How to Configure (Unified Origin)

Note

Our software requires a license key. How to specify your license key for Apache is explained as part of Setting up a virtual host (and specifying your license key) on this page. For more info, see License Key.

Basic Apache configuration on Linux

After you have installed our software and Apache on your Linux distribution of choice, you still need to configure several things before you can successfully stream video. First of all, you will need to make sure the correct Apache modules are enabled:

For more info on loading modules into Apache, please see LoadModule.

After you have correctly configured the modules, setting up a virtual host (which includes specifying the license key that Apache needs to load) will be the final step before you have a fully working video streaming setup: Setting up a virtual host (and specifying your license key).

Changed in version 1.11.13: On Linux, the setup process was simplified through a few default configuration settings that are activated when enabling the mod_smooth_streaming module (i.e., Unified Origin), as detailed in the mod_smooth_streaming.conf file installed alongside mod_smooth_streaming.so:

• Loads headers proxy proxy_http ssl socache_shmcb mod_unified_s3_auth modules as well, of which the latter is automatically installed as a dependency of the mod_smooth_streaming module and the others are part of a default Apache installation (with socache_shmcb being required as ssl now is installed by default as well)

• Enables UspEnableSubreq for significant improvements when using remote storage backends, see Cloud Storage Proxy

• Adds default configuration for Manifest Edit as detailed in Manifest Edit-related configuration, which does not impact setups that don't make use of Manifest Edit while reducing complexity for those that do

Set MPM model to 'worker', not 'event'

On most Linux distributions, the default MPM model in Apache 2.4 is 'event'. Please make sure this is changed to either 'worker' or 'prefork'. See the Apache documentation for more information on MPM models.

Rocky Linux / AlmaLinux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

First, check which MPM model Apache is currently using:

sudo apachectl -M | sort

Note

You need to make sure that Apache has already started and running. Otherwise, you might get an error for the command above. Ie. AH00526: Syntax error on line 100 of /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

If Apache is using the MPM model 'event', change it to 'worker' (or 'prefork') by opening /etc/httpd/conf.modules.d/00-mpm.conf in a text editor to uncomment the line for mpm_worker_module or mpm_prefork_module and comment out the one for mpm_event_module:

#LoadModule mpm_prefork_module modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so

#LoadModule mpm_event_module modules/mod_mpm_event.so
LoadModule mpm_worker_module modules/mod_mpm_worker.so

Then save (please note these changes will only take effect after a restart of Apache).

Debian / Ubuntu

First, check which MPM model Apache is currently using:

sudo a2query -M

Then, Apache is using the MPM model 'event', change it to 'worker' (or 'prefork'):

sudo a2dismod mpm_event
sudo a2enmod mpm_worker

Note, these changes will only take effect after a restart of Apache.

Enable 'mod_smooth_streaming'

If you have just installed the 'mod_smooth_streaming' module, you still need to enable it. Although unnecessary if you wish to check the module is installed you can do so like this (if smooth_streaming_module is not present in the printed list, the module is not enabled):

sudo apache2ctl -M | sort

Rocky Linux / AlmaLinux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

To enable the module, open /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf in a text editor and add the following line:

LoadModule smooth_streaming_module modules/mod_smooth_streaming.so

Debian / Ubuntu

To enable the module:

sudo a2enmod mod_smooth_streaming

Basic Apache configuration on Windows

After you have installed Unified Origin as described in Installation on Windows, the three directories we will be focusing on for the configuration of Apache are:

Directory	Importance
C:\Program Files\Unified Streaming\apache2	Location of mod_smooth_streaming.so
C:\Apache24\conf	Location of httpd.conf (general config)
C:\Apache24\conf\extra	Location of httpd-vhosts.conf (virtual host)

Changed in version 1.14.0: In USP versions before 1.14.0, mod_smooth_streaming.so is located in C:\Apache24\modules.

First, we will add the following line to httpd.conf to instruct Apache to load mod_smooth_streaming.so:

LoadModule smooth_streaming_module "C:/Program Files/Unified Streaming/apache2/mod_smooth_streaming.so"

Second, in httpd.conf uncomment the second line shown below:

#Virtual hosts
#Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

So that it will look like this (and will tell Apache to include the virtual host configuration specified in httpd-vhosts.conf):

#Virtual hosts
Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Attention

The DocumentRoot for the default virtual host (httpd-vhosts.conf) needs to be updated before you can access any files.

Setting up a virtual host (and specifying your license key)

After the Basic Apache configuration on Linux or Basic Apache configuration on Windows, you will need to set up a virtual host in Apache to complete a working video streaming setup.

The configurations below apply to both the Windows and the Linux platform, though the exact location of the Virtual Host configuration will differ for both of these platforms and between different Linux distributions. For more information on configuring virtual hosts, please consult Apache's official documentation on the VirtualHost directive.

If you need more fine grained control, please see the 'More detailed configuration' below. To ensure you have a bare minimum of security in place, please read through the Apache documentation's security tips.

Note

If you want to make use of multiple virtual hosts on Rocky, you need to add the following to /etc/httpd/httpd.conf:

NameVirtualHost *:80

Specifying your license key

To specify your license key, add the UspLicenseKey directive to the file containing your virtual host configuration, but add it outside of the configuration of the virtual host itself. Use the directive to point to the file in which you have stored your license key as shown below (where <absolute/path/to/usp-license.key> should be replaced to point to the correct location):

UspLicenseKey <absolute/path/to/usp-license.key>

<VirtualHost *:80>

  # Rest of config

</VirtualHost>

'UspHandleIsm'

Now that you have specified your license key, we can start configuring the actual virtual host. This guide will focus specifically on those parts related to setting up Unified Origin. More general settings such as ServerName, DocumentRoot and the configuration of your logs are not covered here.

To enable Unified Origin on a given virtual host use UspHandleIsm.

The UspHandleIsm directive is used in combination with the <Location> directive to specify for which locations the smooth_streaming_module should be activated. If you want to always have the module handle the requests that it supports, you can simply add a single location to the virtual host's configuration like so:

<Location />
  UspHandleIsm on
</Location>

Important

The UspHandleIsm configuration token MUST be specified in a <Location> directive, not in a <Directory> directive.

Cross domain access (CORS headers)

Another thing that you will need to configure as part of your virtual host configuration, is setting the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) headers. These headers are necessary for HTML5 based playout scenarios in which the (Javascript) player and the content are hosted on different domains. If these headers are not present in such a scenario, playout won't work. To set the CORS header correctly, simply add the following lines to Unified Origin's virtual host configuration:

# Necessary for Media Source Extensions (MSE)
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "origin, range"
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, HEAD, OPTIONS"
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
Header always set Access-Control-Expose-Headers "Server,range"

When the player and the content are hosted on different domains, similar information needs to be communicated for playout scenarios using Flash (Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming) or Silverlight (Microsoft HTTP Smooth Streaming). For such playout scenarios to work, two files need be hosted in virtual host's DocumentRoot. Preconfigured versions of those files can be downloaded here: crossdomain.xml (for HDS) and clientaccesspolicy.xml (for Smooth).

Additional settings for Live streaming

RequestReadTimeout

When using the webserver module for ingesting live streams, you need to take various timeout settings into account.

Since a long-running HTTP POST is used to transfer the audio/video from the encoder to the webserver, we don't want Apache to close the connection when certain timeouts are reached.

Make sure and verify that LimitRequestBody is set to 0 and in the case of using mod_reqtimeout that the timeout values are sane. In case of the latter, please note that you need to update the global RequestReadTimeout values.

Overriding the values in a virtual host does not work.

LimitRequestBody 0
<IfModule reqtimeout_module>
   RequestReadTimeout header=0 body=0
</IfModule>

Cache-Control

Cache-Control headers are only set for client manifests if they are dynamic (i.e., 'Live'). For certain use cases you may want to ensure that these headers are also set when a catch-up VOD clip is requested from a Live endpoint. To do this, you can use the following configuration, which adds a Cache-Control "max-age=2" header to client manifests only if no Cache-Control header was set at all

<LocationMatch ".*\.isml\/(.*\.mpd|.*\.m3u8|Manifest)$">
  Header setifempty Cache-Control "max-age=2"
</LocationMatch>

More detailed configuration

If you need to control the functionality in more detail you can use the regular expression LocationMatch to enable or disable functionality.

Enable just-in-time packaging for VOD (.ism) and Live (.isml):

<LocationMatch "\.[is]sml?/">
  UspHandleIsm on
</LocationMatch>

Enable just-in-time packaging for MP4:

<LocationMatch "\.mp4/">
  UspHandleIsm on
</LocationMatch>

The module can also handle requests for files packaged with the F4FPackager (mod_f4fhttp). To enable this you have to add the following configuration to rewrite files ending in SegNNN-FragNNN with mod_smooth_streaming:

<LocationMatch "Seg[\d]+-Frag[\d]+$">
  UspHandleF4f on
</LocationMatch>

Serve .mp4 files through Unified Origin. This may be useful for playout of statically stored dref-ed MP4 files and/or playout of pseudo streaming (mod_smooth_streaming).

<LocationMatch "\.mp4$">
  SetHandler smooth-streaming.extensions
</LocationMatch>

Please note that Apache's Alias directive does not mix with the Origin module. Instead of using the Alias directive, you may want to use a Virtual Host with the DocumentRoot set to the directory-path of the Alias.

Prevent the download of media files

In order to prevent the download of (source) mediafiles, add the following to your webserver config.

<LocationMatch "\.(ismv|isma|ismt)$">
  Require all denied
</LocationMatch>

When the source content is MP4 then the rule can be adapted to mp4 as well. The same applies to CMAF as source (cmfv, cmfa and cmft).

Prevent the download of server manifests

In order to protect your server manifests (VOD and Live) you have to disable access to ism and isml files.

# Block access to server manifests when the module is loaded
AddHandler smooth-streaming.extensions .ism .isml

# For when the module is not loaded
<IfModule !smooth_streaming_module>
  <LocationMatch "\.isml?$">
    Require all denied
  </LocationMatch>
</IfModule>

Manifest Edit-related configuration

Basic Settings

As a Manifest Edit user, your goals are:

1. to define your use cases by storing appropriate YAML pipeline definition files in a folder accessible by the Origin

2. to make sure your use cases are invoked (only) when specific manifest URLs are requested to the Origin

Point number 1 is covered by chapter Manifest Edit, which provides details on the available plugins and pipeline configuration syntax. Goal 2 can be achieved in various ways; we recommend the default configuration provided by the Origin installation package:

# Manifest Edit configuration

# The default setting is to invoke the UspOutputFilter for any URL ending in
# .mpd or .m3u8, with a query parameter 'python_pipeline_config'.
<LocationMatch ".*\.(mpd|m3u8)$">
  <If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/">
    UspOutputFilter "/usr/bin/manifest_edit -v 1 -o stdout: --python_pipeline_path=/etc/manifest-edit/conf --query_string=%{QUERY_STRING} stdin:"
  </If>
</LocationMatch>

# The following also matches .mpd or .m3u8 manifests when URL rewriting is
# active, e.g. for IsmProxyPass.
<LocationMatch ".*\.ism[l]?$">
  <If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/ && %{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)file=.*\.(mpd|m3u8)($|&)/">
    UspOutputFilter "/usr/bin/manifest_edit -v 1 -o stdout: --python_pipeline_path=/etc/manifest-edit/conf --query_string=%{QUERY_STRING} stdin:"
  </If>
</LocationMatch>

This is a good generic default, suitable also for production use. It allows you to:

1. drop a YAML pipeline configuration file for your use case in one of the pre-configured folders (i.e. /etc/manifest-edit/conf/mpd/tv_set_tweak.yaml)

2. access the edited version of the manifest by simply appending a query parameter to the manifest URL (i.e. http://my-server/my-asset.ism/.mpd?python_pipeline_config=mpd/tv_set_tweak)

If you are satisfied with this default configuration, nothing more needs to be added to the Apache configuration and you can start activating your use cases by providing YAML files.

Tip

Make sure the query parameter refers to the base configuration file name without file extension. I.e. to activate the pipeline described in mpd/tv_set_tweak.yaml, use the ?python_pipeline_config=mpd/tv_set_tweak query parameter.

Tip

If you have rewrite rules in place, make sure to use the QSA flag so that the python_pipeline_config query parameter is not replaced but combined with your rule.

Warning

When using a ?python_pipeline_config query parameter, the resulting manifest will include media URLs using the same query parameter. This is true for DASH media segments URLs and for media playlists URIs in HLS main manifests. For DASH this is not a problem because the query parameter in media segments URIs is just ignored. For HLS instead, this breaks playback! In this case, it is mandatory to also add suppress_query_parameters=true to the main playlist URL.

If you want more details about this configuration and instructions on how to customize it if you have specific needs, please read through the next section.

Apache Manifest Edit configuration walkthrough

This section provides a line-by-line explanation of the Apache configuration needed to enable Manifest Edit. It is based on the default configuration provided by the Origin installation package.

# The default setting is to invoke the UspOutputFilter for any URL ending in
# .mpd or .m3u8, with a query parameter 'python_pipeline_config'.
<LocationMatch ".*\.(mpd|m3u8)$">
  <If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/">
    UspOutputFilter "/usr/bin/manifest_edit -v 1 -o stdout: --python_pipeline_path=/etc/manifest-edit/conf --query_string=%{QUERY_STRING} stdin:"
  </If>
</LocationMatch>

The UspOutputFilter line is the Manifest Edit invocation command line. The original client manifest, as generated by Origin, will be passed to Manifest Edit via stdin. The edited result will be passed back to Origin via stdout.

Notice the --python_pipeline_path= command-line argument, which points to the folder where your YAML pipeline configuration files (your use cases definitions) are stored. This is the only thing you should customize, if needed, in this line, in case you cannot store your YAMLs in the suggested /etc/manifest-edit/conf folder.

Notice also the --query_string= command-line argument, which ensures the original query string containing the python_pipeline_config parameter is passed through to Manifest Edit, so it knows which YAML pipeline configuration to use.

For the full list of Manifest Edit command line options, please refer to Command-line usage.

# URL ending in .mpd or .m3u8. No IsmProxyPass case
<LocationMatch ".*\.(mpd|m3u8)$">
  ...
</LocationMatch>

# matches .mpd or .m3u8 manifests only when URL rewriting is active, i.e.
# IsmProxyPass
<LocationMatch ".*\.ism[l]?$">
  <If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/ && %{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)file=.*\.(mpd|m3u8)($|&)/">
    ...
  </If>
</LocationMatch>

This is the beginning of the specific section that associates only certain matching URLs to Manifest edit. The goal is to invoke Manifest Edit only for manifest URLs and never for media segments. Two different LocationMatch sections are necessary, to deal with the URL rewrite logic that is in place in case of URLs for which IsmProxyPass is used.

<If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/">
  ...
</If>

A final match on the URL is performed so that Manifest Edit is only invoked with URLs having a ?python_pipeline_config=<use case name> query parameter. The query parameter value <use case name> will be passed to Manifest Edit so that the manifest is edited based on the corresponding YAML pipeline configuration file.

An example will help to clarify this, which is probably the most important part. Assuming you have two YAML pipeline configuration files in your configured use cases folder, i.e.

• tv_set_tweak.yaml and

• set_top_box_workaround.yaml

then assuming your mpd manifest is available at http://my-asset.ism/.mpd, you will be able to use the following URLS

• http://my-asset.ism/.mpd?python_pipeline_config=tv_set_tweak

• http://my-asset.ism/.mpd?python_pipeline_config=set_top_box_workaround

to get edited version of the mpd manifest, obtained applying one or the other use cases.

Should you prefer to match to a query parameter name different from python_pipeline_config, you can do so by editing this section.

Note

The most important advantage of such configuration is that it allows you to activate new Manifest Edit use cases without ever needing to reconfigure or restart Apache. You only need to add new YAML pipeline configuration files in one of the pre-configured folders (i.e. /etc/manifest-edit/conf/mpd) and then access the corresponding URL.

Note

If you are running Apache on Windows, we recommend using the Apache Lounge builds from https://www.apachelounge.com/download/.

From that site, please make sure that you use at least Apache 2.4.46, with a build date of "02 Oct '20" or later, as this includes a crucial fix for the use of external filters on Windows.

See also this Apache Lounge forum topic, and this Apache bug report.

Apache Manifest Edit configuration on Windows

After you have installed Unified Origin as described in Installation on Windows, the path to the manifest_edit tool is C:\Program Files\Unified Streaming\bin\manifest_edit.bat, and the YAML configuration files will be located in C:\Program Files\Unified Streaming\etc\manifest-edit\conf.

Changed in version 1.14.0: In USP versions before 1.14.0 , the path to the manifest edit tool is C:\Program Files\Unified Streaming\manifest_edit.exe and the location of the YAML configuration files is C:\Program Files\Unified Streaming\ManifestEditConf.

Since these paths contain spaces, they have to be quoted in the Apache configuration file, using \". Furthermore, since backslashes (\) in paths are difficult to escape correctly in Apache configuration settings, they should be replaced with forward slashes (/):

# Manifest Edit configuration

# The default setting is to invoke the UspOutputFilter for any URL ending in
# .mpd or .m3u8, with a query parameter 'python_pipeline_config'.
<LocationMatch ".*\.(mpd|m3u8)$">
  <If "%{QUERY_STRING} =~ /(^|&)python_pipeline_config=/">
    UspOutputFilter "\"C:/Program Files/Unified Streaming/bin/manifest_edit.bat\" -v 1 -o stdout: \"--python_pipeline_path=C:/Program Files/Unified Streaming/etc/manifest-edit/conf\" --query_string=%{QUERY_STRING} stdin:"
  </If>
</LocationMatch>

Here, the manifest_edit.bat command line tool is quoted as:

\"C:/Program Files/Unified Streaming/bin/manifest_edit.bat\"

and the --python_pipeline_path option is quoted as:

\"--python_pipeline_path=C:/Program Files/Unified Streaming/etc/manifest-edit/conf\"

Manifest Edit and Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding headers

When the UspOutputFilter directive is used, the Unified Origin output is used as the input for an external process, which is normally the Manifest Edit tool. The output of that external process is then sent to the client as the result of the request.

In general, the length of the output of external processes cannot be known in advance, therefore by default Unified Origin will use so-called Chunked Transfer Encoding to send the reply, indicating dynamically generated content.

This means that instead of a Content-Length header, the reply will contain a Transfer-Encoding header. By default, the reply headers for a DASH manifest edited by Manifest Edit would be similar to the following example:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:05:55 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.52 (Ubuntu)
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: origin, range
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Server,range
X-USP: version=1.11.21 (27935)
Last-Modified: Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:00:34 GMT
ETag: "usp-811C9DC5"
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/dash+xml

With Chunked Transfer Encoding, the web server sends the reply in chunks, as they become available, each with its own size indicator. The client is supposed to read the chunks incrementally, until the last chunk, which is indicated by a size of zero.

While most web browsers and HTTP client libraries such as cURL have no problems with Chunked Transfer Encoding, there are situations where the HTTP client is not able to handle it, and requires a Content-Length header in the reply.

For these cases, Unified Origin supports the UspForceContentLength directive, as of version 1.11.21. This directive is specifically aimed at the Manifest Edit use case, where the content is generated dynamically, and is relatively small (e.g. seldom more than a few kilobytes, and certainly less than a few hundred kilobytes, such as with DASH manifests or HLS playlists).

The UspForceContentLength directive can be specified in <Location>, <LocationMatch>, <Directory> or <DirectoryMatch> sections, and its value is either off (the default) or on.

When the value is on, any dynamically generated content will first be loaded entirely into Apache's memory, before sending the reply headers, so that the final length can be determined. Then a valid Content-Length header can be added, and Chunked Transfer Encoding is not used.

Note

Be aware that UspForceContentLength on can increase Apache's memory usage, because it requires any dynamically generated content to be fully read into memory, before it can be sent to clients. Therefore, you should only use this directive for content that is not arbitrarily large, such as manifests and playlists.

The following is an example of a Manifest Edit configuration that turns on UspForceContentLength, whenever a DASH manifest is retrieved from a location /example/location:

<LocationMatch "/example/location/.*\.mpd$">
  UspOutputFilter "/usr/bin/manifest_edit -v 1 -o stdout: --python_pipeline_config=/etc/manifest-edit/conf/mpd/example_config.yaml stdin:"
  UspForceContentLength on
</LocationMatch>

This will use the YAML pipeline configuration file example_config.yaml to edit the manifest generated by Unified Origin, read the complete output of the Manifest Edit process into memory, and send a reply to the client which includes the Content-Length header. In this case, the reply headers would look similar to:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:05:55 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.52 (Ubuntu)
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: origin, range
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Server,range
X-USP: version=1.11.21 (27935)
Content-Length: 18374
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Last-Modified: Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:00:34 GMT
ETag: "usp-811C9DC5"
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Type: application/dash+xml

Compared to the Chunked Transfer Encoding case, there are now Content-Length and Accept-Ranges headers, and there is no Transfer-Encoding header.

All virtual host related options

The options apply to the VirtualHost directive.

Options related to content generation:

Option	Description	Config location
UspLicenseKey	The USP license key, the default is to place this in conf.d/usp-license.conf (see Apache License Key).	VirtualHost and Directory/Location
UspHandleIsm	Set to 'on' to enable mod_smooth_streaming functionality (see above).	Directory/Location only
UspHandleF4f	Set to 'on' to enable mod_f4fhttp functionality (see above and Ingest F4M (deprecated)).	Directory/Location only
UspIssPassThrough	Set to 'on' to pass through MP4 fragments directly to Smooth Streaming (see IIS passthrough).	Directory/Location only
UspPreferStatic	Set to 'on' to prefer static files over dynamically generated files (see IIS passthrough).	Directory/Location only
UspEnableMMAP	Set to 'off' to disable use of memory-mapping (see below).	Directory/Location only
UspSkipRewrite	Set to 'off' to enable the internal rewrite rules (see below).	Directory/Location only
UspDynamicTimeShiftBufferDepth	Set to 'on' to update the @timeShiftBufferDepth attribute dynamically (see below).	Directory/Location only
UspOutputFilter	Filter output through an external command.	Directory/Location only
UspForceContentLength	Set to 'on' to force determining Content-Length even for dynamic content.	Directory/Location only

Option related to content location:

Option	Description	Config location
IsmProxyPass	Pass .ism to proxy (a virtual path and URL), see Dynamic Manifests.	VirtualHost and Directory/Location

Options related to secure AWS S3 access:

Option	Description	Config location
S3SecretKey	The AWS secret key (see Using Webserver Directives for S3 authentication).	Directory/Location only
S3AccessKey	The AWS access key (see Using Webserver Directives for S3 authentication).	Directory/Location only
S3Region	The AWS region of the bucket (see Using Webserver Directives for S3 authentication).	Directory/Location only
S3SecurityToken	The AWS security token, if required (see Using Webserver Directives for S3 authentication).	Directory/Location only
S3UseHeaders	Set to 'on' to use HTTP headers for AWS authentication, instead of query parameters (see Using Webserver Directives for S3 authentication).	Directory/Location only

The directive UspEnableMMAP controls whether the webserver module uses memory mapped I/O. By default this is on.

You can configure this per directory. E.g. to disable the use of memory mapping for the directory 'path-to-nfs-files' you can specify the following:

<Directory "/path-to-nfs-files">
  UspEnableMMAP Off
</Directory>

The directive UspSkipRewrite controls whether the internal rewrite rules are skipped. This was off by default in 1.10.25 and earlier, but in 1.10.26 and later it is now on instead. This means that Origin will preserve the original incoming URL by default, including any virtual path, e.g.: /location/manifest.ism/.mpd.

Usually it is not necessary to rewrite URLs, unless you are sure you need it, for example when using mod_auth_token, as described in Using Apache's mod_auth_token. In that case, you would add a location or directory section like:

<Location "/special-location/">
  UspSkipRewrite on
</Location>

Lastly, it is also possible to set up Custom HTTP Status codes (Apache).

The UspDynamicTimeShiftBufferDepth option changes how the @timeShiftBufferDepth attribute is set in the MPEG-DASH manifest: the @timeShiftBufferDepth attribute is updated dynamically according to the available time window and capped at the dvr_window_length.

Warning

Although the UspDynamicTimeShiftBufferDepth option is deprecated, in some cases it might be useful, notably to fix playout for the Sony PS4 native DASH player and Samsung TV's deployed to Europe/UK and possibly elsewhere.

Encoder specific settings

Specifics for Expression Encoder 4

If you plan on encoding live streams with Expression Encoder 4 you also have to configure what you return as the Server HTTP response Header. The default is Full, which means that information about the OS-type and the compiled in modules will be send. On Debian / Ubuntu you can find and configure this directive in /etc/apache2/conf.d/security:

ServerTokens Full

Specifics for Media Excel HERO

The HERO encoder requires KeepAlive in the HTTP responses. If it's not present then it closes the connection and doesn't start sending the stream. Look for the KeepAlive directive in the Apache configuration and change it to 'On'.

KeepAlive On