mpd.conf(5)mpd.conf(5)NAMEmpd.conf - Music Player Daemon configuration file
DESCRIPTIONmpd.conf is the configuration file for mpd(1). If not specified on the
command line, MPD first searches for it at $XDG_CON‐
FIG_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) sepa‐
rated 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 configu‐
ration 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 spe‐
cial 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 termi‐
nated 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. Mul‐
tiple 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 set‐
ting, 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 sug‐
gest 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 log‐
ging, "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 Bon‐
jour, 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 col‐
lisions 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 cur‐
rent 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,con‐
trol,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 sec‐
tions may be specified. If no audio_output section is speci‐
fied, 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 avail‐
able:
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 qual‐
ity 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 ran‐
dom play is activated otherwise the album ReplayGain tags. Cur‐
rently 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-qual‐
ity 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 con‐
nected 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 run‐
ning "iconv -l". The default is to let libid3tag convert them
(from ISO-8859-1, as the standard specifies) and do no addi‐
tional 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 dis‐
abling 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 file‐
names 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 meta‐
data. The default is to use all known tag types except for com‐
ments 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 "soft‐
ware", 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 hard‐
ware 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 microsec‐
onds. 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 lower‐
ing 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 / sam‐
ple_rate(kHz), or 5804 microseconds for CD-quality audio.
FILES
~/.mpdconf
User configuration file.
/etc/mpd.conf
Global configuration file.
SEE ALSOmpd(1), mpc(1)mpd.conf(5)
