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 <http://www.roku.com>.

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.


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.