=== DESCRIPTION ==============================================================

Loomiere is a highly scalable and secure HTTP a/v streaming server able to
serve a massive amount of streaming requests simultaneously using commonly
available (commodity) hardware. It makes use of a bandwidth conservation
algorithm designed to provide smooth playback, which, together with many
other features, cuts down streaming production costs considerably. See the
features described further down for more detailed information.



=== TERMS ====================================================================

See the LICENSE file!
Copyright (C)2010 Valeriu Paloş. All rights reserved.



=== FEATURES =================================================================

- Able to serve *massive* amounts of clients simultaneously.
  Visit http://valeriu.palos.ro/980/loomiere-2-0-teaser-reloaded/ for some
  real-life data.

- Very lightweight, built for maximum throughput on multi-core machines and
  specifically designed to completely eliminate software bottlenecks (e.g. it
  should allow you use your hardware components to the full physical extent).

- Strong bandwidth conservation that uses a smart and easy to configure
  throttling system which is VBR-aware (variable bitrate) for smooth playback.

- High-speed memory-based cache to accelerate request responses.

- URL Rewriting/Redirection:
  Support for URL routing using regular expressions or even custom Lua scrips,
  making it very easy to integrate with (or replace) another existing system.

- Virtual Hosting:
  Name-based virtual hosting support with regular expression matching.

- Monitoring:
  Detailed statistics published on separate port at "/monitor" URL.



=== REQUIRED =================================================================

- Lua(5.1) ............ http://www.lua.org/
- Luarocks ............ http://www.luarocks.org/
    - alt-getopt ...... http://luaforge.net/projects/alt-getopt/
    - lpeg ............ http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/lpeg/lpeg.html
    - luabitop ........ http://bitop.luajit.org/
    - lua-ev .......... http://github.com/brimworks/lua-ev
    - lrexlib-pcre .... http://lrexlib.luaforge.net/
    - luasocket ....... http://w3.impa.br/~diego/software/luasocket/
- LibEV ............... http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html
- PCRE ................ http://www.pcre.org
- TokyoCabinet ........ http://fallabs.com/tokyocabinet/



=== COMPILE ==================================================================

Currently I only compiled this on Debian and Ubunutu (other distros should work
with minor editing of makefiles). Just run:

$ make -f makefile.ubuntu



=== SUGGESTED ================================================================

To run Loomiere in production you should use a service supervisor such as:

- runit ............... http://smarden.org/runit/index.html



=== CHANGE LOG ===============================================================

Loomiere 2.0.1-beta - 2011-12-07
- Minor bug fixes and improvements.

Loomiere 2.0-beta - 2010-08-15
- First working release of Loomiere (2.0).



=== IDEAS ====================================================================

- Anti-DOS Prevention System:
  Based on the number of connections per second coming from a single IP.

- Whitelist/Blacklist:
  Banning system based on a list of IPs and/or referrer domains.

- Throttling Hinting: adaptive throttling based on hint commands sent by
  the player during playtime. This interprets calibration hints from the
  video-player during playtime and also enables streaming to be suspended while
  the player is paused (but only if there is enough bandwidth to ensure smooth
  playback on resume).

- Controlled Client Identity:
  Content protection based on token exchange (via custom Lua script). This
  will deny streaming everywhere except in your custom-compiled players and
  also will prevent others to download your movies straight from the server.

- Controlled Domain Identity:
  Serve certain media only when the player comes from specific domains.
  This will deny streaming everywhere except in video-players coming from
  specific domains.

- Geo-location:
  Controlled access based on geo-location information (via GeoIP). This can
  currently be achieved by using GeoIP from the options.lua file (in Lua)
  but I guess it should be nicer.

- Loomiere must run as user 'loomiere' (not as 'root').

- Re-organized host definition in options.lua.

- Add ability to respond with HTTP error codes (302, 404, 500 etc.)
  straight from the host's URL routing table (in options.lua).

- Add (optional) HTTP caching headers (for selected types of files).

- Add '?terse=true|false' parameter to the '/monitor' URL.

- Add '/space?path=/var/www' control parameter to check disk usage.

- Add multiple sandbox paths for each host, with individual statistics.