Restrict media zones

Updated

Control and customize video SDK data routing in your app

When a user joins a channel, Video SDK automatically connects them to the Agora SDRTN(R) media zone that is geographically closest to the user. However, to meet the laws and regulations of the user's country, you may need to specify, or filter out connections to a specific geographical zone. Agora enables you to control and customize data routing in your app by specifying the Agora SDRTN(R) media zone users connect to.

This is an advanced feature suitable only for use-cases with access security restrictions.

Understand the tech

After you turn on the restricted media zones feature, the SDK only accesses the Agora server in the specified zone(s), irrespective of the geographical location of the user. As an example, the following table shows the outcome if you specify North America as the access zone, and users connect to Agora SDRTN(R) from North America and China respectively:

Designated access zoneUser's locationZone actually accessed by the SDKUser experience
North AmericaNorth AmericaNorth AmericaNormal
North AmericaChinaNorth AmericaQuality may be affected
  • If a server in the specified zone is not available, the SDK reports an error.
  • Due to cross-regional public internet between the designated zone and the geographical location where the app user is located, the audio and video experience may be affected.

The following figure shows the workflow you implement to restrict access to media zones:

Restrict media zones

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have implemented the SDK quickstart in your project.

Implement restricted media zones

This section shows you how to restrict access to media zones in your app.

By default, the SDK connects to the nearest Agora server. Set the areaCode property of RtcEngineContext when calling the initialize method to specify the media zones. After setting the media zone(s), the SDK only connects to Agora servers in the specified zone(s).

You can set the areaCode to:

  • AREA_CODE_GLOB: Global (Default)
  • AREA_CODE_CN: Mainland China
  • AREA_CODE_NA: North America
  • AREA_CODE_EU: Europe
  • AREA_CODE_AS: Asia except Mainland China
  • AREA_CODE_JP: Japan
  • AREA_CODE_IN: India

Media zones support bitwise operations. To include a zone, use the | operator, to exclude a zone use ^.

Refer to the following code:

void UMyUserWidget::setupVideoSDKEngine()
{
    // Create an engine instance.
    agoraEngine = agora::rtc::ue::createAgoraRtcEngine();
    // Specify a context for the engine.
    RtcEngineContext context;
    context.appId = appId.c_str();
    context.eventHandler = this;
    // Choose the communication profile for video calling.
    context.channelProfile = CHANNEL_PROFILE_TYPE::CHANNEL_PROFILE_COMMUNICATION;
    // Only connect to Agora SDRTN® located in North America.
    context.areaCode = AREA_CODE::AREA_CODE_NA;
    // Initialize the engine instance with the context.
    agoraEngine->initialize(context);
    // Enable the local audio capture to init the local video stream.
    agoraEngine->enableAudio();
    // Enable the local video capture to init the local video stream.
    agoraEngine->enableVideo();
}

Reference

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API reference