LiveTV (Node.js + Advanced Admin)

Modern Live TV streaming website with:

• Public player (/)
• Hidden admin panel (custom secret path)
• HLS playback via HLS.js
• Bootstrap 5 minimal UI (CDN-based)
• Channel data persisted in data/channels.json

Features

• HLS .m3u8 playback on modern browsers
• Server-side HLS proxy (public client never receives raw streamUrl)
• HLS proxy token reuse + automatic stale segment cleanup
• Safari native HLS fallback
• Responsive dark UI
• Search + category filtering on player
• Channel grid with thumbnails
• Auto-play selected channel
• Buffering spinner overlay
• Realtime live comments (name + message) with per-channel chat rooms
• Dynamic live viewer count tied to active channel room presence
• Hidden admin URL (not shown on public page)
• Admin login/logout
• Advanced admin tools:
  • Channel CRUD
  • Priority-based ordering
  • Move up/down + direct priority set
  • Table search and category filter
  • Dashboard stats (channels/categories/countries)
  • Export channels JSON

Project Structure

LiveTV/
|-- server.js
|-- package.json
|-- .env.example
|-- data/
|   `-- channels.json
`-- public/
    |-- index.html
    |-- admin.html
    `-- assets/
        `-- js/
            |-- app.js
            |-- comments.js
            `-- admin.js

Environment Variables

• PORT (default: 3000)
• ADMIN_USERNAME (default: admin)
• ADMIN_PASSWORD (default: admin123)
• ADMIN_PATH (default: /control-room)

The app auto-loads .env from the project root at startup.

Example PowerShell:

$env:PORT=3000
$env:ADMIN_USERNAME="admin"
$env:ADMIN_PASSWORD="change_me"
$env:ADMIN_PATH="/my-secret-panel"

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Start server:

npm start

3. Open:

• Player: http://localhost:3000/
• Admin: http://localhost:3000<ADMIN_PATH>

Example admin URL if ADMIN_PATH=/my-secret-panel:

• http://localhost:3000/my-secret-panel

Note:

• /admin and /admin.html intentionally return 404.

Channel Data Format

data/channels.json:

{
  "id": "unique-id",
  "name": "Channel Name",
  "category": "News",
  "country": "US",
  "thumbnail": "https://example.com/logo.jpg",
  "streamUrl": "https://example.com/live/index.m3u8",
  "priority": 1
}

Lower priority appears first in both player and admin list.

Public /api/channels response exposes playbackUrl only. The original streamUrl is returned only in authenticated admin APIs.

Deployment

cPanel (Node.js App)

1. Upload project files.
2. Open Setup Node.js App in cPanel.
3. Configure app:

• Startup file: server.js
• Node version: latest LTS

4. Run npm install.
5. Set env vars (ADMIN_PASSWORD and ADMIN_PATH are important).
6. Restart the app.

VPS (PM2 + Nginx)

1. Upload project:

scp -r LiveTV user@server:/var/www/livetv

2. Install dependencies:

cd /var/www/livetv
npm install
npm install -g pm2

3. Start with env vars:

PORT=3000 ADMIN_USERNAME=admin ADMIN_PASSWORD=change_me ADMIN_PATH=/my-secret-panel pm2 start server.js --name livetv
pm2 save

4. Configure Nginx reverse proxy to 127.0.0.1:3000.

Notes

• Change default admin credentials before production.
• Use a non-guessable ADMIN_PATH.
• Some stream providers enforce token/CORS/referer restrictions.