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 ~/.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.
REQUIRED PARAMETERS
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".
db_file <file>
This specifies where the db file will be stored.
sticker_file <file>
The location of the sticker database. This is a database which
manages dynamic information attached to songs.
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
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).
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.
To bind to a Unix domain socket, specify an absolute path. 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 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".
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.
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/>).
mixer_type <alsa, oss, software, hardware or disabled>
This specifies which mixer to use. The default is hardware and
depends on what audio output support mpd was built with. Options
alsa and oss are legacy and should not be used in new configs,
but when set mixer_device and mixer_control will apply.
mixer_device <mixer dev>
This specifies which mixer to use. The default for oss is
"/dev/mixer"; the default for alsa is "default". This global
option is deprecated and should not be used. Look at the
mixer_device option of corresponding output device instead.
mixer_control <mixer ctrl>
This specifies which mixer control to use (sometimes referred to
as the "device"). Examples of mixer controls are PCM, Line1,
Master, etc. An example for OSS is "Pcm", and an example for
alsa is "PCM". This global option is deprecated and should not
be used. Look at the mixer_control option of corresponding out‐
put device instead.
replaygain <album or track>
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. 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 2048, 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 4096.
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, and disc. 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.
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.
OPTIONAL ALSA OUTPUT PARAMETERS
device <dev>
This specifies the device to use for audio output. The default
is "default".
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.
OPTIONAL OSS OUTPUT PARAMETERS
device <dev>
This specifies the device to use for audio output. The default
is "/dev/dsp".
mixer_device <mixer dev>
This specifies which mixer to use. The default is "/dev/mixer".
mixer_control <mixer ctrl>
This specifies which mixer control to use (sometimes referred to
as the "device"). The default is to use the main PCM mixer. An
example is "Pcm".
OPTIONAL PULSE OUTPUT PARAMETERS
server <server list>
A space separated list of servers to try to connect to. See
<http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/ServerStrings> for more details.
The default is to let PulseAudio choose a server. If you spec‐
ify more than one server name, MPD tries to connect to one after
another until it successfully establishes a connection.
sink <sink>
The sink to output to. The default is to let PulseAudio choose
a sink.
REQUIRED JACK OUTPUT PARAMETERS
name <name>
The client name to use when connecting to JACK. The output
ports <name>:left and <name>:right will also be created for the
left and right channels, respectively.
OPTIONAL JACK OUTPUT PARAMETERS
ports <left_port,right_port>
This specifies the left and right ports to connect to for the
left and right channels, respectively. The default is to let
JACK choose a pair of ports.
ringbuffer_size <size in bytes>
This specifies the size of the ringbuffer in bytes. The default
is 32768.
OPTIONAL AO OUTPUT PARAMETERS
driver <driver>
This specifies the libao driver to use for audio output. Possi‐
ble values depend on what libao drivers are available. See
<http://www.xiph.org/ao/doc/drivers.html> for information on
some commonly used drivers. Typical values for Linux include
"oss" and "alsa09". The default is "default", which causes
libao to select an appropriate plugin.
options <opts>
This specifies the options to use for the selected libao driver.
For oss, the only option available is "dsp". For alsa09, the
available options are: "dev", "buf_size", and "periods". See
<http://www.xiph.org/ao/doc/drivers.html> for available options
for some commonly used drivers. Options are assigned using "=",
and ";" is used to separate options. An example for oss:
"dsp=/dev/dsp". An example for alsa09:
"dev=hw:0,0;buf_size=4096". The default is "".
write_size <size in bytes>
This specifies how many bytes to write to the audio device at
once. This parameter is to work around a bug in older versions
of libao on sound cards with very small buffers. The default is
1024.
REQUIRED FIFO OUTPUT PARAMETERS
path <path>
This specifies the path of the FIFO to output to. Must be an
absolute path. If the path does not exist it will be created
when mpd is started, and removed when mpd is stopped. The FIFO
will be created with the same user and group as mpd is running
as. Default permissions can be modified by using the builtin
shell command "umask". If a FIFO already exists at the speci‐
fied path it will be reused, and will not be removed when mpd is
stopped. You can use the "mkfifo" command to create this, and
then you may modify the permissions to your liking.
REQUIRED SHOUT OUTPUT PARAMETERS
name <name>
This specifies not only the unique audio output name, but also
the stream title.
host <hostname>
This specifies the hostname of the icecast server to connect to.
port <port>
This specifies the port of the icecast server to connect to.
mount <mountpoint>
This specifies the icecast mountpoint to use.
password <password>
This specifies the password to use when logging in to the ice‐
cast server.
quality <quality>
This specifies the encoding quality to use. The value must be
between 0 and 10. Fractional values, such as 2.5, are permit‐
ted. Either the quality or the bitrate parameter must be speci‐
fied, but not both. For Ogg, a higher quality number produces
higher quality output. For MP3, it's just the opposite, with
lower numbers producing higher quality output.
bitrate <kbps>
This specifies the bitrate to use for encoding. Either the
quality or the bitrate parameter must be specified, but not
both.
format <sample_rate:bits:channels>
This specifies the sample rate, bits per sample, and number of
channels to use for encoding.
OPTIONAL SHOUT OUTPUT PARAMETERS
encoding <encoding>
This specifies which output encoding to use. Should be either
"ogg" or "mp3", "mp3" is needed for shoutcast streaming. The
default is "ogg".
protocol <protocol>
This specifies the protocol that wil be used to connect to the
icecast/shoutcast server. The options are "shoutcast", "ice‐
cast1" and "icecast2". The default is "icecast2".
user <username>
This specifies the username to use when logging in to the ice‐
cast server. The default is "source".
public <yes or no>
This specifies whether to request that the stream be listed in
all public stream directories that the icecast server knows
about. The default is no.
timeout <seconds>
This specifies the number of seconds to wait before giving up on
trying to connect to the icecast server. The default is 2 sec‐
onds.
description <description>
This specifies a description of the stream.
genre <genre>
This specifies the genre(s) of the stream.
FILES
~/.mpdconf
User configuration file.
/etc/mpd.conf
Global configuration file.
SEE ALSOmpd(1), mpc(1)mpd.conf(5)
