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alternative transport: snapcast protocol over RIST by using libRIST

Open aanno opened this issue 4 months ago • 5 comments

Implements snapcast protocol over RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport)

RIST is an open protocol for low-latency, reliable streaming over unreliable IP networks, ideal for live audio/video contribution and broadcasting. It uses UDP for low-latency transport, with RTP for media synchronization, and adds reliability through ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) and optional FEC (Forward Error Correction).

It is primarily designed for video, but this PR leverages it for audio streaming, benefiting from its robustness and low-latency capabilities. As RIST is bidirectional and multiplexed (with virtual ports), the original snapcast protocol could be used without modification.

This is an alternative transport to the already implemented: TCP and WS. It uses libRIST for the heavy lifting.

Pull Request Checklist

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aanno avatar Sep 11 '25 15:09 aanno

There is extreme madness going on with CI/macos. I probably need a hand for fixing that, as I cannot align

In file included from /Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/client/client_connection.cpp:20:
/Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/client/client_connection.hpp:28:10: fatal error: 'boost/asio/any_io_executor.hpp' file not found
   28 | #include <boost/asio/any_io_executor.hpp>
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 error generated.

problems with boost with the changes I made.

aanno avatar Sep 12 '25 06:09 aanno

There seem to be random issues on macos in several branches, regarding boost and the IOKit.framework. A re-run of the failed jobs seem to succeed in most cases.

In file included from /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Headers/IOKitLib.h:52:
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Headers/OSMessageNotification.h:102:30: error: zero size arrays are an extension [-Werror,-Wzero-length-array]
  102 |         unsigned char       content[0];
      |                                     ^
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Headers/OSMessageNotification.h:130:30: error: zero size arrays are an extension [-Werror,-Wzero-length-array]
  130 |         unsigned char       content[0];
      |                                     ^
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Headers/OSMessageNotification.h:148:14: error: zero size arrays are an extension [-Werror,-Wzero-length-array]
  148 |         void * args[0] __attribute__ ((packed));
[ 31%] Building CXX object server/CMakeFiles/snapserver.dir/control_requests.cpp.o
      |                     ^
cd /Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/build/server && ccache /usr/bin/c++ -DBOOST_ASIO_NO_TS_EXECUTORS -DBOOST_ERROR_CODE_HEADER_ONLY -DBOOST_PROCESS_VERSION=1 -DFREEBSD -DHAS_BONJOUR -DHAS_DAEMON -DHAS_EXPAT -DHAS_FLAC -DHAS_OGG -DHAS_OPENSSL -DHAS_OPUS -DHAS_SOXR -DHAS_VORBIS -DHAS_VORBIS_ENC -DMACOS -DVERSION=\"0.32.4\" -I/Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast -I/Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/include -I/Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/server -I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libogg/1.3.6/include -I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libvorbis/1.3.7/include -I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/flac/1.5.0/include -I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/opus/1.5.2/include/opus -I/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libsoxr/0.1.3/include -isystem /Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/server/boost_1_89_0 -isystem /opt/homebrew/Cellar/openssl@3/3.5.2/include -I/usr/local/include -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-DJSON_HAS_CPP_14 -g -std=gnu++17 -arch arm64 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Wno-unused-function -Wno-deprecated-declarations -Werror -MD -MT server/CMakeFiles/snapserver.dir/control_requests.cpp.o -MF CMakeFiles/snapserver.dir/control_requests.cpp.o.d -o CMakeFiles/snapserver.dir/control_requests.cpp.o -c /Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/server/control_requests.cpp
In file included from /Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/client/client_connection.cpp:20:
/Users/runner/work/snapcast/snapcast/client/client_connection.hpp:28:10: fatal error: 'boost/asio/any_io_executor.hpp' file not found
   28 | #include <boost/asio/any_io_executor.hpp>
      |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4 errors generated.

badaix avatar Sep 12 '25 07:09 badaix

Thanks, but I'm not sure yet if I will pull this in, as I'm already considering to deprecate plain TCP in favor of WS only (which supports also TLS (WSS)) and would make the code base smaller and easier to maintain. In the next release plain TCP can be deactivated in the config already, so it's no more "always on", lowering also the attack surface by having one less server port.

badaix avatar Sep 12 '25 07:09 badaix

Well, I'm fine with making TCP optional - but I also have to admit that I normally use TCP (and only try WS for android and browser use). I'm not completely in that, but I think that WS should have considerably more overhead than TCP.

The RIST stuff has the potential to diminish the overhead even further - it is basically UDP (and it would support broadcasting and multicasting - however I so far haven't tried that).

All in all, this is all about the use cases which drive people to use snapcast at all. I think there are people out there that use snapcast mainly with OPCs (server and client). TCP might be important for that use case.

aanno avatar Sep 12 '25 09:09 aanno

I set up the poll #1441 to get more information about the usage pattern of snapcast regarding transports.

My motivation to implement this is to avoid the TCP overhead without sacrificing reliability. IMHO, RIST is well suited for the task, even better than TCP.

RIST includes very interesting features like broadcasting, multicasting and encryption. (However, all this is not addressed in this PR, which only provides a basic RIST implementation.)

aanno avatar Sep 13 '25 07:09 aanno