Deploy Owncast on a VPS

Owncast is a lightweight, self-hosted live streaming and chat server. It ships as a single Go binary, so it's the simplest of the three services to deploy.

Assumptions: Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 VPS, root or sudo access, a domain name (e.g. stream.example.com) with an A record pointed at your VPS's IP.

1. Initial server prep

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl wget unzip ufw nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Create a dedicated, unprivileged user to run Owncast:

sudo adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" owncast

2. Configure the firewall

Owncast needs:

• 1935/tcp — RTMP ingest (where OBS/streaming software pushes video)
• 8080/tcp — Owncast's built-in web/admin server (we'll proxy this through Nginx instead of exposing it directly)

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
sudo ufw allow 1935/tcp
sudo ufw enable

3. Install Owncast

Switch to the owncast user and run the official installer, which downloads the latest release binary:

sudo su - owncast
curl -s https://owncast.online/install.sh | bash

This creates /home/owncast/owncast containing the owncast binary and default config. Exit back to your sudo user when done:

exit

4. Create a systemd service

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/owncast.service

[Unit]
Description=Owncast
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=owncast
WorkingDirectory=/home/owncast/owncast
ExecStart=/home/owncast/owncast/owncast
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
LimitNOFILE=65535

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start it:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now owncast
sudo systemctl status owncast

By default the web UI listens on port 8080 and RTMP ingest on 1935.

5. Reverse proxy with Nginx + TLS

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/owncast:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name stream.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        # Needed for websocket-based chat
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }

    # HLS segments benefit from a large client body/buffer allowance
    client_max_body_size 20M;
}

Enable the site and get a certificate:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/owncast /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d stream.example.com

Certbot will edit the config to add the listen 443 ssl block and set up auto-renewal.

6. Configure Owncast

Visit https://stream.example.com and log into the admin panel at https://stream.example.com/admin (default user: admin, password is generated at first run — check /home/owncast/owncast/owncast.log or the terminal output from step 3 for it, and change it immediately in the admin settings).

In the admin panel, set:

• Stream key — a secret used by OBS to authenticate
• Server name / summary / social links
• Video encoding presets (adjust based on your VPS's CPU — Owncast transcodes with ffmpeg, which is CPU-bound; a low-core VPS should stick to one or two output resolutions)

7. Point your streaming software (OBS) at it

• Server: rtmp://stream.example.com/live
• Stream key: the key you set in the admin panel

8. Ongoing maintenance

• Logs: journalctl -u owncast -f
• Update: re-run the install script as the owncast user, then sudo systemctl restart owncast
• Back up /home/owncast/owncast/data (contains your config and database)

Troubleshooting