MatejLach / aiortc

WebRTC and ORTC implementation for Python using asyncio

aiortc

What is aiortc?

aiortc is a library for Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) and Object Real-Time Communication (ORTC) in Python. It is built on top of asyncio, Python's standard asynchronous I/O framework.

The API closely follows its Javascript counterpart while using pythonic constructs:

• promises are replaced by coroutines
• events are emitted using pyee.EventEmitter

To learn more about aiortc please read the documentation.

Why should I use aiortc?

The main WebRTC and ORTC implementations are either built into web browsers, or come in the form of native code. While they are extensively battle tested, their internals are complex and they do not provide Python bindings. Furthermore they are tightly coupled to a media stack, making it hard to plug in audio or video processing algorithms.

In contrast, the aiortc implementation is fairly simple and readable. As such it is a good starting point for programmers wishing to understand how WebRTC works or tinker with its internals. It is also easy to create innovative products by leveraging the extensive modules available in the Python ecosystem. For instance you can build a full server handling both signaling and data channels or apply computer vision algorithms to video frames using OpenCV.

Implementation status

aiortc is a work in progress, but it is already possible to set up a connection with an actual browser (tested with Chrome and Firefox), exchange messages over a data channel and audio / video with the browser.

Working:

• SDP generation / parsing
• Interactive Connectivity Establishment
• DTLS key and certificate generation
• DTLS handshake, encryption / decryption (for SCTP)
• SRTP keying, encryption and decryption for RTP and RTCP
• Simple SCTP implementation
• Data Channels
• Sending and receiving audio (Opus / PCMU / PCMA)
• Sending and receiving video (VP8)
• Bundling audio / video / data channels

TODO:

• SCTP receiver window handling
• ICE trickle

Requirements

In addition to aiortc's Python dependencies you need a couple of libraries installed on your system for media codecs.

On Debian/Ubuntu run:

apt install libopus-dev libvpx-dev

On OS X run:

brew install opus libvpx

License

aiortc is released under the BSD license.