RabbitClone

RabbitClone is a Docker-first prototype for this pipeline:

Browser UI -> Chromium worker in Docker -> X display + browser audio capture -> FFmpeg -> RTSP-over-TCP -> VRChat

It includes:

• Login and register pages with hashed passwords and signed auth cookies.
• SQLite storage through Sequelize for users, rooms, friends, invites, and chat messages.
• Non-destructive SQLite schema updates; new columns/tables are added without resetting accounts.
• Room creation, friend/member invites by username, expiring invite links, and per-room URL control.
• A random RTSP endpoint for each new browser worker session.
• Optional random MediaMTX node selection for each new browser session.
• Automatic idle shutdown for room browser sessions.
• Room text chat plus browser-based voice/video calls through WebRTC signaling.
• Admin dashboard for users, rooms, browser sessions, and message totals.
• Tailwind-powered dark green UI with a watch layout for the room screen.
• A Docker-managed Chromium worker per room with noVNC remote desktop access.
• MediaMTX as the RTSP server.
• GitHub Actions that build amd64 and arm64 web app/worker images and validate the compose file.

Run locally

1. Copy .env.example to .env and change AUTH_SECRET.
2. Start the app and RTSP server:

docker compose up -d app mediamtx

3. Open http://localhost:8080, register, create a room, and press Start.

The first registered user becomes admin. Existing installs with no admin promote the oldest account on startup. You can also force admins with:

ADMIN_USERS=yourusername,anotheradmin

If you run behind a reverse proxy, keep TRUST_PROXY_HOPS set to the number of proxy hops in front of the app. It defaults to 1.

The room page shows:

• The RTSP URL to paste into a compatible VRChat video player.
• A fresh RTSP path each time a stopped room is started.
• Live chat, friend invite controls, and voice/video call controls.
• A noVNC desktop link for controlling the Docker Chromium browser.
• A URL form that navigates the running Chromium instance.
• Invite controls for username-based access and shareable invite links.

Idle sessions

Room browser sessions close automatically after IDLE_SHUTDOWN_MINUTES, which defaults to 10. Opening the room page, keeping the room page visible, chatting, changing URL, or interacting with the room marks it active. After an idle shutdown, press Start to create a fresh browser session with a new random RTSP endpoint.

VRChat network note

RTSP_PUBLIC_BASE defaults to rtspt://localhost:8554 for the URL shown in the UI. The worker still publishes internally to MediaMTX with rtsp:// plus FFmpeg -rtsp_transport tcp. If VRChat is running on another PC or headset, set it to this host machine's reachable LAN/public address, for example:

RTSP_PUBLIC_BASE=rtspt://192.168.1.50:8554

Multiple MediaMTX nodes

For one local MediaMTX node, leave MEDIA_NODES empty and use RTSP_INTERNAL_BASE plus RTSP_PUBLIC_BASE.

For multiple nodes, set MEDIA_NODES. A new browser session picks one node at random and stores that choice with the session:

MEDIA_NODES=local|rtsp://mediamtx:8554|rtspt://192.168.1.50:8554,edge2|rtsp://mediamtx-edge2:8554|rtspt://192.168.1.51:8554

Each entry is name|internalPublishBase|publicPlaybackBase. The app must be able to reach the internal base from the Docker network, and VRChat must be able to reach the public base.

Runtime shape

• app manages users, rooms, friends, chat, and Docker worker containers.
• The app stores data in SQLite at SQLITE_FILE; in Docker this is /data/rabbitclone.sqlite.
• Keep ./data:/data mounted in compose. Rebuilding or pulling new images will not reset accounts as long as the same host ./data folder is reused.
• WORKER_IMAGE must point at the worker image the app should launch, for example ghcr.io/nekosuneprojects/rabbitclone-worker:main.
• AUTO_PULL_WORKER_IMAGE=1 lets the app pull the worker image through the mounted Docker socket when it is missing.
• Each started room gets a container named rabbitclone-worker-<room id>.
• The worker-image service is not needed in deploy compose. Real workers are created on demand by the app, one Docker container per started room/session.
• Workers publish to MediaMTX internally over RTSP TCP at rtsp://mediamtx:8554/<stream key>.
• MediaMTX exposes RTSP on host port 8554.

GitHub Actions images

The Docker workflow builds and pushes multi-architecture images for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64, so the same GHCR tags can run on x86 hosts and ARM64 devices such as a Raspberry Pi 4/5 running a 64-bit OS.

The app image builds the SQLite native addon from source inside Docker for each target architecture. If you previously hit a GLIBC_2.38 not found error on ARM64, rebuild the app image with no cache so the old prebuilt addon is not reused:

docker compose build --no-cache app

For GHCR deployments, make sure the app service receives this environment value:

environment:
  WORKER_IMAGE: ghcr.io/nekosuneprojects/rabbitclone-worker:main
  AUTO_PULL_WORKER_IMAGE: "1"

If the GHCR package is private, run docker login ghcr.io on the Docker host first.

Limitations

The worker captures browser video from X11 and browser audio through PulseAudio when ENABLE_BROWSER_AUDIO=1. Voice/video calls are browser-to-browser WebRTC; deploy TURN/STUN infrastructure for reliable calls across strict NAT networks.