owntone-server/README_PULSE.md

forked-daapd and Pulseaudio

Credit: Rob Pope

System mode is generally only recommended for headless servers, i.e., systems without desktop users.

User Mode with Network Access

If there is a desktop user logged in most of the time, a setup with network access via localhost only for daemons is a more appropriate solution, since the normal user administration (with, e.g., pulseaudio -k) works as advertised. Also, the user specific configuration for pulseaudio is preserved across sessions as expected.

Quoting from the above blog, the necessary setup (per user) boils down to:

Step1: Copy system pulseaudio configuration to the users home directory

mkdir -p ~/.pulse
cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.pulse/

Step 2: Enable TCP access from localhost only

Edit the file ~/.pulse/default.pa , adding the following line at the end:

load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1

Step 3: Restart the pulseaudio deamon

pulseaudio -k
# OR
pulseaudio -D

Step 4:

In the audio section of /etc/forked-daapd.conf, set server to localhost:

server = "localhost"

System Mode

This guide was written based on headless Debian Jessie platforms. Most of the instructions will require that you are root.

Step 1: Setting up Pulseaudio in system mode with Bluetooth support

If you see a "Connection refused" error when starting forked-daapd, then you will probably need to setup Pulseaudio to run in system mode [1]. This means that the Pulseaudio daemon will be started during boot and be available to all users.

How to start Pulseaudio depends on your distribution, but in many cases you will need to add a pulseaudio.service file to /etc/systemd/system with the following content:

# systemd service file for Pulseaudio running in system mode
[Unit]
Description=Pulseaudio sound server
Before=sound.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio --system --disallow-exit

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

If you want Bluetooth support, you must also configure Pulseaudio to load the Bluetooth module. First install it (Debian: apt install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth) and then add the following to /etc/pulse/system.pa:

#### Enable Bluetooth
.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif

Now you need to make sure that Pulseaudio can communicate with the Bluetooth daemon through D-Bus. On Raspbian this is already enabled, and you can skip this step. Otherwise do one of the following:

1. Add the pulse user to the bluetooth group: adduser pulse bluetooth
2. Edit /etc/dbus-1/system.d/bluetooth.conf and change the policy for <policy context="default"> to "allow"

Phew, almost done with Pulseaudio! Now you should:

1. enable system mode on boot with systemctl enable pulseaudio
2. reboot (or at least restart dbus and pulseaudio)
3. check that the Bluetooth module is loaded with pactl list modules short

Step 2: Setting up forked-daapd

Add the user forked-daapd is running as (typically "daapd") to the "pulse-access" group:

adduser daapd pulse-access

Now (re)start forked-daapd.

Step 3: Adding a Bluetooth device

To connect with the device, run bluetoothctl and then:

power on
agent on
scan on
**Note MAC address of BT Speaker**
pair [MAC address]
**Type Pin if prompted**
trust [MAC address]
connect [MAC address]

Now the speaker should appear in forked-daapd. You can also verify that Pulseaudio has detected the speaker with pactl list sinks short.

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[1] Note that Pulseaudio will warn against system mode. However, in this use case it is actually the solution recommended by the Pulseaudio folks themselves.