanel.com/help so we could follow up to resolve it.

update_geoip_database = true still works.
I cannot say why it's recommended to upgrade geo db in your case and if you have supported ticket please reply it so we can discuss there. In general this recommendation is still actual

Dear Yury,
I'm currently playing with the Geo feature. It works for HLS-LL streams, but not for SLDP. Is this not implemented in your free sldp player or did I setup the redirection wrong?

Here is my working HLS geo redirect setup:
Rule: server/redirect/app/ to edge-server/app/

url fed to player: server/redirect/app/stream/playlist.m3u8 is redirecting to edge-server/app/stream/playlist.m3u8

But with wss://server/redirect/app/stream it does not work. Error "not found"

Thanks, Jörg

Hello, Jörg.

Do you mean you're using re-streaming routing for SLDP?
It won't work, as SLDP is not supported for re-streaming.
Please find re-streaming features and protocols description on the following page:
https://softvelum.com/nimble/restreaming/

I also recommend opening a ticket at wmspanel.com/help for any other questions you have.
Thank you.

Dear Sergei,
I was talking of the route feature to do geo redirection. The idea is to provide some simple geolocation based load balancing. I know that you created some code reference for an external arbiter to handle load balancing. Never the less, I'd like to explore more the given feature with the already build in feature.
I have one scenario in mind, where I offer my clients SLDP playback for people watching via a desktop browser and HLS low latency for mobile users. In order to provide enough network bandwidth and low latency, I want to setup edge servers in different regions of the world (USA, Europe, APAC etc.).
Currently, I forward all incoming RTMP streams from my origin to all edge servers. With the help of geo redirection, I can use one URL to point all viewers to the same m3u8 manifest on my origin server. That does the geo redirection and the load is diverted to the closest edge.
The question is, how to do that with your sldp player?

I also tried the option to use re-streaming. With HLS it works, but it does not work well with low latency in mind.