Member Avatar for lewashby

If you're creating a media server how do you control if the files are pushed out via tcp or udp? Or is that a client thing? I'm currently building a headless Debian media server and I was wonsering how that words. As far as streaming videos in my house either one would probobly be fine, but if I am streaming from outside my home network I would want udp to be utilized. I'm hosting the files from a Debian NFS server. Thanks.

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Short version for : you don’t flip TCP/UDP on the wire at the NFS level — NFS just exposes files. The transport used for playback is decided by the media server and the client/player (the server reads the files locally from the NFS mount and then serves them with whatever streaming protocol it implements). Don’t export NFS to the Internet; treat it as a local filesystem and let an application-layer server handle remote delivery. (manpages.debian.org)

Pick the protocol to match the use case. Chunked HTTP adaptive streaming (HLS / MPEG‑DASH) is the common, robust choice for on‑demand media across the Internet because it uses ordinary HTTP(s) and plays nicely with NATs, CDNs and adaptive bitrate logic. Real‑time and low‑latency systems (RTP/RTSP, WebRTC) typically use UDP underneath and are better for live conferencing or very low latency but are more complex to deploy. Newer transports (QUIC / HTTP/3) use UDP while providing reliability and other benefits. Choose based on latency, NAT friendliness, and how well your client supports each stack. (developer.apple.com)

Practical route for a headless Debian box: mount the NFS share locally, install a media server (Jellyfin / Plex / Emby), and let it serve and transcode the files on demand. For home LAN playback you can expose DLNA/UPnP or direct HTTP streaming; for remote access use a reverse proxy + TLS or a VPN rather than exposing NFS or SSDP ports directly. Server apps provide settings for “published” URLs, bandwidth limits and transcoding so remote clients get a usable stream. (forum.jellyfin.org)

Checklist / quick troubleshooting:

  • Keep NFS local (use NFSv4 + appropriate auth if needed).
  • Run a media server that reads the mounted files and offers HTTP/HLS or DLNA locally.
  • For remote access use a reverse proxy (Nginx/Caddy) or a VPN, open only the HTTP/S ports, and set remote bitrate/transcode limits to avoid saturating your upload.
  • If you need truly low latency, plan for RTP/WebRTC and the extra complexity (NAT traversal, jitter buffers, packet loss handling).

This approach gives the simplest, safest remote path while keeping UDP-based realtime options available if you need them. (manpages.debian.org)

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Member Avatar for glenn_3

in general you would not use udp to transmit in a 'streaming' type mode, particularly outside of your locahost, udp does not guarantee delivery nor packet order - you can write code on top of udp to do handshaking ... to aid with reliability , it really depends on how much effort you want to put in ... ;

Member Avatar for rubberman

TCP is connection oriented, suitable for sending complete files. UDP is packet oriented, suitable for sending short messages. TCP will verify that all the data got to the destination, and in the proper order. UDP makes no guarantees. You will have to bake your own error recovery and retry logic.

In the case of a "media server", if a client connects to you via TCP, then you can send the data in a stream and not worry about it getting there properly, other than if something breaks the stream (network glitch or whatever). If you are just pushing out data, and let all the "listeners/receivers" get the data as desired, then you would use UDP - the receivers would need to deal with bad/missing data. With media that may not be a problem unless you have a lossy network environment. This is a "broadcast" environment, and TCP/IP does let you broadcast UDP messages to anyone on the network (LAN - broadcast packets usually don't travel outside of the local network), which the clients can listen for and receive. So, there are two real options for a media server. One is connection-oriented TCP streams where the clients connect to the server to get a stream. The other is where the media server broadcasts UDP packets to whoever wants to get them, kind of like radio.

Member Avatar for lewashby

I assumed that udp was best for streaming and that's what I've heard Netflix uses because that's the only way they can steam at a reasonable speed with varying internet connections. I was hoping to use TCP inside my home network but connect via udp if I was going to stream my media from another location.

Member Avatar for Slavi

Exactly, as rubben said tcp assures you that the information will be delivered, and no guarantees at all with udp, it just fires out packets. Streaming/skype etc find use of it

Member Avatar for Traevel

You could use RTP/RTCP over UDP for streaming. If memory serves me right VLC even has (some sort of) support for it.

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