An Ace Stream server running as a Docker container.

• Overview
• Building
• Usage
• Reference

What this provides:

• A Dockerized Ace Stream server (version 3.1.16) on Debian 8 (Jessie).
• Bash script to start server and publish it's HTTP API endpoint to host system.
• Python playback script playstream.py instructing server to:
  • Commence streaming of a given Ace Stream program ID.
  • ...and (optionally) once ready start a compatible media player (e.g. VLC) to playback the presented video stream over HTTP.

Since the Docker Ace Stream server is both controlled by, and provides a usable video stream over a single HTTP endpoint/port this should offer one of the easier methods to get Ace Stream running on unsupported operating systems such as OS X.

To build Docker image:

$ ./build.sh

Alternatively pull the pre-built image from Docker Hub:

$ docker pull magnetikonline/acestreamserver

Start the Ace Stream server via:

$ ./run.sh

If using a Linux host the alternative run-tmpfs.sh is recommended which mounts the server cache directory into a temporary based tmpfs filesystem inside the running Docker container. This saves thrashing out the stream contents to disk, which the server seems to do without control.

The server will now be running with a HTTP API endpoint available at http://127.0.0.1:6878/:

$ curl http://127.0.0.1:6878/webui/api/service?method=get_version
# {"result": {"code": 3011600, "platform": "linux", "version": "3.1.16"}, "error": null}

A program ID can now be started with playstream.py:

$ ./playstream.py --help
usage: playstream.py [-h] --ace-stream-pid HASH [--player PLAYER] [--progress]
                     [--server HOSTNAME] [--port PORT]

Instructs server to commence a given program ID. Will optionally execute a
local media player once playback has started.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --ace-stream-pid HASH
                        program ID to stream
  --player PLAYER       media player to execute once stream active
  --progress            continue to output stream statistics (connected
                        peers/transfer rates) every 2 seconds
  --server HOSTNAME     server hostname, defaults to 127.0.0.1
  --port PORT           server HTTP API port, defaults to 6878

To start streaming a program ID of PROGRAM_ID and send playback to vlc when ready:

$ ./playstream.py \
	--ace-stream-pid PROGRAM_ID \
	--player vlc \
	--progress

• Ace Stream Wiki (English).
• Binary downloads: http://wiki.acestream.org/wiki/index.php/Download.
• Ubuntu install notes: http://wiki.acestream.org/wiki/index.php/Install_Ubuntu.
• HTTP API usage: http://wiki.acestream.org/wiki/index.php/Engine_HTTP_API.
• playstream.py routines inspired by: https://github.com/jonian/acestream-launcher.