Testing a FASPStream

This documentation walks you through how to set up a FASPStream connection between two machines, start a multicast with an encoded transport stream, test that the receiving machine is receiving packets, and play the streamed media content.

The following instructions requires two machines installed with FASP Stream:

Machine A: Linux machine with the built-in sender license.
Machine B: Linux machine with a receiver license.

The following steps must be performed on Machine A:

Start ascp4 to transport streams when an input is available.
The following example assumes you have SSH key access to Machine B from Machine A.
```
$ ascp4 --mode=send --user=machineB_user -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa --host=machineB  --compression=none --read-threads=1 --write-threads=1 udp://233.3.3.3:3000?loopback=1&ttl=2 udp://233.4.4.4:4000?loopback=1&ttl=2
```
Note: For more information about the command syntax for starting a FASPStream, see General Command Line Usage.
Download a test file to stream.
In your browser, download the ed24p_00.zip test file from the www.w6rz.net website (a community transport stream testing website):
http://www.w6rz.net/ed24p_00.zip

Extract the contents into an easily accessible folder. You may provide your own media file, but the examples in this documentation assume that you are using the ed24p_00.zip transport stream file located at /temp/ed24p_00.ts.
Provide a multicast stream of a test file to ascp4.
The following example uses the third-party, open-source ffmpeg command. If you do not have ffmpeg on your machine,
```
$ sudo apt-get install lib-avtools
```
Run the ffmpeg command with the location of the media file and set the URI of the resulting stream:
```
$ ffmpeg -re  -i /temp/ed24p_00.ts -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f mpegts  "udp://233.3.3.3:3000?ttl=2&pkt_size=1316"
```
Check to see the output of ascp4 to make sure the Rate of transfer is going up to the expected speed.

Now that your stream is running and ascp4 shows that it is transporting the stream, check the receiver is receiving the media file. The following steps must be performed on Machine B:

Run the tcpdump command to check streams are coming.
The port number corresponds to port configured in the destination multicast URI. In the example below, the destination port was configured as 4000.
```
$ sudo tcpdump upd and port 4000
```

Play the media file over the stream.

The following example uses the third-party, open-source vlc command. If you do not have vlc on your machine, run the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install vlc-nox

Using VLC, play the media from the stream.

Open VLC.
Click Open media. In the resulting dialog, go to the Network tab and click Open RTP/UDP Stream.

Configure the settings according to your multicast URI.

Option	Value
Protocol	UDP
Mode	Multicast
IP Address	233.4.4.4
Port (for the IP Address)	4000

Your media file should now be playing in the VLC media player.