Project: Linux Howtos

MP3 streaming server

By Mayank Sarup <mayank@freeos.com>
Posted: ( 2001-04-03 03:21:50 EST by )
MP3's and streaming technologies have been around for a while now. Both these technologies can also be harnessed fairly effectively under Linux. In this article we take a look at how you can setup a complete radio station in your office using the open source streaming server, Icecast.

Icecast has a much better administration, both through telnet as well as a Web interface and is known to be less of a drain on server resources. In addition to this, it has an excellent support for directory servers. The latest version is 1.3.10 (you can get the source as well as binary RPMs from http://www.icecast.org/download.html).

Installation

Installation from source is a simple three-step process

./configure
make
make install

Copy the default configuration file to the conf directory under the base icecast directory.

cp conf/icecast.conf.dist /usr/local/icecast/etc/icecast.conf

Open the file in any editor

vim /usr/local/icecast/etc/icecast.conf

Modifications

The following configuration settings need to be modified.
* encoder_password foobar - Any encoders/streams that are to connect to the Icecast server will use this password. e.g - Shoutcast, Liveice.

* admin_password foobar - The admin password that is used when connecting to the admin console.

* oper_password foobar - The password required to access special operator commands.

* hostname - You can use this one to bind Icecast to a specific IP or to the IP of a hostname.

* server_name - This should be your fully qualified domain name or the IP addressed with your domain name.

Although the above settings are enough, but as the configuration file is extremely well commented, we suggest that you give the options more than a passing glance.

The next thing we need is a source to push to Icecast. This could be a shoutcast source or a live streaming source. You can push as many varied streams as you like to Icecast. Shoutcast is one of the more preferred ones because of the popularity of Winamp.

Shoutcast feeds an MP3 stream to Icecast. Look for it in http://www.icecast.org/download.html

Three step installation

./configure
make
make install

Copy the default configuration file to the etc directory under the base icecast directory.

cp etc/shout.conf.dist /usr/local/icecast/etc/shout.conf

Edit the shout.conf file and make the following configuration changes.

* server_name foo.bar.org - Your server domain name
* port 8000 - The port to the available at
* password hackme - The encoder password. Should be the same as encoder_password in icecast.conf

Given below are the playlist related options. Leave them at the defaults values.

* playlist - Point it to your shoutcast playlist
* autodetect yes - Leave as is but we've had trouble with variable bit-rate encoded files.

You need a playlist of mp3's for shoutcast. An easy way to prepare the playlist, is to use find. For example:

find /mp3 -name *.mp3 > /usr/local/icecast/etc/shout.playlist

Now begin by starting icecast and follow it by shoutcast. Shout will connect to Icecast and the mp3's in your streams will now be available at http://server:8000.

Likewise, you can attach many more streams to icecast. One good stream is Liveice, which allows you to do live streaming of content.

Now that you have a full-fledged radio station installed and running, have a blast.

Happy `DJ’ing’!

Other articles by Mayank Sarup

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