Ubuntu Manpage: mpd.conf - Music Player Daemon configuration file

NAME

       mpd.conf - Music Player Daemon configuration file

DESCRIPTION

       mpd.conf  is the configuration file for mpd(1).  If not specified on the command line, MPD
       first searches  for  it  at  $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mpd/mpd.conf  then  at  ~/.mpdconf  then  at
       ~/.mpd/mpd.conf and then in /etc/mpd.conf.

       Lines  beginning  with  a  "#"  character are comments.  All other non-empty lines specify
       parameters and their values.  These lines contain the parameter name and  parameter  value
       (surrounded  by  double  quotes)  separated  by  whitespace  (either tabs or spaces).  For
       example:

       parameter "value"

       The exception to this rule is the audio_output parameter, which is of the form:

       audio_output {
               parameter1 "value"
               parameter2 "value"
       }

       Parameters that take a file or directory as an argument should use absolute paths.

       See docs/mpdconf.example in the source tarball for an example configuration file.

       This manual is not complete, it lists only the most important options.   Please  read  the
       MPD user manual for a complete configuration guide: <http://www.musicpd.org/doc/user/>

REQUIRED PARAMETERS

       db_file <file>
              This specifies where the db file will be stored.

       log_file <file>
              This  specifies  where  the log file should be located.  The special value "syslog"
              makes MPD use the local syslog daemon.

OPTIONAL PARAMETERS

sticker_file <file>
The location of the sticker database. This is a database which manages dynamic
information attached to songs.

pid_file <file>
This specifies the file to save mpd's process ID in.

music_directory <directory>
This specifies the directory where music is located. If you do not configure this,
you can only play streams.

playlist_directory <directory>
This specifies the directory where saved playlists are stored. If you do not
configure this, you cannot save playlists.

state_file <file>
This specifies if a state file is used and where it is located. The state of mpd
will be saved to this file when mpd is terminated by a TERM signal or by the "kill"
command. When mpd is restarted, it will read the state file and restore the state
of mpd (including the playlist).

restore_paused <yes or no>
Put MPD into pause mode instead of starting playback after startup.

user <username>
This specifies the user that MPD will run as, if set. MPD should never run as
root, and you may use this option to make MPD change its user id after
initialization. Do not use this option if you start MPD as an unprivileged user.

bind_to_address <ip address or hostname or any>
This specifies which address mpd binds to and listens on. Multiple bind_to_address
parameters may be specified. The default is "any", which binds to all available
addresses.

You can set a port that is different from the global port setting, e.g.
"localhost:6602". IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets if you want
to configure a port, e.g. "[::1]:6602".

To bind to a Unix domain socket, specify an absolute path or a path starting with a
tilde (~). For a system-wide MPD, we suggest the path "/var/run/mpd/socket".

port <port>
This specifies the port that mpd listens on. The default is 6600.

log_level <default, secure, or verbose>
This specifies how verbose logs are. "default" is minimal logging, "secure"
reports from what address a connection is opened, and when it is closed, and
"verbose" records excessive amounts of information for debugging purposes. The
default is "default".

follow_outside_symlinks <yes or no>
Control if MPD will follow symbolic links pointing outside the music dir. You must
recreate the database after changing this option. The default is "yes".

follow_inside_symlinks <yes or no>
Control if MPD will follow symbolic links pointing inside the music dir,
potentially adding duplicates to the database. You must recreate the database
after changing this option. The default is "yes".

zeroconf_enabled <yes or no>
If yes, and MPD has been compiled with support for Avahi or Bonjour, service
information will be published with Zeroconf. The default is yes.

zeroconf_name <name>
If Zeroconf is enabled, this is the service name to publish. This name should be
unique to your local network, but name collisions will be properly dealt with. The
default is "Music Player".

password <password@permissions>
This specifies a password for access to mpd. The format is "password@permissions"
where permissions is a comma delimited list composed of "read", "add", "control",
and/or "admin". "read" allows for reading of the database, displaying the current
playlist, and current status of mpd. "add" allows for adding songs and loading
playlists. "control" allows for all other player and playlist manipulations.
"admin" allows the db to be updated and for the client to kill mpd. An example
value is "somePassword@read,add". Multiple password parameters may be specified.

default_permissions <permissions>
This specifies the permissions of a client that has not been authenticated using a
password. The format of permissions is specified in the description of the
"password" config parameter. If no passwords are specified, the default is
"read,add,control,admin", otherwise it is "" (no permissions).

audio_output
See DESCRIPTION and the various AUDIO OUTPUT PARAMETERS sections for the format of
this parameter. Multiple audio_output sections may be specified. If no
audio_output section is specified, then MPD will scan for a usable audio output.

audio_output_format <sample_rate:bits:channels>
This specifies the sample rate, bits per sample, and number of channels of audio
that is sent to each audio output. Note that audio outputs may specify their own
audio format which will be used for actual output to the audio device. An example
is "44100:16:2" for 44100Hz, 16 bits, and 2 channels. The default is to use the
audio format of the input file. Any of the three attributes may be an asterisk to
specify that this attribute should not be enforced

samplerate_converter <integer or prefix>
This specifies the libsamplerate converter to use. The supplied value should
either be an integer or a prefix of the name of a converter. The default is
"Fastest Sinc Interpolator".

At the time of this writing, the following converters are available:

Best Sinc Interpolator (0)

Band limited sinc interpolation, best quality, 97dB SNR, 96% BW.

Medium Sinc Interpolator (1)

Band limited sinc interpolation, medium quality, 97dB SNR, 90% BW.

Fastest Sinc Interpolator (2)

Band limited sinc interpolation, fastest, 97dB SNR, 80% BW.

ZOH Interpolator (3)

Zero order hold interpolator, very fast, very poor quality with audible
distortions.

Linear Interpolator (4)

Linear interpolator, very fast, poor quality.

internal

Poor quality, no floating point operations. This is the default (and only
choice) if MPD was compiled without libsamplerate.

For an up-to-date list of available converters, please see the libsamplerate
documentation (available online at <http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/>).

replaygain <off or album or track or auto>
If specified, mpd will adjust the volume of songs played using ReplayGain tags (see
<http://www.replaygain.org/>). Setting this to "album" will adjust volume using
the album's ReplayGain tags, while setting it to "track" will adjust it using the
track ReplayGain tags. "auto" uses the track ReplayGain tags if random play is
activated otherwise the album ReplayGain tags. Currently only FLAC, Ogg Vorbis,
Musepack, and MP3 (through ID3v2 ReplayGain tags, not APEv2) are supported.

replaygain_preamp <-15 to 15>
This is the gain (in dB) applied to songs with ReplayGain tags.

volume_normalization <yes or no>
If yes, mpd will normalize the volume of songs as they play. The default is no.

audio_buffer_size <size in KiB>
This specifies the size of the audio buffer in kibibytes. The default is 4096,
large enough for nearly 12 seconds of CD-quality audio.

buffer_before_play <0-100%>
This specifies how much of the audio buffer should be filled before playing a song.
Try increasing this if you hear skipping when manually changing songs. The default
is 10%, a little over 1 second of CD-quality audio with the default buffer size.

http_proxy_host <hostname>
This setting is deprecated. Use the "proxy" setting in the "curl" input block.
See MPD user manual for details.

connection_timeout <seconds>
If a client does not send any new data in this time period, the connection is
closed. The default is 60.

max_connections <number>
This specifies the maximum number of clients that can be connected to mpd. The
default is 5.

max_playlist_length <number>
This specifies the maximum number of songs that can be in the playlist. The
default is 16384.

max_command_list_size <size in KiB>
This specifies the maximum size a command list can be. The default is 2048.

max_output_buffer_size <size in KiB>
This specifies the maximum size of the output buffer to a client. The default is
8192.

filesystem_charset <charset>
This specifies the character set used for the filesystem. A list of supported
character sets can be obtained by running "iconv -l". The default is determined
from the locale when the db was originally created.

id3v1_encoding <charset>
This specifies the character set which ID3v1 tags are encoded in. A list of
supported character sets can be obtained by running "iconv -l". The default is to
let libid3tag convert them (from ISO-8859-1, as the standard specifies) and do no
additional conversion.

gapless_mp3_playback <yes or no>
This specifies whether to support gapless playback of MP3s which have the necessary
headers. Useful if your MP3s have headers with incorrect information. If you have
such MP3s, it is highly recommended that you fix them using vbrfix (available from
<http://www.willwap.co.uk/Programs/vbrfix.php>) instead of disabling gapless MP3
playback. The default is to support gapless MP3 playback.

save_absolute_paths_in_playlists <yes or no>
This specifies whether relative or absolute paths for song filenames are used when
saving playlists. The default is "no".

metadata_to_use <tags>
This specifies the tag types that will be scanned for and made available to
clients. Note that you must recreate (not update) your database for changes to
this parameter to take effect. Possible values are artist, album, title, track,
name, genre, date, composer, performer, comment, disc, musicbrainz_artistid,
musicbrainz_albumid, musicbrainz_albumartistid, musicbrainz_trackid. Multiple tags
may be specified as a comma separated list. An example value is
"artist,album,title,track". The special value "none" may be used alone to disable
all metadata. The default is to use all known tag types except for comments and
those starting with "musicbrainz".

auto_update <yes or no>
This specifies the whether to support automatic update of music database when files
are changed in music_directory. The default is to disable autoupdate of database.

auto_update_depth <N>
Limit the depth of the directories being watched, 0 means only watch the music
directory itself. There is no limit by default.

despotify_user <name>
This specifies the user to use when logging in to Spotify using the despotify
plugins.

despotify_password <name>
This specifies the password to use when logging in to Spotify using the despotify
plugins.

despotify_high_bitrate <yes or no>
This specifies if the requested bitrate for Spotify should be high or not. Higher
sounds better but requires more processing and higher bandwidth. Default is yes.

REQUIRED AUDIO OUTPUT PARAMETERS

type <type>
This specifies the audio output type. See the list of supported outputs in mpd
--version for possible values.

name <name>
This specifies a unique name for the audio output.

OPTIONAL AUDIO OUTPUT PARAMETERS

       format <sample_rate:bits:channels>
              This specifies the sample rate, bits per sample, and number of  channels  of  audio
              that   is   sent   to   the   audio  output  device.   See  documentation  for  the
              audio_output_format parameter for more details.  The default  is  to  use  whatever
              audio  format is passed to the audio output.  Any of the three attributes may be an
              asterisk to specify that this attribute should not be enforced

       replay_gain_handler <software, mixer or none>
              Specifies how replay gain is applied.  The default is  "software",  which  uses  an
              internal  software  volume  control.   "mixer" uses the configured (hardware) mixer
              control.  "none" disables replay gain on this audio output.

OPTIONAL ALSA OUTPUT PARAMETERS

device <dev>
This specifies the device to use for audio output. The default is "default".

mixer_type <hardware, software or none>
Specifies which mixer should be used for this audio output: the hardware mixer
(available for ALSA, OSS and PulseAudio), the software mixer or no mixer ("none").
By default, the hardware mixer is used for devices which support it, and none for
the others.

mixer_device <mixer dev>
This specifies which mixer to use. The default is "default". To use the second
sound card in a system, use "hw:1".

mixer_control <mixer ctrl>
This specifies which mixer control to use (sometimes referred to as the "device").
The default is "PCM". Use "amixer scontrols" to see the list of possible controls.

mixer_index <mixer index>
A number identifying the index of the named mixer control. This is probably only
useful if your alsa device has more than one identically-named mixer control. The
default is "0". Use "amixer scontrols" to see the list of controls with their
indexes.

use_mmap <yes or no>
Setting this allows you to use memory-mapped I/O. Certain hardware setups may
benefit from this, but most do not. Most users do not need to set this. The
default is to not use memory-mapped I/O.

auto_resample <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's software resampling, if the hardware does not
support a specific sample rate. This lets MPD do the resampling. "yes" is the
default and allows ALSA to resample.

auto_channels <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's channel conversion, if the hardware does not
support a specific number of channels. Default: "yes".

auto_format <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's sample format conversion, if the hardware does
not support a specific sample format. Default: "yes".

buffer_time <time in microseconds>
This sets the length of the hardware sample buffer in microseconds. Increasing it
may help to reduce or eliminate skipping on certain setups. Most users do not need
to change this. The default is 500000 microseconds (0.5 seconds).

period_time <time in microseconds>
This sets the time between hardware sample transfers in microseconds. Increasing
this can reduce CPU usage while lowering it can reduce underrun errors on
bandwidth-limited devices. Some users have reported good results with this set to
50000, but not all devices support values this high. Most users do not need to
change this. The default is 256000000 / sample_rate(kHz), or 5804 microseconds for
CD-quality audio.

FILES

       ~/.mpdconf
              User configuration file.

       /etc/mpd.conf
              Global configuration file.