Install Ubuntu

Ubuntu 20.04 is supported. Use the server edition without GUI.

Disable nouveau driver

nouveau, the open-source driver for Nvidia GPUs is usually pre-loaded. It must be disabled to install Nvidia's own driver.

sudo modprobe -r nouveau

Prevent loading of the nouveau kernel module at boot.

echo "blacklist nouveau" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Install Nvidia driver

This installs Nvidia headless driver (without GUI support).

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install nvidia-headless-535 nvidia-utils-535 libnvidia-encode-535
sudo modprobe nvidia

Check Nvidia driver works

 nvidia-smi

Install Docker CE

Install Docker CE by executing command

curl https://get.docker.com | sh && sudo systemctl --now enable docker

Use docker command without sudo

This allows running the docker command as a non-root user.

sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

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Adding NVidia docker repository to your Ubuntu system

Before installing NVIDIA Container Toolkit, you might need to add 'nividia-docker' repository to your system:

Shell

sudo curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/nvidia-docker/ubuntu22.04/nvidia-docker.list -o /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-docker.list 
sudo curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/nvidia-docker/gpgkey | apt-key add - 
sudo apt update

Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit

Follow the official Nvidia docs

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Only Installation section (entirely) and Configuration section (up to Rootless mode).

Make sure to copy and paste commands from NVIDIA's guide above rigorously.

Our tip - before executing the command, paste it into a temporary document first to ensure its integrity.

Setting up docker-compose

Docker is installed, but docker-compose is also needed. Let's install it by following these steps.

sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/latest/download/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Check docker-compose works

You can check the docker-compose installation by running this command which should give you a meaningful output with the version number:

docker-compose version

Adjust firewall rules

Live Transcoder needs some firewall ports opened to work properly. Either open them by:

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp comment 'accept SSH'
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp comment 'accept HTTP & HLS'
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp comment 'accept HTTPS & HLS'
sudo ufw allow 5353:7999/tcp comment 'accept NDI TCP'
sudo ufw allow 5353:7999/udp comment 'accept NDI UDP'
sudo ufw allow 1024:65535/udp comment 'accept MPEG-TS UDP/RTP/SRT'
sudo ufw allow 1935/tcp comment 'accept RTMP inputs'
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.0.0/24 to 224.0.0.0/24 proto igmp comment 'accept IGMP'
sudo ufw --force enable
sudo ufw status

or disable the firewall completely by these. Disabling the firewall completely can improve performance in high-bitrate use cases.

sudo ufw disable
sudo ufw status

Disable mDNS on the host

The mDNS service mustn't be active in the host OS for NDI discovery to work. To remove it completely from the host OS:

sudo apt-get remove avahi-daemon

Increase max UDP kernel buffer size

To receive and send streams with overall stream bitrate of 21mbps+, Live Transcoder needs to increase the UDP kernel buffer size. However, the default maximum size is too low so it needs to be increased.

SYSCTL_CONF="/etc/sysctl.d/10-udp-buffer-size.conf"
sudo sh -c "echo '#kernel send a receive windows buffer sizes' > $SYSCTL_CONF"
sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.rmem_max=262144000' >> $SYSCTL_CONF"
sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.wmem_max=262144000' >> $SYSCTL_CONF"
sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.rmem_default=262144000' >> $SYSCTL_CONF"
sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.wmem_default=262144000' >> $SYSCTL_CONF"
sudo sh -c "echo '' >> $SYSCTL_CONF"

Now load the updated config file.

sudo sysctl -p $SYSCTL_CONF

Increase txqueuelen for network interfaces

To stream out high-bitrate codecs (e.g., JPEG2000 or JPEG-XS), alsotxqueuelen parameter should be increased for the respective network interface(s). Below, we set the parameter for all available Ethernet network interfaces (by using KERNEL=="e*"):

sudo bash -c 'cat > /etc/udev/rules.d/80-txqueuelen.rules' << EOF
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add|change", KERNEL=="e*", ATTR{tx_queue_len}="10000"
EOF

To apply the changes immediately, run:

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger

Install systemd-coredump

It's needed for the creation of diagnostic packages when something goes wrong.

sudo apt install systemd-coredump