Intel® Media Communications Mesh

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Full Documentation for Intel® Media Communications Mesh.

Introduction

The Media Communications Mesh (MCM) enables efficient, low-latency media transport for media microservices for Edge, Edge-to-Cloud, and both private and public Cloud environments. The framework creates a secure, standards-based media data plane for inter-microservices communications using a new media proxy leveraging the Media Transport Library (MTL) and adds the necessary microservices control-plane communications infrastructure to implement any media control protocol.

1. Media Communications Mesh:

• Framework Introduction: MCM is a framework designed for low-latency media transport. It caters specifically to Edge, Edge-to-Cloud, and Cloud environments, connecting media microservices.
• Purpose: Its main role is to establish a secure media data plane for inter-microservices communication. This ensures media can be reliably transmitted across different cloud environments.
• Technological Basis: The Media Transport Library (MTL) helps form the media data plane, and a control-plane communications infrastructure adds support for media control protocols.

✅ Key point: The main goal is to enable secure, fast, and standardized media communication between microservices, regardless of the environment (Edge or Cloud).

2. Media Proxy Introduction:

• Core Functionality: The Media Proxy handles the routing and forwarding of media data, specifically audio and video streams, between mesh nodes.
• Low Latency & Efficiency: The focus is on ensuring low-latency and efficient usage of system resources, which is critical for real-time media applications.
• Service Mesh Role: It acts as a Data Plane component within a larger service mesh for media applications, utilizing MTL ST 2110 API, libfabric for RDMA API, MemIF shared memory APIs, and many more, to abstract the complexities involved in efficient media transport.

✅ Key point: Media Proxy handles the data transport layer of media streams, focusing on real-time efficiency and ensuring media routing between microservices in the mesh.

✅ More information about the Media Proxy component can be found in the media-proxy subdirectory.

3. SDK and FFmpeg plugins:

• Key Features: Zero Memory Copy, uses a zero-copy memory techniques for ultra-low-latency media transfers between containers. This helps avoid data duplication, reducing time and resource overhead.
• Media Stream Compatibility: Supports compressed (like JPEG XS) and RAW uncompressed media formats, ensuring flexibility in how media is transported.
• Multiple Protocols: Works with protocols such as SMPTE ST 2110 and RTSP, enhancing its versatility in different media service setups.

✅ Key point: The system is optimized for zero-copy transmission with wide protocol compatibility, ensuring it can handle both compressed and uncompressed media streams efficiently.

✅ Detailed information about MCM SDK can be found in sdk directory.

✅ Detailed information about FFmpeg with MCM plugin can be found in FFmpeg-plugin directory.

Getting Started

Basic build and installation

Prerequisites

• Linux server (Intel Xeon processor recommended, ex. Sapphire Rapids).
• Network Interface Card (NIC) compatible with DPDK (ex. Intel Ethernet Controller E810-C).
• (recommended) Update NIC drivers and firmware, more info and latest drivers Support

Steps

1. Clone the repository

   $ git clone https://github.com/OpenVisualCloud/Media-Communications-Mesh.git

2. Navigate to the Media-Communications-Mesh directory

   $ cd Media-Communications-Mesh

3. Install Dependencies, choose between options a) or b).

   a) Use all-in-one environment preparation script. The script was tested under Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, CentOS Stream8, CentOS Stream9 and kernel version 5.15 environments.

   To use this option run the following command:

   sudo ./scripts/setup_build_env.sh

   b) The following method is universal and should work for most Linux OS distributions.

   • XDP-tools with eBpf: Follow the simple guide XDP-tools for installation instructions.

   • libfabric: Follow the libfabric from source for installation instructions.

   • MTL: Follow the MTL setup guide for installation instructions.

   • E810 driver: Follow the MTL NIC setup guide for installation instructions.

   • gRPC: Refer to the gRPC documentation for installation instructions.

   • Install required packages:

     • Ubuntu/Debian

     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get install libbsd-dev cmake make rdma-core libibverbs-dev librdmacm-dev dracut

     • Centos stream

     sudo yum install -y libbsd-devel cmake make rdma-core libibverbs-devel librdmacm-devel dracut

   • Install the irdma driver and libfabric

   ./scripts/setup_rdma_env.sh install

   • Reboot

4. Build the Media Proxy binary

   To build Media Communications Mesh and make SDK available for development, run:

   $ ./build.sh

   By following these instructions, you'll be able to perform the basic build and installation of the Media Communications Mesh application.

Basic usage

The program "media_proxy" and SDK library will be installed on system, after the "build.sh" script run successfully. To run "Media Proxy" execute below command:

$ media_proxy
INFO: TCP Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8002
INFO: gRPC Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8001

This will start the media proxy in blocking mode and confirm that build was successful. To close it, press Ctrl+C

Dockerfiles build

Prerequisites

• Linux server (Intel Xeon processor recommended, ex. Sapphire Rapids).
• Network Interface Card (NIC) compatible with DPDK (ex. Intel Ethernet Controller E810-C).
• (recommended) Update NIC drivers and firmware, more info and latest drivers Support
• Docker engine (recommended with Buildx toolkit) configured and installed.

Build the Docker images

1. Clone the repository

   $ git clone https://github.com/OpenVisualCloud/Media-Communications-Mesh.git

2. Navigate to the Media-Communications-Mesh directory

   $ cd Media-Communications-Mesh

3. Build the Dockerfiles

Warning

Depending on your docker installation, this step may require being run as root.

run below command from the root directory of the repository to build all of the Dockerfiles:

```bash
$ ./build_docker.sh
```

Basic usage

After running the build_docker.sh the following docker images will be available in current docker context if the script run successfully:

• mcm/sample-app:latest
• mcm/media-proxy:latest
• mcm/ffmpeg:latest
• mcm/ffmpeg:6.1-latest

Now the "Media Proxy" can be run inside the container. To check it, execute below command:

$ docker run --privileged -it -v /var/run/mcm:/run/mcm -v /dev/hugepages:/dev/hugepages mcm/media-proxy:latest
INFO: TCP Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8002
INFO: gRPC Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8001

This will start the media proxy in blocking mode and confirm that build was successful. To close it, press Ctrl+C

Parameters breakdown and ports

Run the media proxy:

$ media_proxy
INFO: TCP Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8002
INFO: gRPC Server listening on 0.0.0.0:8001

This will start the "Media Proxy" program. When the "Media Proxy" program launches successfully, it will open two ports to listen for control messages:

• gRPC port (default 8001) is for service mesh control plane connection.
• TCP port (default 8002) is for the connection with MCM SDK.

To get full list of all supported parameters, use the -h flag alongside media_proxy call:

$ media_proxy -h
Usage: media_proxy [OPTION]
-h, --help              Print this help and exit.
-d, --dev=dev_port      PCI device port (defaults: 0000:31:00.0).
-i, --ip=ip_address     IP address for media data transportation (defaults: 192.168.96.1).
-g, --grpc=port_number  Port number gRPC controller (defaults: 8001).
-t, --tcp=port_number   Port number for TCP socket controller (defaults: 8002).

Known Issues

• There is one bug with default docker.io package installation (version 20.10.25-0ubuntu1~22.04.2) with Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS. The USER command and chown command don't work as expected. It's preferred to install docker-ce package following instruction from docker community.

• The Authentication function of the Media Proxy interfaces is currently missing. This feature is still under development, and the current implementation is weak in defending against network attacks.

Support

If you encounter any issues or need assistance, there are several ways to seek support:

• Update NIC Firmware and Drivers: Check for your NIC firmware and/or drivers update: Intel® Ethernet Linux Driver Repositories.

• Project Documents: Search for solutions in the project documents.

• Discussions: Ask questions and seek help in the Discussions section on the project's GitHub page.

• Issue Submission: Report bugs and specific issues by submitting them on the Issues page of the project's GitHub repository.

Before submitting an issue, please check the existing documentation and discussions to avoid duplication and streamline the support process.

We are here to help, so don't hesitate to reach out if you need assistance.

Note

This project is under development. All source code and features on the main branch are for the purpose of testing or evaluation and not production ready.