I want to configure a local webcam to stream (and possibly record) a live feed open to the internet, and acess it half-world away while traveling, using FOSS only acessing it via Android VLC
This guide was quite comprehensive; however the packages for nginx-rtmp are quite abandoned in arch linux. So I thought maybe WebRTC could be an alternative - the communication itself should be encrypted, which WebRTC seems to do; however, I still can’t figure out if VLC will handle this well
Also, it seems that I might need to self-host a VPN to achieve this? What are my options? Has anyone else done this ?
Setup Tailscale on your machine at home and on your Android device. It’ll provide a virtual encrypted network between your devices.
Not sure what video performance across it will be like, I’m sure there’s a bit of overhead.
Just use wire guard, which is the backbone of tailscale.
Tailscale could rug pull one day or start charging.
Sounds like OP could handle wire guard setup.
That’s true, they could. So could the devs of Wireguard. I see zero implication that either will.
Worry is interest paid on a debt you don’t have.
TS already has a paid tier, so I don’t see it as likely. And if they do change in someway, I can either move to paid or move to WG then, if needed.
Plus it’s much easier to setup and manage, and has some neat features like Funnel. It’s as easy as running an installer on the machines, and creating an account.
Last I checked (perhaps a year ago) Wireguard still required a bit of manual effort to connect machines to each other (generating/sharing keys, updating each machine config, etc), while Tailscale handles that by using an account which manages key distribution.
You can self-host TS to not be dependent on their servers for the account management. That doesn’t sound like developers that are going to “pull the rug”.
It’s interesting, I see TS doing a lot of stuff Hamachi did 20 years ago, with having relay capability if ports can’t be forwarded/opened via UPNP, or you’re on a firewalled network. I’m a bit surprised it took this long, Hamachi was great in the early 2000’s.
I don’t see them going away, they’ve really developed. I’ll be moving to a paid tier when I rebuild my network and lab, not that I need to, but it’ll be nice to have support, and I’ll be contributing to a tool that I’ve missed for years in Hamachi.