forked-daapd ------------ forked-daapd is a DAAP and RSP media server, with support for Linux and FreeBSD. It is a complete rewrite of mt-daapd (Firefly Media Server). DAAP stands for Digital Audio Access Protocol, and is the protocol used by iTunes and friends to share/stream media libraries over the network. RSP is Roku's own media sharing protocol. Roku are the makers of the SoundBridge devices. See . forked-daapd is a temporary name that should change to something else if someone can come up with a good name for it. Supported clients ----------------- forked-daapd supports iTunes clients as well as a number of devices similar to the SoundBridge. It should be able to serve your media library to any client supporting DAAP or RSP. A single forked-daapd instance can handle several clients concurrently, regardless of the protocol. Pairing with Remote on iPod/iPhone ---------------------------------- forked-daapd can be paired with Apple's Remote application for iPod/iPhone; this is how the pairing process works: - start forked-daapd - start Remote, go to Choose Library, Add Library - prepare a text file with a filename ending with .remote; the filename doesn't matter, only the .remote ending does. This file must contain two lines: the first line is the name of your iPod/iPhone, the second is the 4-digit pairing code displayed by Remote. If your iPod/iPhone is named "Foobar" and Remote gives you the pairing code 5387, the file content will be: Foobar 5387 - move this file somewhere in your library At this point, you should be done with the pairing process and Remote should display the name of your forked-daapd library. You can delete the .remote file once the pairing process is done. If Remote doesn't display the name of your forked-daapd library at this point, the pairing process failed. This will usually be because the .remote file did not contain the correct name or pairing code. Start over the pairing process and try again. If in doubt, enable a more verbose level of logging and check that forked-daapd receives the mDNS announcement from your iPod/iPhone when the pairing code is displayed by Remote (you can also use avahi-browse for this purpose, see below). If not, you have a network issue and mDNS doesn't work properly on your network. If you are unsure about your iPod/iPhone's name, here's how you can check for the correct value: - in a terminal, run avahi-browse -r -k _touch-remote._tcp - start Remote, goto Choose Library, Add Library - after a couple seconds at most, you should get something similar to this: + ath0 IPv4 59eff13ea2f98dbbef6c162f9df71b784a3ef9a3 _touch-remote._tcp local = ath0 IPv4 59eff13ea2f98dbbef6c162f9df71b784a3ef9a3 _touch-remote._tcp local hostname = [Foobar.local] address = [192.168.1.1] port = [49160] txt = ["DvTy=iPod touch" "RemN=Remote" "txtvers=1" "RemV=10000" "Pair=FAEA410630AEC05E" "DvNm=Foobar"] The name of your iPod/iPhone is the value of the DvNm field above. In this example, the correct value is Foobar. Hit Ctrl-C to terminate avahi-browse. Supported formats ----------------- forked-daapd should support pretty much all media formats. It uses ffmpeg to extract metadata and decode the files on the fly when the client doesn't support the format. However, ffmpeg is not necessarily very good at extracting metadata, so some formats may cause problems. FLAC, Musepack and WMA use custom metadata extractors to work around that. Formats are attributed a code, so any new format will need to be explicitely added. Currently supported: - MPEG4: mp4a, mp4v - AAC: alac - MP3 (and friends): mpeg - FLAC: flac - OGG VORBIS: ogg - Musepack: mpc - WMA: wma (WMA Pro), wmal (WMA Lossless), wmav (WMA video) - AIFF: aif - WAV: wav Playlists --------- forked-daapd supports M3U playlists. Just drop your playlist somewhere in your library with an .m3u extension and it will pick it up. Support for iTunes Music Library XML format is available as a compile-time option. By default, metadata from our parsers is preferred over what's in the iTunes DB; use itunes_overrides = true if you prefer iTunes' metadata. Smart playlists are not supported at the moment. Library ------- The library is scanned in bulk mode at startup, but the server will be available even while this scan is in progress. Of course, if files have gone missing while the server was not running a request for these files will produce an error until the scan has completed and the file is no longer offered. Similarly, new files added while the server was not running won't be offered until they've been scanned. Changes to the library are reflected in real time after the initial scan. The directories are monitored for changes and rescanned on the fly. Symlinks are supported and dereferenced. This does interact in tricky ways with the above monitoring and rescanning, so you've been warned. Changes to symlinks themselves won't be taken into account, or not the way you'd expect. If you use symlinks, do not move around the target of the symlink. Avoid linking files, as files themselves aren't monitored for changes individually, so changes won't be noticed unless the file happens to be in a directory that is monitored. Bottom line: symlinks are for directories only.