XC_VM Build System (MAIN vs LB)¶

How XC_VM produces two build variants from a single codebase: a full MAIN server and a lightweight Load Balancer (LB) server.

Build Variants¶

XC_VM supports two deployment roles from a single source tree:

Variant	Archive	Purpose
MAIN	`xc_vm.tar.gz`	Full application — admin panel, streaming, all modules, cron jobs
LB (Load Balancer)	`loadbalancer.tar.gz`	Streaming-only server — no admin panel, no user management

MAIN is the primary server that manages everything: admin UI, database writes, user/device management, EPG processing, backups, etc.

LB is a lightweight streaming node that receives streams from MAIN (or other sources) and delivers them to clients. It connects to the master database in read-only mode and has no admin panel or management capabilities.

Makefile Targets¶

Target	Output	Description
`make main`	`dist/xc_vm.tar.gz`	Full MAIN build
`make lb`	`dist/loadbalancer.tar.gz`	LB build (streaming-only subset)
`make new`	(resets `dist/`)	Remove and recreate the empty `dist/` output dir — run before a build; builds nothing itself
`make generate_deleted_files`	`src/migrations/deleted_files.txt`	List files removed since the last tag (see below)

Updates reuse the full archive. There is no separate incremental-update target — the same xc_vm.tar.gz / loadbalancer.tar.gz is used for both install and update; filtering happens on the server at update time (see Update Mechanism). To delete files that were removed between releases, make generate_deleted_files [LAST_TAG=vX.Y.Z] diffs git and writes deleted_files.txt, which the updater applies.

Additional outputs:

XC_VM.zip — installer package (install/ + xc_vm.tar.gz)
hashes.md5 — MD5 checksums for integrity verification

Composer Dependencies¶

src/vendor/ (the Composer PSR-4 autoloader plus the production dependencies) is committed and shipped as-is — the deploy path has no Composer and never runs composer install. It is kept production-only via composer install --no-dev, so both build variants ship a lean vendor with no dev tooling.

src/composer.lock is committed so composer install is reproducible.
Dev tools (PHPStan, phpcs) are require-dev and are not in the committed vendor or the archives. Developers and CI add them with make dev-tools (composer install); the check-vendor-prod-only gate fails if a dev package is ever committed under src/vendor/.
There is no build-time vendor step — make main / make lb copy the committed vendor/ directly into the archive.

What Goes Into Each Build¶

MAIN Build¶

The MAIN build contains the entire src/ directory.

LB Build — Included Directories¶

Only these directories are copied into the LB archive:

bin/        Cli/        config/     content/    Core/
Domain/     Infrastructure/         Public/     resources/
signals/    Streaming/  tmp/        vendor/     www/

Plus root files: bootstrap.php, console.php, service, update.

LB Build — Excluded Content¶

After copying, admin-specific content is removed from the LB build:

Directories removed:

Path	Reason
`bin/install/`	Installer scripts (not needed on LB)
`bin/redis/`	Redis binary (LB doesn't run its own Redis)
`bin/nginx/conf/codes/`	Error code pages (admin UI)
`Public/Controllers/Admin/`	Admin panel controllers
`Public/Controllers/Player/`	Player panel controllers
`Public/Controllers/Reseller/`	Reseller panel controllers
`Public/Views/`	Panel templates
`Public/assets/`	Panel static assets
`Public/routes/`	Panel route maps
`Domain/User/`	User management
`Domain/Device/`	Device registration
`Domain/Auth/`	Auth management (panel auth)
`resources/langs/`	Language resource files
`resources/libs/`	Admin library resources

Files removed (these mirror LB_FILES_TO_REMOVE in the Makefile):

⚠️ Several entries here use the legacy www/… prefix (e.g. www/stream/auth.php, www/xplugin.php). src/www/ no longer exists — the streaming/API endpoints moved under src/Public/stream/ and src/Public/…. These www/… removal entries are therefore no-ops today and are worth auditing in the Makefile (a file that should be stripped from LB may in fact still ship under its Public/ path).

File	Reason
`Public/Controllers/Api/AdminApiController.php`	Full admin API removed from LB
`Public/Controllers/Api/ResellerRestApiController.php`	Reseller API removed from LB
`www/xplugin.php`, `www/probe.php`, `www/playlist.php`	Admin endpoints
`www/player_api.php`, `www/epg.php`, `www/enigma2.php`	Client API endpoints (served by MAIN)
`www/stream/auth.php`	Auth endpoint (legacy path — see note)
`www/admin/api.php`, `www/admin/proxy_api.php`	Admin API
`bin/maxmind/GeoLite2-City.mmdb`	GeoIP DB shipped separately
`config/rclone.conf`	Backup config
`Domain/Epg/EPG.php`	EPG processing class
`bin/nginx/conf/gzip.conf`	Gzip config (LB uses own)

CLI commands removed:

File	Reason
`Cli/Commands/MigrateCommand.php`	Migration is MAIN-only
`Cli/Commands/CacheHandlerCommand.php`	Cache handler is MAIN-only
`Cli/Commands/ServerInstallCommand.php`	Server installer (not needed on LB itself)
`Cli/Commands/LbInstallFlow.php`	LB install helper (not needed on LB itself)
`Cli/Commands/ProxyInstallFlow.php`	Proxy install helper (not needed on LB itself)

Cron jobs removed:

File	Reason
`Cli/CronJobs/RootMysqlCronJob.php`	DB maintenance (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/BackupsCronJob.php`	Backups (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/CacheEngineCronJob.php`	Full cache rebuild (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/EpgCronJob.php`	EPG processing (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/UpdateCronJob.php`	Update check (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/ProvidersCronJob.php`	Provider sync (MAIN-only)
`Cli/CronJobs/SeriesCronJob.php`	Series metadata (MAIN-only)

Note: Module-related crons (TMDB, Plex, Watch) live inside src/Modules/<name>/ and are excluded from LB builds automatically — Modules/ is not in LB_DIRS.

Ministra (src/Ministra/, the Stalker portal — ~50 MB of assets) is likewise excluded by omission: it isn't listed in LB_DIRS, so it's never copied into the LB archive (there is no explicit removal rule for it — hence the ministra absence check in Build Verification below).

LB Build — Replaced Configs¶

These files from lb_configs/ replace the MAIN versions:

Source	Target	Purpose
`lb_configs/nginx.conf`	`bin/nginx/conf/nginx.conf`	Performance-tuned nginx for streaming
`lb_configs/live.conf`	`bin/nginx_rtmp/conf/live.conf`	RTMP callback hooks

MAIN vs LB — Key Differences¶

Aspect	MAIN	LB
Admin panel	✅ Full UI	❌ Not included
Database role	Read + Write	Read-only consumer
User/device management	✅	❌
EPG processing	✅	❌
Backups	✅	❌
Migration tool	✅	❌
Stream delivery	✅	✅
RTMP ingestion	✅	✅
Transcoding (FFmpeg)	✅	✅
CLI commands	26	~15 (admin-only removed)
Cron jobs	25	~16 (admin-only removed)
Module system	✅	❌

LB Nginx Configuration¶

The LB build uses a specialized nginx config optimized for high-throughput streaming:

Setting	Value	Purpose
Worker processes	`auto`	Scale to CPU cores
Worker connections	16,000	High concurrency per worker
Max file descriptors	300,000	System resource limit
Thread pool	`pool_xc_vm` (32 threads)	Async I/O for streaming
Gzip	OFF	Streaming data is already compressed
Access logs	OFF	Reduce I/O overhead
Rate limiting	20 req/s per IP	DDoS mitigation
Send timeout	20 min	Support long-running streams

RTMP hooks (lb_configs/live.conf) route authentication through local HTTP callbacks instead of the admin panel:

on_play http://127.0.0.1:8080/stream/rtmp;
on_publish http://127.0.0.1:8080/stream/rtmp;
on_play_done http://127.0.0.1:8080/stream/rtmp;

Runtime Behavior on LB¶

Conditional Command Loading¶

console.php uses file_exists() guards for commands that may not exist on LB servers:

if (file_exists(__DIR__ . '/Cli/Commands/CacheHandlerCommand.php')) {
    $rRegistry->register(new CacheHandlerCommand());
}

This prevents crashes when LB attempts to register a command whose file was removed during the build.

Streaming Dependency Chain¶

LB servers retain the full streaming pipeline:

www/stream/*.php
  ├── www/stream/init.php
  ├── vendor/autoload.php (Composer PSR-4 autoloader)
  ├── bootstrap.php (lightweight stream/bootstrap path)
  ├── Core/* (Config, Database, Cache, Auth, Http, Logging, Util)
  ├── Domain/Stream, Domain/Server, Domain/Vod, Domain/Bouquet
  ├── Streaming/* (Auth, Delivery, Codec, Protection)
  ├── Infrastructure/Redis, Infrastructure/Database
  └── resources/data

Adding New Code to Builds¶

New streaming-relevant directory under `src/`¶

Add it to LB_DIRS in the Makefile:

LB_DIRS := bin Cli config content Core Domain \
    Infrastructure Public resources signals Streaming tmp vendor www your_dir

New admin-only directory¶

Add it to LB_DIRS_TO_REMOVE:

LB_DIRS_TO_REMOVE = ... your_dir/admin_stuff

New admin-only file¶

Add it to LB_FILES_TO_REMOVE:

LB_FILES_TO_REMOVE = ... your_dir/admin_file.php

New CLI command (admin-only)¶

Add file_exists() guard in console.php
Add the file to LB_FILES_TO_REMOVE

Build Verification¶

After modifying the build, verify both variants:

# Build both
make new

# Check LB contains streaming code
tar -tzf dist/loadbalancer.tar.gz | grep -cE "Core/|Domain/Stream|Streaming/"
# Expected: > 0

# Check LB does NOT contain admin code
tar -tzf dist/loadbalancer.tar.gz | grep -cE "admin/|player/|ministra|reseller"
# Expected: 0

# Compare sizes (LB should be significantly smaller)
ls -lh dist/xc_vm.tar.gz dist/loadbalancer.tar.gz