MP3 Streaming from FreeBSD server

This setup assumes you need to serve one or more channels with single/multiple streams in each.

User & Group

Add User with home directory that is going to run services and manage configurations

pw groupadd icecast && pw useradd icecast -g icecast -m

Define following file structure:

/home/icecast/
├─┬ channels/
│ ├─┬ 8000/
│ │ ├── icecast.xml
│ │ ├── rock.conf
│ │ ├── rock.py
│ │ ├── pop.conf
│ │ └── pop.py
│ └─┬ 9000/
│   ├── icecast.xml
│   ├── chill.conf
│   └── chill.py
└── music/

In this example we assume serving 2 channels (ports :8000 and :9000 with 2 streams (rock and pop) in the first one and one stream (chill) in the second). We also assume that all our audio files reside in music directory, just for example. Let's create the directories first (file will be created on the way during this doc):

cd /home/icecast
mkdir -p channels/8000 channels/9000
mkdir music
chown -R icecast:icecast /home/icecast

Streaming Server (icecast2)

• Install cd /usr/ports/audio/icecast2 && make install clean

• Start service on system boot:

echo "# icecast2 streaming Server" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo "icecast_enable=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf

• Create required directories and files:

mkdir -p /var/log/icecast
touch /var/log/icecast/access.log
touch /var/log/icecast/error.log
chown -R icecast:icecast /var/log/icecast

• Copy sample configuration file to our channels

cd /home/icecast/channels && cat /usr/local/etc/icecast.xml.sample | tee 8000/icecast.xml 9000/icecast.xml > /dev/null 2>&1

• Edit configuration files /home/icecast/channels/8000/icecast.xml and /home/icecast/channels/9000/icecast.xml:

  • Change values of <admin-password>, <source-password> and <relay-password>
  • In <listen-socket> group specify IP and PORT you want to stream from
  • In <security> group set both <user> and <group> to icecast
  • Set <logdir> to /var/log/icecast
  • Make sure all files paths exist and are correct - !important

• Start daemon /usr/local/etc/rc.d/icecast2 start

• Verify that icecast2 is working by browsing to http://IP:8000 and http://IP:9000

Install Source client for broadcasting (ices0)

• Install cd /usr/ports/audio/ices0 && make install clean - Select all options to enjoy the full stack of possibilities

• Copy sample configuration file:

cd /usr/local/etc && cp ices.conf.dist ices.conf

• Start service on system boot:

echo "# Ices0 - mp3 streaming" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo "ices0_enable=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf

• Edit configuration file vim /usr/local/etc/ices.conf:

  • In <Server> specify credentials of icecast2 server (including <source-password> as the value of <Password> from icecast2 configuration file)
  • In <Type> field type python in order to use Python script to manage streaming flow

• Copy sample Python script

cd /usr/local/etc/modules && cp ices.py.dist ices.py

• Edit Python script according to what you need - full freedom of fantasy. As a very starting point you can play randomly chosen tracks from /home/icecast/music/ directory. For that edit /usr/local/etc/modules/ices.py like so:

import os, random
...
def ices_get_next ():
          return "/home/icecast/music/" + random.choice(os.listdir("/home/icecast/music/"))
...

• Finally, launch your stream:

ices0

Tips

• In order to play next track immediately, first find out ices0 PID: ps aux | grep ices0 and send SIGUSR1 signal to it:

kill -USR1 PID

• In order to serve multiple streams you don't need to modify icecast2 configuration (unless you need to stream from different port). You need to create additional ices0 configuration file, probably separate Python (or Perl) script, and you can launch it with ices0 -c /path/to/my/config/file. From there you can listen to your new station.
  In order to keep things in structure I created /home/icecast/stations directory with sub-directories that contain configuration file for each station and a symlink to python script (for example for station ices I would do ln -s /usr/local/etc/modules/ices.py /home/icecast/stations/ices/ices.py). Additionally I modified /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ices0 script to require configuration file from /home/icecast/stations/ices/ices.conf. Also I changed ownership of all those files to icecast:icecast so that all streaming thing could be managed by icecast user.

• I suggest enabling <Reencode> in ices0 if you are not sure whether you need it or not, setting Bitrate to 96kb/s at least (for music) and Samplerate to 44100 (in any case make sure it is multiple of 11025Hz to ensure the encoding is compatible with most media players)

• In order to decrease latency as much as possible (difference in time between when the source plays a clip and the listener hears a clip) I set <burst-on-connect> and <burst-size> to 0 in icecast2 configuration. If latency is not an issue though, I suggest increasing these values.