Owncast is your own live stream with a chat beside it. You broadcast from OBS on your computer, and people watch in any browser, with no platform in between deciding who sees it or what you can say.
On this page
- At a glance
- What it's good for
- Before you install: fediverse or not?
- Signing in
- Going live from OBS
- Keeping the key and password safe
- Followers on the fediverse
- Good to know
- Addresses and ports
- Settings
- In its config file
- Tools
- Works with
- Privacy and security
- What leaves this server
- What LibrePortal turns off
- Sources
- Under the hood
Good to know before you install
On a domain, Owncast switches its fediverse account on by itself, so followers on Mastodon or Friendica hear when you go live (turn it off under Admin, Federation); with no domain it stays off, so set one up before installing if you want that.
At a glance#
- What it is
- Live Streaming Media
- Where it opens
- Stream Page
On its own port at
http://your-server:port, orlive.your-domainonce you have a domain - Updates
- Automatic A backup is taken first, and it rolls back if the update fails
- Backups
- Included Part of the daily backup when that's switched on
- Copies
- One per server
What it's good for#
Owncast is a small Twitch or YouTube Live that belongs to you. Stream a gaming session to friends, a church service or a school play to relatives who couldn't be there, or a weekly show to whoever wants to watch. Viewers just open the page. They don't need an account or an app, and they can chat alongside the video.
It's one stream, one channel. There are no recordings to browse afterwards; when you stop, the stream ends.
Before you install: fediverse or not?#
Owncast can have a fediverse account of its own, so people on Mastodon, Friendica and the like can follow your stream and hear when you go live. That only works on a public address, so LibrePortal switches it on at install time only when Owncast is being installed on your domain with Traefik running. It then answers at live.your-domain.
Installed on your server's own address, like http://192.168.1.50:5123, everything else works but the fediverse features stay off. If followers matter to you, set up the domain first. If you add it later, reinstall Owncast: every install checks the address it's on, and switches the fediverse features on once that's a public name. Your settings, chat history and stream key are kept.
Signing in#
Owncast ships with a published default password, abc123, for both its admin page and its stream key. Anyone who knows that could take over your stream, so LibrePortal never lets Owncast go online with it. Before the real app starts, LibrePortal runs Owncast once with no network at all and replaces both through Owncast's own settings. When the app starts properly, LibrePortal checks that its own password works and that abc123 is refused.
When the install finishes, the Login Details show two cards: the Owncast Login, with the user admin and its password, and the Stream Key. Press Welcome on the app's page to see them again.
Owncast's page has two buttons: Stream Page, what your viewers see, and Admin, which opens /admin/ and asks for that login. The admin page is where you set the stream's name, description and logo, moderate chat, and change the video quality.
Going live from OBS#
OBS Studio is the free broadcasting program most people use, on Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Get the settings. On Owncast's page in LibrePortal, go to Tools and run Streaming Settings. It shows the server address and the stream key, reading the key from Owncast itself so it's always the one that works.
- Put them in OBS. In OBS, open Settings → Stream, choose the service Custom..., and paste the Server, which looks like
rtmp://192.168.1.50/live, and the Stream Key. - Start Streaming in OBS, then open the Stream Page to check it. There's a few seconds' delay, which is normal.
The server address has no port number because OBS sends to port 1935, the standard one for streaming, and that's the port Owncast has. It's why there can only be one Owncast on a server.
Why the streaming port is private
Only the person streaming needs to reach it, and the stream key is the only thing standing in the way of anyone else broadcasting on your channel. So LibrePortal keeps it to trusted places: your home network, addresses you've added, and devices on your VPN. If you stream from somewhere else, put the streaming computer on the VPN, with Owncast among the apps it may reach, and in OBS swap the address in the server for the one shown as Devices reach this server at on the VPN page, keeping the /live on the end. The page viewers watch is a separate port, open to anyone who can reach your server.
Keeping the key and password safe#
If your stream key ever leaks (it's easy to show it by accident on a screen share), run New Stream Key on the Tools tab. Leave the box empty to have one made for you. The old key stops working straight away, so OBS needs the new one before you can go live again.
To change the admin password, use Reset Admin Password rather than Owncast's own admin page. LibrePortal signs in to Owncast with that password for Streaming Settings and New Stream Key, so the tool changes it in both places at once. If you change it inside Owncast, those tools stop working.
Followers on the fediverse#
When the fediverse features are on, Owncast has one account, called streamer unless you rename it in the admin page. People follow it from their own Mastodon or Friendica, and Owncast posts to them when you go live. It doesn't follow anyone back.
If you run Mastodon, Friendica or another fediverse app on the same server, Owncast's Works with list shows whether the two can reach each other, with a Check button that tests what the other server needs. LibrePortal never follows anything for you; you press Follow yourself in the other app.
Good to know#
- Streaming is hard work for the server. By default Owncast re-encodes your stream so viewers on slow connections get a smaller version, and that takes a lot of processor time. If your server struggles, lower the quality in OBS, reduce the number of versions in the admin page's video settings, or turn on passthrough there, which sends your stream on untouched.
- Upload speed matters. Every viewer pulls the video from your server, so a home connection with a slow upload limits how many people can watch at once.
- Updates are automatic within the 0.3 releases, with a backup taken first.
- Backups include Owncast's settings, chat history and followers. The live video itself is never stored.
Addresses and ports#
Owncast has 2 ports. LibrePortal picks a free port number for each when you install, so yours will differ from anyone else's. The Config tab's Network section shows them, and the app's Open button uses the right one. "Anyone" means it's reachable from wherever your server is reachable; you can make it private later.
| What it is | Who can reach it | With a domain |
|---|---|---|
| Stream Page, Admin | Anyone | live.your-domain |
| Stream ingest (OBS sends RTMP here) TCP | Trusted places only | Port only |
Settings#
In its config file#
Owncast's own settings aren't on the Config tab yet. They live in the app's config file, described here so you know they exist. How to change them.
| Setting | What it does | Starts as |
|---|---|---|
NameCFG_OWNCAST_DISPLAY_NAME |
What this app is called on your dashboards. Leave empty to use its usual name | Empty |
Show on the LibrePortal DashboardCFG_OWNCAST_SHOW_ON_DASHBOARD |
Whether this app gets a shortcut on the front page of the LibrePortal WebUI, separate from any Dashy dashboard Choices: true, false |
true |
Tools#
Owncast's Tools tab has 3 buttons for jobs you'd otherwise need a terminal for. Each one runs as a task, so you can watch it on the Tasks page and read what it did. More about Tools.
The server address and stream key to put in OBS.
Replace the stream key. OBS stops streaming until it has the new one.
Set a new password for Owncast's admin (user admin). Leave blank to generate one.
Works with#
These are the other apps Owncast knows how to work with. Once it's installed, its page shows the same list with whether each one is connected. How this works.
- Fediverse: Followers there hear when you go live. There's nothing to switch on; LibrePortal shows whether it can work and lets you check. It needs a domain.
- Grafana: Shows dashboards for the apps that have one. works with every app
- Prometheus: Collects metrics from the apps that can export them. works with every app
- Uptime Kuma: Watches your apps and shows when one goes down. works with every app
Privacy and security#
Worth knowing Owncast lets you stream live from your own server. It is not in any public directory unless you ask, and it announces to the fediverse only if you have a domain and want followers to see you go live.
What leaves this server#
- Federation: followers on Mastodon and similar servers hear when you go live, once you have a domain
What LibrePortal turns off#
Nothing needed switching off.
Licence: MIT. Audited: 21 October 2026. See the privacy of every app and the Promise.
Sources#
Under the hood#
- It runs this image:
owncast/owncast:0.3.0@sha256:0f35b568b1098d2badbde2dbf3c73a902009c95eb687c647edea04d6da079a78. - It can sit behind Authelia's sign-in once Authelia is installed.
- Its own project and documentation: github.com/owncast/owncast
Ports, settings, tools and connections on this page are read from LibrePortal v0.10.97's app catalogue each time the guide is built.
