Deploy a Dockerized Nginx‑RTMP Live Stream with Watermark and Dual‑Cloud Splitting

The author packaged a live‑streaming system that supports stream splitting and watermarking into a Docker image for easy deployment.

Requirements: split a live stream to two cloud providers (one with watermark, one without) and deliver via HLS playback.

Components used:

Nginx 1.16.1 (compiled from source)

nginx‑rtmp‑module 1.2.1 (compiled from source)

ffmpeg 4.2.1 (compiled from source)

Pre‑configured nginx.conf with watermark image stored at /opt/images/logo.png Supports 1920×1080 resolution (other resolutions can be added by editing nginx.conf)

Deployment Steps

Install Docker (CentOS 7 example):

$ yum -y install docker
$ systemctl enable docker
$ systemctl start docker

Pull and run the Docker image:

$ docker pull ar414/nginx-rtmp-ffmpeg
$ docker run -it -d -p 1935:1935 -p 8080:80 --rm ar414/nginx-rtmp-ffmpeg

Push stream using the address format rtmp://<server ip>:1935/stream/$STREAM_NAME.

Add an SSL certificate inside the container and modify nginx.conf:

listen 443 ssl;
ssl_certificate /opt/certs/example.com.crt;
ssl_certificate_key /opt/certs/example.com.key;

Configure OBS:

Stream Type: Custom Streaming Server URL: rtmp://<server ip>:1935/stream Stream Key: ar414 Test playback with an HLS player (e.g., player.alicdn.com/aliplayer) or an RTMP player such as PotPlayer.

RTMP Configuration (excerpt from nginx.conf )

rtmp {
    server {
        listen 1935;
        chunk_size 4000;
        application stream {
            live on;
            exec ffmpeg -i rtmp://localhost:1935/stream/$name -i /opt/images/ar414.png \
                -filter_complex "overlay=10:10,split=1[ar414]" \
                -map '[ar414]' -map 0:a -s 1920x1080 -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -g 30 -r 30 -tune zerolatency -preset veryfast -crf 23 -f flv rtmp://localhost:1935/hls/$name_wm \
                -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a 128k -c:v libx264 -b:v 2500k -f flv -g 30 -r 30 -s 1920x1080 -preset superfast -profile:v baseline rtmp://localhost:1935/hls/$name;
        }
        application hls {
            live on;
            hls on;
            hls_fragment 5;
            hls_path /opt/data/hls;
        }
    }
}

To push the stream to multiple cloud providers, duplicate the exec ffmpeg lines with the appropriate destination URLs (e.g., Tencent Cloud, Aliyun).

Watermark Position Options

Top‑left: overlay=10:10 Top‑right: overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:10 Bottom‑left: overlay=10:main_h-overlay_h-10 Bottom‑right:

overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:main_h-overlay_h-10

Overlay Parameters Explained

main_w

– video frame width (configured as 1920) main_h – video frame height (configured as 1080) overlay_w – watermark image width overlay_h – watermark image height

The complete configuration file is available at GitHub .