Installing Owncast on Reclaim Cloud

Update: If you are coming to this post after December 2022 and want to run Owncast on Reclaim Cloud, I highly recommend using the 1-click installer in the Reclaim Cloud marketplace rather than this method. This will still work, but the 1-click installer is much easier, more elegant, and makes upgrades a breeze, plus you don’t have to deal with a weird, unintuitive streaming URL as you do with the following setup.

I am starting to turn my streaming, recording setup to good use, like demonstrating how to get the open source, self-hosted Owncast up and running in Reclaim Cloud. Below is the text guide to accompany the video.

Once you login to Reclaim Cloud you will need to create a New Environment:

Image of Reclaim Cloud Dashboard

Reclaim Cloud Dashboard

Once you click Add New Environment, you will select the Docker tab, rename the environment to something more friendly, and then select the Docker image. You can also choose the data center region from this screen:

Image of Docker tab with various elements for building your owncast Docker image

Docker tab with various elements for building your Owncast Docker image

When you click on Select Image you will be brought to the following screen, and you should search owncast and select the official image which is gabekangas/owncast:

Image of screen where you would select the gabekangas/owncast Docker image

Select the gabekangas/owncast Docker image

Once you have selected the image you should see a blue check mark and can then click next.

Image of selecting the 1.18.0 version of the Nginx load balancer

Create Nginx load balancer

The next step is creating a Nginx load balancer for this environment. This will enable you to issue an SSL certificate for Owncast. Use the latest version of Nginx and be sure to turn on the Public IP option:

Image reminding folks to turn on the public IP option for the Nginx load balancer

Turn on the public IP option for the Nginx load balancer

At this point you can click the Create button and the environment will start spinning up:

Image of Owncast environment spinning up in Reclaim Cloud

Create your environment

Once the environment is created you can see the two containers you have within it. The Nginx Load Balancer, that has the environment’s public IP address, and the Owncast container:

Image of the two containers within the owncast environment

The two containers within the Owncast environment

Notice the public IP address, you will be needing to copy this in order to map a domain to the Load Balancer. I mapped demo.bava.tv to this IP address using an A record:

Image of Mapping a domain to the Load Balancer public IP

Mapping a domain to the Load Balancer public IP

After that we want to issue a let’s Encrypt certificate for that domain. You can do this by click on the Addons button next to the Nginx Load Balancer container:

Image of Add-ons button in Nginx container

Add-ons button in Nginx container

After that you will see several Add-ons for the Load Balancer, you want the Let’s Encrypt option:

Several addons for container

Now you can Install Let’s Encrypt specifying the domain you want to map on the container, for my example demo.bava.tv:

Image of Let's Encrypt screen

Install Let’s Encrypt certificate using the addon domain you creating

After that, the SSL certificate should install. The final step in Reclaim Cloud is going to the Settings area of the environment and adding an Endpoint so that the Load Balancer can can communicate with with the RTMP port 1935 in the Owncast container which is where the livestream is served:

Once you are in settings choose Endpoints and Add a new Endpoint for the Owncast container, in this instance Node ID: 8347 (every container in Reclaim Cloud has a Node ID):

Then specify the name (RTMP_, the port (1935), and the Protocol (TCP) and click Add:

After that Reclaim Cloud will create the public port and URL for you to use for your streaming URL:

The public URL will look something like the following

node8347-owncast.ca.reclaim.cloud:11015

And for that to work in Owncast it will need to add the https:// at the beginning and /live/ to the end, which will give you this:

https://node8347-owncast.ca.reclaim.cloud:11015/live/

Rather than the default Stream URL Owncast gives you, this will be the URL you add to applications like OBS, Streamyard, etc.

Image of Owncast up and running

A secure Owncast Installation is the endgame!

Finally, we should now be up and running with Owncast at https://demo.bava.tv, and the login for Owncast will be your domain /admin. For my example, demo.bava.tv/admin should be the login and the default password for Owncast is always abc123. The password is also the stream key, so be sure to change that immediately. Finally, the default Stream URL will show up as https://demo.bava.tv:1935/live/ but on Reclaim Cloud you will be using the Endpoint you created, which for my example is https://node8347-owncast.ca.reclaim.cloud:11015/live/

Happy streaming!

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