Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Hosting Security and Technology Tutorials : How to Run a Broadcasting Station using Shoutcast on Linux

[sprintserve]

This how-to will not replicate TLG's How-To on installing a Shoutcast Server. Rather this focuses on those who do not wish to broadcast from a remote location and would rather have the server play Mp3 located on the same server based on a playlist. TLG How-To is found here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=227645

Please make sure you go through the above thread first do that first before you continue with this section. I will assume you have created a user just for running shoutcast (and isn't doing it from root) and you are currently running as that user. I will also assume you have already configured your shoutcast server (with passwords and so on).

Follow the steps:

1. Download: http://www.shoutcast.com/downloads/...s_posix_040.tgz

2. Untar
tar -zvxf sc_trans_posix_040.tgz

3. Configure
cd sc_trans_posix_040
pico sc_trans.conf

Make sure that the config file points to the Playlist file you are going to generate in step 4. You need to configure these configuration variables:
- PlayListfile
- ServerIP: This is the IP of your Shoutcast server which is probably the same server.
- ServerPort: Port 8000 is default
- Password: This is the password that you enter in the Shoutcast server configuration
- Bitrate: Depending on your radio, you can tweak the bitrate here
- The rest are fine default.

4. Create a playlist based on mp3s on the server:
find /path/to/mp3/directory -type f -name "*.mp3" > playlist.lst

5. Start your Shoutcast server
cd /path/to/shoutcast/server/
nohup ./sc_serv &

nohup and & is not compulsory but is nice to have. Nohup outputs to a log file and & runs the process in the background and returns you to shell.


6. Start your broadcast
cd /path/to/broadcast/server/
nohup ./sc_trans_linux &


It should now be playing. Access your server by going to http://serverip:8000/listen.pls or if there's an URL on that IP, you can use the URL as well.

If there's any questions, feel free to ask.

[Steven]

nice how to sprintserve

[cmmdk]

Where do i download Linux??
and is there a easy install with pictureS?
and easy read guide?
Because i hate to look on so much text

[Flumps]

linux normally comes installed on dedicated boxes from data centers but if you want to install linux on a home machine then you may need to try looking for it on google.

[kitsune]

i was told that a winamp streaming station cannot be run on a shared hosting plan, is that true ? ? ?

also, can you stream VIDEO with shoutcast as avi ? or do you have to convert to NSV??

i tried converting to nsv once and it just didnt work.

[uid0]

Originally posted by kitsune
i was told that a winamp streaming station cannot be run on a shared hosting plan, is that true ? ? ?

also, can you stream VIDEO with shoutcast as avi ? or do you have to convert to NSV??

i tried converting to nsv once and it just didnt work.

This is mainly true because most shared hosting plans do not come with shell access. In order to compile and run shoutcast, you would require access to the machine your shared hosting account is hosted on. Shoutcast can be an extremely bandwidth intensive application so not many hosting providers like to offer this service, but there are still enough that do.

As for streaming video, I haven't tried this recently (Actually, I haven't played any tunes through a shoutcast server in a while either) but I'm sure if you read the sc_serv documentation it would provide more than enough information regarding this.

[BizB]

is it protected from hot linking ?

[fantasian]

how do you set it so that when someone is not broadcasting from a remote location, shoutcast will switch to the playlist file?

[sprintserve]

Well if you are talking about hot switching i.e. automatically switching over and take over when someone disconnect, I am not sure that's possible easily.

You just have to log in and start the playlist manually when there's no one broadcasting remotely.

[cami]

Hi sprint serve. I am interested in shoutcast broadcasting on windows. I put my pass, my IP, maxusers but still it says errors connecting to shoutcast.com. could you please tell me where is the problem. my internet connection is fast. thank you very much.
regards,
cami

[sprintserve]

You need your own server. Shoutcast.com is not a universal broadcasting station where you can connect to to broadcast.

[Bilco105]

How is bandwidth on the shoutcast servers? Thanks

[sprintserve]

Depends on bitrate, depends on number of listeners.

Basically 128kbit/s (most commonly used bitrate and agreed to be almost CD quality), you are talking about 16kbytes/s. So you can do the Maths.

[yaax]

Is there any tool that can measure exact shoutcast used banwidth?
I know that I can limit total bandwidth by bitrate and number of listeners, but how to know how much bandwidth was actually used by each shoutcast server?

[Angelo]

A cron job to get the current number of listeners from Shoutcast XML stats in a friendly interval, than plotting out a graph by multiplying the listener number with bitrate. However it will not be much accurate.