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Show network · sACN ↔ Art-Net

DMX Gateway

sACN ↔ Art-Net conversion in both directions, built to run unattended in a show network.

Both directions run at the same time, on interfaces you pick yourself. The forwarding path adds a few microseconds. The native Mac app and the 1.6 MB Docker server run the same core, so what you tested on a laptop behaves the same in the rack. The Mac app is on the App Store; the server is licensed here, one key for five machines.

Buy the server licence · 14 990 FtMac App Store · $12.99 ↗

One-time payments · updates included · no telemetry

6 µs
median forwarding latency, Mac
512
universes with zero loss, Mac
1.6 MB
Docker image, no shell inside
0.000%
loss over a 30-second soak at 64 universes

Screens

The Mac app, and the server's status endpoint

Captured on a demo configuration: four endpoints on the loopback interface with a test signal from dmxgwd send, so every number is real traffic through the real forwarding path, on no network at all.

Mac app or Linux server

Which one do you need?

Both are a single payment with no subscription, and both run the same forwarding core. The difference is where the gateway lives.

macOS · App Store

Mac app

$12.99

For the gateway on your laptop at FOH or on a Mac mini beside the console. Apple handles payment and updates, there is no key and no account, and it keeps working offline.

Mac App Store ↗macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon

Linux · Docker

DMX Gateway Server

14 990 Ft

For the gateway that lives in the rack and runs unattended: a rack PC, a Proxmox host or an arm64 board. Sold here with a licence key for up to five machines at once, seats freed by you on the manage page.

Buy the server licencex86_64 or arm64 · one key, five machines · perpetual
Runs on
Mac appAn Apple Silicon Mac, macOS 14 or later
Linux serverAny Linux host with Docker, x86_64 or arm64: a rack PC, a Proxmox VM, a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 on a 64-bit OS
Interface
Mac appSix panes: monitor, routes, interfaces, settings, benchmark, log. Menu bar status
Linux serverHeadless: a TOML file or environment variables, JSON status and health endpoints, structured logs
Licence
Mac appThrough Apple. No key, no account, works offline
Linux serverOne key for up to five machines, activated online once, then offline for up to 30 days per token
Core
Mac appThe same Rust core
Linux serverThe same Rust core
Measured
Mac app512 universes, zero loss, 6 µs median
Linux server256 universes, zero loss, 3 µs median, in a container

Prices are final: the Mac app in USD through Apple, the server in HUF here. The seller is VAT-exempt under the Hungarian small business scheme, so no VAT is added to the server licence. Both are perpetual licences, paid once.

The server

Built to sit in a rack and be forgotten

The headless daemon is the same Rust core as the Mac app without the UI. You configure it once, with a file or with environment variables, watch it through its status endpoint, and leave it running through the tour.

  • 01

    Both directions, interfaces by name

    sACN → Art-Net and Art-Net → sACN are just routes. Every socket is pinned to an interface you name; the gateway never falls back to the default route, which is how a two-network rig usually goes wrong.

  • 02

    Past Linux's 20-group limit

    Linux allows 20 multicast memberships per socket by default and many sACN tools lose the 21st universe without an error. The server shards its groups across as many sockets as it needs, so 40 or 256 universes need no kernel setting.

  • 03

    A health endpoint for the rack

    /health answers 200 only while every endpoint runs, /stats serves the same figures the Mac app shows as JSON, /log the event stream. The image's own HEALTHCHECK uses it, and SIGHUP reloads the config without dropping traffic.

  • 04

    Licensed for the road

    The key is activated once online and the server keeps a signed 30-day token that renews in the background every 24 hours. Offline is fine while the token is valid, and a running gateway is never stopped or degraded because of licensing: a problem is logged and shown in /health, enforced at the next start.

  • 05

    Five machines, moved by you

    One key runs on up to five machines at once. Each shows up by name on the manage page, where you free a seat yourself when a rack PC is retired, no email needed.

  • 06

    Small and unprivileged

    A 1.6 MB image on scratch: the statically linked binary and nothing else, no shell, no package manager, running as an unprivileged user with every capability dropped. The compose file ships read-only with a tmpfs.

Buy the server licence · 14 990 FtManage your machines

Design

Built around the faults you meet on a job

Gateways usually fail quietly. DMX Gateway is built around the faults I have run into on site: the wrong network card, a switch that drops multicast, a node that never joins its group, a second console that starts sending while the first one is still live.

  • You name the interface

    Every socket is bound to an interface you choose, separately for input and output. Multicast groups are joined on that interface, and packets can be checked against the interface they arrived on. A machine on two lighting networks will not leak one into the other.

  • Nodes that ignore IGMP

    Plenty of cheaper nodes and LED bars ignore IGMP and never see multicast, so they stay dark while the console shows output. Point an sACN output at broadcast and the same stream reaches them.

  • Priority, not merging

    Several sACN sources are arbitrated by priority: the highest live source owns a universe, ties stay with whoever had it first, so two consoles at the default priority cannot make the rig strobe. A source silent for 2.5 seconds hands over to the best standby at once.

  • Counters on every route

    Each route shows its own live packet rate. Malformed packets, out-of-order frames, loops and lower-priority sources are counted separately, so you can see where a fault is. The gateway drops and counts its own packets coming back, so a mirrored configuration shows up as a number, not a broadcast storm.

  • Recovery without a restart

    If an interface disappears, comes back or returns with a new address, only its own endpoint goes into fault. That endpoint retries every two seconds and joins its groups again while the other routes keep running.

Benchmark

Measured performance

These tables come from the benchmark built into the app. It sends real frames through the kernel's sockets, reads a timestamp back out of the DMX payload and raises the universe count until something gives. You can run the same test on your own machine.

Apple Silicon Mac, 18 cores

UniversesPackets/sMbpsLossp50p99CPU
642 81711.90.000%6 µs25 µs7%
25611 26747.80.000%6 µs12 µs29%
51222 52495.50.000%6 µs25 µs82%

Linux container, host networking

UniversesPackets/sMbpsLossp50p99CPU
321 4086.00.000%3 µs49 µs4%
1285 64023.90.000%2 µs25 µs8%
25611 27047.80.000%3 µs25 µs13%

p50 and p99 are the time spent inside the forwarding path. Loss is counted from gaps in a packet index carried in the payload, so a frame still in flight at the end of a measurement window is not counted as lost. Measured over loopback, which tests the machine and leaves the cabling out. A 30-second soak at 64 universes and 44 fps forwarded every frame with 8.1 MB of resident memory and no growth, while a parallel flood of 1.1 million malformed packets was counted and discarded.

Mac app

Presets for the usual jobs

The presets already handle the offset between sACN, which counts universes from one, and Art-Net, which counts from zero. That offset is the usual reason a rig ends up one universe out. Everything a preset creates shows up on the routes page, where you can read and change it. The server writes the same offset into its config file, explicitly, for the same reason.

grandMA3 → Resolume

sACN multicast in one network, Art-Net broadcast out the other, with the universe offset already right.

grandMA3 ↔ Resolume

Both directions at once, on separate interfaces. What most shows actually want.

sACN multicast → broadcast

For nodes and LED bars that ignore IGMP and never see multicast at all.

sACN → Art-Net node

Unicast straight to the addresses you list, so a busy network stays quiet.

Server requirements

What the rack needs

Host
Linux with Docker Engine and the compose plugin, x86_64 or arm64. The image is built for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64.
Networking
Host networking (network_mode: host) is required: a bridged container cannot join a multicast group on a host interface. Both protocol ports are above 1024, so nothing runs as root.
State
A persistent /data volume for this machine's id and the licence token. A fresh /data counts as a new machine and takes a new seat.
Internet
Once, at the first start, to activate the key. After that the server also starts offline while its token is valid, and renews it whenever the site is reachable.
Networks
sACN (ANSI E1.31) multicast, broadcast or unicast on one side, Art-Net 4 broadcast or unicast on the other, each on the interface you choose.

Install

Running in five steps

The package you download after payment holds the image for both architectures, a compose file and a README with these steps written out.

  1. 01tar xzf dmx-gateway-server.tar.gz && cd dmx-gateway-server

    Unpack the download from your order page.

  2. 02docker load -i dmx-gateway-$(uname -m).tar

    Load the image for your architecture.

  3. 03DMXGW_LICENSE_KEY: "RG-DMXG-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX"

    Put your key into compose.yaml. DMXGW_MACHINE_NAME names this machine on the manage page.

  4. 04docker run --rm --network host dmx-gateway:1.0.0 ifaces

    List the interfaces, then write them into gateway.toml with your universes and the offset.

  5. 05docker compose up -d && docker compose logs -f

    Start it. The first start activates the key and the log shows every route with its packet rate.

Check the licence any time with docker compose exec dmx-gateway /dmxgwd license status. Free this machine's seat locally with docker compose run --rm dmx-gateway license deactivate, or from the manage page. The token format and the API are documented on the licence page.

Questions

Licence, offline, updates, refunds

Mac app or server?
If the gateway sits on your laptop at FOH, the Mac app: no key, Apple handles payment and updates. If it has to live in a rack, on a Proxmox host or on a small arm64 box and run unattended, the server. Both run the same core, so what you tested on the laptop behaves the same in the rack.
How does the licence behave?
One key, up to five machines at once. Each machine activates once online and then holds a signed 30-day token, renewed every 24 hours in the background. Deactivating a machine on the manage page frees its seat immediately; the machine keeps running and learns about it at its next renewal.
What if the venue has no internet?
The server starts from its cached token and runs for as long as the token is valid, up to 30 days from the last renewal. A running gateway is never stopped because of licensing, whatever happens to the token.
Updates?
The key is valid for the version you bought and its updates. New packages appear on your order page and in the mail; the key does not change.
Refunds and support
Digital goods delivered immediately, so the EU withdrawal right ends with delivery, which you consent to at checkout. If the product does not do what this page says and I cannot fix it in a reasonable time, you get a full refund. Support is email to me, the developer; send the log and the cause is usually in it.
Does it send anything home?
No telemetry and no analytics. The only network traffic is the lighting data on the interfaces you configure, plus the licence activation and renewal of the server version.
Buy the server licence · 14 990 FtMac App Store · $12.99 ↗Terms of sale

Support

Write to gergo@riegergeri.com. If something went wrong during a show, use the Reveal File button on the Mac app's log page, or send the server's log and the output of its /health endpoint. The cause is usually in there.

Privacy

The app collects no data and sends nothing outside your lighting network. The server's only outside call is the licence activation and renewal. Details are in the privacy policy.

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