Create a Video on Demand (VoD) Server

This tutorial explains how to deploy a Video on Demand (VoD) server inside Plaza6G using the Nginx web server. The VoD server allows UEs to download or stream video files through a 5G data network.

Requirements

To begin, you must deploy one of the Plaza6G experiment templates: either the Simulated Template or the InLab Template. Ensure that the setup includes a DNN VM, since it will host the VoD server.

Refer to the general environment setup documentation before continuing.

1 Install Nginx

Once your 5G experiment is fully deployed and the UE has a working PDU session, access your DNN VM using SSH or RDP.

Install Nginx and wget:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx wget

2 Create the Video Directory

Create a folder where video resources will be stored:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/vod

Change ownership so that your user can upload and manage files:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/vod

3 Download a Video

Navigate to the video folder:

cd /var/www/vod

For this tutorial, download the sample video Big Buck Bunny:

wget https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/gtv-videos-bucket/sample/BigBuckBunny.mp4

4 Configure Nginx to Serve Videos

The Nginx configuration will:

  • Listen on port 80

  • Serve files from /var/www/vod

  • Enable directory listing (autoindex)

  • Allow external requests (CORS)

sudo tee /etc/nginx/sites-available/vod <<'EOF'
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name _;

    root /var/www/vod/;
    autoindex on;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, HEAD, OPTIONS";
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Headers "*";
}
EOF

5 Enable the Nginx Site

5.1 Enable the Site

sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/vod /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/vod

5.2 Remove the Default Site

sudo rm -f /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

5.3 Validate the Configuration

sudo nginx -t

5.4 Reload Nginx

sudo systemctl reload nginx

5.5 Allow HTTP Traffic

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw status

6 Testing

6.1 Test Locally on the DNN VM

curl -I http://localhost/BigBuckBunny.mp4

A successful response looks like:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: video/mp4
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

6.2 Test from a UE VM

Force the curl request to go through the 5G interface:

curl --interface uesimtun0 -I http://10.15.31.107/BigBuckBunny.mp4

6.3 Test on a Real UE

Simply open the browser on your mobile device:

http://10.15.31.107/BigBuckBunny.mp4

7 Optional: Generate Your Own Video

You can generate a synthetic test video using ffmpeg:

sudo apt install -y ffmpeg
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=1280x720:rate=30 -t 10 -pix_fmt yuv420p /var/www/vod/demo.mp4