Documentation

Cloud Streaming & Recording

Cloud lets you push camera streams out to your own streaming servers and upload recordings to S3-compatible object storage. You’ll find it under Cloud in the sidebar (route /cloud). Click the info (ⓘ) icon next to the Cloud heading for a built-in explainer of supported server types and use cases.

[!NOTE] Viewing the Cloud page requires the cloud.view permission. Saving stream targets or recording credentials is superuser-only — the backend rejects changes from non-superusers even if the page is visible (cloud.manage).

Cloud streaming and recording

What you can do here

  • Stream to Server — push any camera to an RTMP, RTMPS, or SRT server, then Start/Stop/Edit/Delete each target.
  • Cloud Recording Server — upload recordings to AWS S3, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces, or any S3-compatible endpoint.

The page has two tabs at the top: Stream to Server and Cloud Recording Server.

Stream to Server

Each stream target binds one camera to one destination server. Targets appear as rows showing the camera name, PROTOCOL • server_url, a status badge (Streaming / stopped / error), and per-row controls.

  1. Click Add Stream (top-right; disabled until at least one camera exists). The Configure Stream Target dialog opens.
  2. Pick the Camera from the dropdown.
  3. Choose the Protocol: RTMP (Standard), RTMPS (TLS Encrypted), or SRT (Low Latency).
  4. Enter the Server URL (the placeholder and hint change with the protocol).
  5. Optionally set a Stream Key / Path (e.g. camera1, or leave empty).
  6. For RTMPS, optionally tick Use BYOK CA certificate (for self-signed certs).
  7. Set the Video Codec and, when re-encoding, an optional Video Bitrate.
  8. Click Save. The target is created stopped — click the Start (▶) control on its row to begin streaming.

Use the row controls to Start (▶) / Stop (■), Edit (✎), or Delete (🗑) a target. Editing a target leaves the Stream Key blank to preserve the existing key on the backend.

Fields

Field Required Example Notes
Camera ✓ (dropdown) Which camera to push
Protocol ✓ RTMP / RTMPS / SRT Selects the transport
Server URL ✓ rtmp://192.168.1.100/live SRT hint: srt://192.168.1.100:9000; RTMPS: rtmps://secure.server.com/live
Stream Key / Path — camera1 Optional; leave empty to omit
Use BYOK CA certificate — (checkbox, RTMPS only) For self-signed / private-CA servers
Video Codec — Copy (passthrough) Or H.264 (re-encode) / H.265 (re-encode)
Video Bitrate — 4000k Only when re-encoding; disabled for Copy

[!TIP] Copy (passthrough) forwards the camera’s existing encoding unchanged — lowest CPU cost. Only pick H.264/H.265 (re-encode) if the destination server needs a specific codec or bitrate.

[!NOTE] RTMPS with a self-signed or private CA: tick Use BYOK CA certificate and load your CA into BYOK first, otherwise the TLS handshake to your server will fail.

Supported server types (from the in-app info dialog):

  • RTMP — AntMedia, Nginx-RTMP, Wowza, Red5
  • RTMPS — secure RTMP with TLS encryption
  • SRT — low-latency streaming (Secure Reliable Transport)

Cloud Recording Server

The second tab uploads recordings to an S3-compatible bucket. Fill in the fields and click Save Settings.

  1. Tick Enable Cloud Recording Upload.
  2. Optionally tick Use BYOK Certificates for Cloud Upload (for endpoints with a private CA).
  3. Enter the Endpoint URL, Bucket Name, Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, and Region.
  4. Choose a Storage Class.
  5. Click Save Settings.

Fields

Field Required Example Notes
Enable Cloud Recording Upload — (checkbox) Master toggle for uploads
Use BYOK Certificates for Cloud Upload — (checkbox) Use your CA from BYOK for the endpoint TLS
Endpoint URL ✓ https://s3.amazonaws.com Or a custom endpoint (MinIO, Spaces, …)
Bucket Name ✓ my-recordings-bucket Target bucket
Access Key ID ✓ AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
Secret Access Key ✓ wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY Stored server-side; shown masked
Region — us-east-1
Storage Class — Standard Standard / Standard-IA / One Zone-IA / Glacier / Glacier Deep Archive

[!WARNING] Access and secret keys are cloud credentials. Only a superuser can save them, and archival storage classes (Glacier, Glacier Deep Archive) add retrieval delay and cost — pick them only for long-term cold storage.

📸 Screenshots to capture

Save to opennvr-site/public/screenshots/ with these exact filenames:

  • cloud-add-stream.png — the Configure Stream Target dialog with a camera selected, Protocol set to RTMP, and a Server URL filled in.
  • cloud-recording-server.png — the Cloud Recording Server tab with the S3 fields and the Storage Class dropdown.