Running MPD as user

Setting up mpd was already explained a few posts ago. I enjoy each day since then. However, I came across some strange problems at startup (I do not restart this computer really often, mostly using stand-by instead).

After a bit of search, I found the culprit: mpd itself. Using the sudo apt-get install mpd is setting up mpd as system service, using /etc/mpd.conf as configuration. Since I wanted to get mpd started at user login, not as system service, I had mpd ~/mpd/.mpdcon & in the .profile. This collided with the already started mpd service...

The explanation found on Wikia is well done and detailed. The interesting part is the second step:

/etc/init.d/mpd stop
sudo update-rc.d mpd disable

Once this is done, the system wide mpd service is disabled. One can use also the next tip using START_MPD=false in the config file that should not be used (this one: /etc/mpd.conf).

MPD remote and LAN

My fist tries with mpd were limited to local use with a dedicated machine, and web access using client175 (see previous post). Now, since I also have an android phone, I wanted to control the music from there.

I tried to use MPDroid to do this. The setup is simple, just requiring server address and port (eventually login if necessary with your config). However, MPDroid could not connect...

It simply requires a small change in the mpd configuration:
bind_to_address "localhost"
should be changed to:
bind_to_address "0.0.0.0"
or just commenting out the bind_to_address line from the config.

Now I can control the music from my phone, turning up the volume when it should be loud :)

As side note, writing the server address instead of 0.0.0.0 (or commenting out) will allow mpd to work through every client able to connect to the server address, but disable localhost connections. In my case, I had "connection refused" when using mpc. No specific address allows both local and remote access.

Music Player Daemon & Co.

Since installing subsonic is so easy to set up, I looked for another challenge: MPD.

I tried to use Rhythmbox and Banshee as players on my computer dedicated for audio outputs. If the music is located elsewhere on the LAN, both ended up unable to index 100+Gb music, and since I do not like their GUI anyway, I found out another possible solution with MPD.

Installing and setup for Ubuntu 11.10

1. Install

sudo apt-get install mpd mpc gmpc

This will retrieve mpd together with the command line player mpc and the Gnome client gmpc, for those GUI users.

2. Configure

Some guides I found (most of them) explain how to set up mpd on a system using root rights. I preferred to get everything installed for my current user, mainly to be easier to port to another installation later on, and also because I just like simple backup from user home directory. So instead of following guides creating a mpd directory on /var/lib and using a /etc/mpd.conf, I choose to create a mpd directory under the home directory, and use a .mpdconf file.

Following commands are enough to create required directories and starting with a new configuration file.

cd ~
mkdir mpd
mkdir mpd/playlists
gedit .mpdconf

Here is my configuration file (.mpdconf). The music_directory and the playlist directory should exist, according to previous commands.

# Files and directories #######################################################
#
# This setting controls the top directory which MPD will search to discover the
# available audio files and add them to the daemon's online database. This
# setting defaults to the XDG directory, otherwise the music directory will be
# be disabled and audio files will only be accepted over ipc socket (using
# file:// protocol) or streaming files over an accepted protocol.
#
music_directory         "~/Music"
#
# This setting sets the MPD internal playlist directory. The purpose of this
# directory is storage for playlists created by MPD. The server will use
# playlist files not created by the server but only if they are in the MPD
# format. This setting defaults to playlist saving being disabled.
#
playlist_directory              "~/mpd/playlists"
#
# This setting sets the location of the MPD database. This file is used to
# load the database at server start up and store the database while the
# server is not up. This setting defaults to disabled which will allow
# MPD to accept files over ipc socket (using file:// protocol) or streaming
# files over an accepted protocol.
#
db_file                 "~/mpd/mpd_db"
#
# These settings are the locations for the daemon log files for the daemon.
# These logs are great for troubleshooting, depending on your log_level
# settings.
#
# The special value "syslog" makes MPD use the local syslog daemon. This
# setting defaults to logging to syslog, otherwise logging is disabled.
#
log_file                        "~/mpd/mpd.log"
#
# This setting sets the location of the file which stores the process ID
# for use of mpd --kill and some init scripts. This setting is disabled by
# default and the pid file will not be stored.
#
pid_file                        "~/mpd/pid"
#
# This setting sets the location of the file which contains information about
# most variables to get MPD back into the same general shape it was in before
# it was brought down. This setting is disabled by default and the server
# state will be reset on server start up.
#
state_file                      "~/mpd/state"
#
# The location of the sticker database.  This is a database which
# manages dynamic information attached to songs.
#
sticker_file                   "~/mpd/sticker.sql"
#
###############################################################################


# General music daemon options ################################################
#
# This setting specifies the user that MPD will run as. MPD should never run as
# root and you may use this setting to make MPD change its user ID after
# initialization. This setting is disabled by default and MPD is run as the
# current user.
#
#user                           "mpd"
#
# This setting specifies the group that MPD will run as. If not specified
# primary group of user specified with "user" setting will be used (if set).
# This is useful if MPD needs to be a member of group such as "audio" to
# have permission to use sound card.
#
#group                          "nogroup"
#
# This setting sets the address for the daemon to listen on. Careful attention
# should be paid if this is assigned to anything other then the default, any.
# This setting can deny access to control of the daemon. Choose any if you want
# to have mpd listen on every address
#
# For network
bind_to_address         "localhost"
#
# And for Unix Socket
#bind_to_address                "/var/run/mpd/socket"
#
# This setting is the TCP port that is desired for the daemon to get assigned
# to.
#
port                            "6600"
#
# This setting controls the type of information which is logged. Available
# setting arguments are "default", "secure" or "verbose". The "verbose" setting
# argument is recommended for troubleshooting, though can quickly stretch
# available resources on limited hardware storage.
#
#log_level                      "default"
#
# If you have a problem with your MP3s ending abruptly it is recommended that
# you set this argument to "no" to attempt to fix the problem. If this solves
# the problem, it is highly recommended to fix the MP3 files with vbrfix
# (available as vbrfix in the debian archive), at which
# point gapless MP3 playback can be enabled.
#
#gapless_mp3_playback                   "yes"
#
# This setting enables MPD to create playlists in a format usable by other
# music players.
#
save_absolute_paths_in_playlists        "no"
#
# This setting defines a list of tag types that will be extracted during the
# audio file discovery process. Optionally, 'comment' can be added to this
# list.
#
#metadata_to_use        "artist,album,title,track,name,genre,date,composer,performer,disc"
#
# This setting enables automatic update of MPD's database when files in
# music_directory are changed.
#
auto_update    "yes"
#
# Limit the depth of the directories being watched, 0 means only watch
# the music directory itself.  There is no limit by default.
#
#auto_update_depth "3"
#
###############################################################################


# Symbolic link behavior ######################################################
#
# If this setting is set to "yes", MPD will discover audio files by following
# symbolic links outside of the configured music_directory.
#
follow_outside_symlinks "yes"
#
# If this setting is set to "yes", MPD will discover audio files by following
# symbolic links inside of the configured music_directory.
#
follow_inside_symlinks          "yes"
#
###############################################################################


# Zeroconf / Avahi Service Discovery ##########################################
#
# If this setting is set to "yes", service information will be published with
# Zeroconf / Avahi.
#
zeroconf_enabled                "yes"
#
# The argument to this setting will be the Zeroconf / Avahi unique name for
# this MPD server on the network.
#
zeroconf_name                   "Not-o-Matic Music Player"
#
###############################################################################


# Permissions #################################################################
#
# If this setting is set, MPD will require password authorization. The password
# can setting can be specified multiple times for different password profiles.
#
#password                        "password@read,add,control,admin"
#
# This setting specifies the permissions a user has who has not yet logged in.
#
#default_permissions             "read,add,control,admin"
#
###############################################################################


# Input #######################################################################
#

input {
        plugin "curl"
#       proxy "proxy.isp.com:8080"
#       proxy_user "user"
#       proxy_password "password"
}

#
###############################################################################

# Audio Output ################################################################
#
# MPD supports various audio output types, as well as playing through multiple
# audio outputs at the same time, through multiple audio_output settings
# blocks. Setting this block is optional, though the server will only attempt
# autodetection for one sound card.
#
# See  for examples of
# other audio outputs.
#
audio_output {
        type            "alsa"
        name            "MPD ALSA Output"
        device          "hw:0,0"        # optional
        format          "44100:16:2"    # optional
        mixer_type      "software"
        mixer_device    "default"       # optional
        mixer_control   "PCM"           # optional
        #mixer_index    "0"             # optional
}

audio_output {
        type    "pulse"
        name    "MPD PulseAudio Output"
        #server  "localhost"   # optional
        #sink    "alsa_output" # optional
}

audio_output {
        type            "httpd"
        name            "MPD HTTP Stream"
        encoder         "vorbis"                # optional, vorbis or lame
        port            "6680"
#       quality         "5.0"                   # do not define if bitrate is defined
        bitrate         "192"                   # do not define if quality is defined
        format          "44100:16:1"
}

# Character Encoding ##########################################################
#
# If file or directory names do not display correctly for your locale then you
# may need to modify this setting. After modification of this setting mpd
# --create-db must be run to change the database.
#
filesystem_charset              "UTF-8"
#
# This setting controls the encoding that ID3v1 tags should be converted from.
#
id3v1_encoding                  "UTF-8"

Running MPD

Now it is already time to hear some music!
Just enter following in your terminal:

mpd

Yes, this is all!

Running the gnome MDP client

Once the client is running, in the Server-menu, there is an Update entry. This will populate the music database with data found under the ~/Music directory, and music will be shown in the left panel. From here, it is easy to get music played.

Problems?

Note that if all sounds easy, it is also easy to miss a small part of these steps, and no music will be played. There is some things to check, in order to find out possible problems.

• Check that sound is working, using Rhythmbox for example, and playing a local music file.
• Check that all pathes are correct. A wrong path to the music will be problematic for mpd to find any music. A non existing path for the database file will also be problematic to populate the database with content.
• Still no music? Using Ubuntu Unity, I could play without problem the music, but not under XFCE. This was because of muted sound on the login screen!

Bonus: Client175

Now, once MPD is running smoothly on the audio box, perhaps (probably) one would like to control the music from other devices.
There is a huge list of clients for MPD here: http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Clients.
However, some of them are old/abandoned/unfinished projects. This requires a bit of searching to get the one(s) you like.

A simple web access can be achieved using Client175. The setup does not require anything to run correctly (based on my .mpdconf). I just created a folder for the client175 files under my mpd directory, and started it with python server.py. Then accessing from another box with your prefered browser is enough to enjoy it (default port is 8080, not to forget when trying to connect ;) ).

Mounting Samba/Windows Share as directory

To be able to mount shares, smbfs is needed:

sudo apt-get install smbfs

Then we need some directory to mount to:

sudo mkdir /media/remote-music

Now, it's time to mount the share:

sudo mount -t smbfs //myserver/music /media/remote-music -o username=someuser,password=somepass

Remember, if needed at boot time, some more work is needed: a new entry in fstab is required.

File transfer over ssh

If you want to transfer some files to or from your remote linux box from a Windows computer, using putty is a bit cryptic and less than ideal for GUI lovers. Instead, try some scp client like winscp. This works similar to ftp clients, but uses the ssh remote access.

Nothing is necessary to configure, when the ssh server on the linux box is already running (see how to "install ssh server").

Install ssh server

Remote access is often very useful, and should be part of the first things to set up after a new installation. This is specially nice to still be able to modify graphic settings when nothing can be seen due to bad X11 config.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server is enough to do the job. The computer can then be accessed using a ssh client (putty is a classic one for Windows computers). However, the default port is 22, and is commonly scanned. This is a good idea to change this to something else, if you want to access your computer also from outside your local network.

The port change is done editing the sshd_config file:

sudo gedit /ect/ssh/sshd_config

The default value "Port 22" should be changed to another number, preferably something with 4 digits or more. Once done, save the file and reload the configuration for the ssh server with following command:

sudo reload ssh

Mint trial

After lots of playing around with my Ubuntu box, I eventually managed to get some strange effects I could not solve with my poor knowledge of the system. Since I've heard it is not difficult to reinstall the system and keep my settings, I decided to give it a try.

It's almost enough to keep one's home directory as backup, all settings for various applications are safe this way and do not need to be reconfigured after the reinstallation is done.

But since I got quite some problems at first with Unity, then could use it but was not pleased with it, I decided to try something different. Linux Mint seemed to be quite popular too. This is what I choose to replace my standard Ubuntu (using XFCE instead of Unity).

After two weeks of Mint, I am ready to remove it and go back to plain Ubuntu (well, still avoiding Unity, of course). The reason? even if the desktop looks nice, this is not much more than a front and not much behind other than an Ubuntu with less accessible configuration over the GUI.
Also, using this box also as a jukebox, it makes no sense when Banshee and Rhythmbox were both instable, and sometime the system seemed to have slow down to the point I had to reboot.

So, next install? next try with Linux? I'll try again Ubuntu, this time with XBMC, let see what happens :)