Install Ampache audio streaming server on Debian 4.0 Etch

Ampache is a software that allow you to stream your audio files on Internet. Before choosing this tool, i've tried Jinzora and KPlaylist, but Jinzora is way too complex and KPlaylist way to simple :D. Ampache is a great tool, simple of use, and with many functionnalities that fit me well. This article help you to install Ampache on Debian 4.0 Etch

Dependencies

First, you need a HTTP server with PHP support. You can for exemple use Lighttpd as described in my article Install Lighttpd and PHP 5 on Debian 4.0 Etch.

We add the Debian Multimedia repository in order to make Lake available:

/bin/echo "# Debian Multimedia Etch repository
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main" \
    | /usr/bin/tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/etch-debian-multimedia.list

We download the GPG key signing these repositories:

/usr/bin/gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key 07DC563D1F41B907
/usr/bin/gpg -a --export 07DC563D1F41B907 | /usr/bin/apt-key add -

We update the list of available packages:

/usr/bin/apt-get update

We install the needed PHP modules, and additionnal software for file transcoding:

/usr/bin/apt-get install php5-mysql php5-xmlrpc mysql-client-5.0 flac \
                         mp3splt lame faad ffmpeg vorbis-tools

Install

We download the last Ampache version. In order to do this, choose the version you want to install:

VERSION=3.4

Download the Ampache sources:

/usr/bin/wget http://ampache.org/downloads/ampache-$VERSION.tar.gz \
    --output-document=/tmp/ampache-$VERSION.tar.gz

Once the download complete, extract the file into the temporary folder:

/bin/tar --directory=/tmp -xzf /tmp/ampache-$VERSION.tar.gz

And move the created folder: :

/bin/mv /tmp/ampache-$VERSION /opt/ampache

Create a symbolic link to make Ampache available to the HTTP server:

/bin/ln -s /opt/ampache /var/www/ampache

We move configuration files to a place that fit them better:

/bin/mv /opt/ampache/config /etc/ampache
/bin/ln -s /etc/ampache /opt/ampache/config

Once this done, we create the Ampache database. In order to do this, I encourage you to follow my howto MySQL for Debian 4.0 Etch.

Warning : If you have followed my howto, you can skip this lines. Otherwise, replace the bold text with the ones corresponding to your MySQL database:

MYSQL_DB=AMPACHE
MYSQL_USERNAME=ampache
MYSQL_USERPWD=ampache_password

Once the database created, you need to create the tables. This is done by:

/usr/bin/mysql --user=$MYSQL_USERNAME --password=$MYSQL_USERPWD $MYSQL_DB \
    < /opt/ampache/sql/ampache.sql

You now need to update Ampache configuration. These command lines do the trick:

/bin/cp /etc/ampache/ampache.cfg.php.dist /etc/ampache/ampache.cfg.php
/bin/sed -i \
    -e "s/;\(web_path[^=]*=\).*/\1 \"\/ampache\"/" \
    -e "s/\(database_name =\).*/\1 \"$MYSQL_DB\"/" \
    -e "s/\(database_username =\).*/\1 \"$MYSQL_USERNAME\"/" \
    -e "s/\(database_password =\).*/\1 \"$MYSQL_USERPWD\"/" \
    /etc/ampache/ampache.cfg.php

Once this done, you only need to create a admin account. This can be done by using this URL:

• http://localhost/ampache/install.php?action=show_create_account

You can now delete the PHP file used to install Ampache:

/bin/rm /opt/ampache/install.php

Your Ampache install should be working now. You only need to place your audio files on your server, and configure the corresponding catalogs.

Files transcoding

In order to stream all kind of audio files, we configure Ampache to transcode into MP3 other audio file formats. First, we disable existing settings:

/bin/sed -i -e 's/^transcode_/;transcode_/g' /etc/ampache/ampache.cfg.php

And we insert the lines corresponding to our transcoding configuration:

echo '

;######################################################
; These are commands used to transcode non-streaming
; formats to the target file type for streaming.

transcode_m4a         = true
transcode_m4a_target  = mp3 
transcode_flac        = true
transcode_flac_target = mp3
transcode_mp3         = false
transcode_mp3_target  = mp3
transcode_mpc         = true
transcode_mpc_target  = mp3
transcode_MPC         = true
transcode_MPC_target  = mp3
transcode_ogg         = true
transcode_ogg_target  = mp3
transcode_wma         = true
transcode_wma_target  = mp3

; These are the commands that will be run to transcode the file
transcode_cmd_flac    = "flac -dc %FILE% | lame -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - - "
transcode_cmd_m4a     = "faad -f 2 -w %FILE% | lame -r -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
transcode_cmd_mp3     = "mp3splt -qnf %FILE% %OFFSET% %EOF% -o - | lame --mp3input -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
transcode_cmd_ogg     = "oggdec -Q %FILE% -o - | lame -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
transcode_cmd_wma     = "ffmpeg -i %FILE% -f wav - | lame -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
transcode_cmd_mpc     = "ffmpeg -i %FILE% -f wav - | lame -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
transcode_cmd_MPC     = "ffmpeg -i %FILE% -f wav - | lame -q 2 -b %SAMPLE% -S - -"
' | /usr/bin/tee -a /etc/ampache/ampache.cfg.php

Going deeper

Music Player Daemon

It is possible to use Ampache to control a "MPD". It allow you to use your Ampache server to play sound locally (aka. on its sound card). It is very usefull if you want to use one of your computers as a network controled Jukebox. I will not describe howto to setup such a thing, since i don't need it, but I am willing to point you this feature.

Ampache bind mod_proxy

If you use Apache to gather all of your different sites on a same port, or for anyother reason, it is necessary to lightly edit Ampache.

1. Edit the file /opt/ampache/lib/init.php.
2. Replace this line
   

   $results['web_path']            = $http_type . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $results['web_path'];

   By the following line:
   

   $results['web_path']            = 'http://music.landure.fr'; // $http_type . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $results['web_path'];

   Where the bold text is your Ampache URL.