Setup Online Radio Station Server on Ubuntu Linux

[Solomon]

What is Internet Radio?

Internet radio is an audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted broadly through wireless means. Internet radio involves a streaming medium that presents listeners with a continuous "stream" of audio over which they have no control, much like traditional broadcast media; in this respect, it is distinct from "on-demand" file serving. Internet radio is also distinct from podcasting, which involves downloading rather than streaming. Many Internet radio "stations" are associated with a corresponding traditional radio station or radio network. Internet-only radio stations are independent of such associations.
Internet radio services are usually accessible from anywhere in the world, For example, one could listen to an Australian station from Europe or America. Some major networks like Clear Channel in the US and Chrysalis in the UK restrict listening to in country because of music licensing and advertising concerns. Internet radio remains popular among expatriates and listeners with interests that are often not adequately served by local radio stations. Internet radio services offer news, sports, talk, and various genres of music, every format that is available on traditional radio stations.

[Solomon]

What technology does Internet radio use?

Streaming :

The most common way to distribute Internet radio is via streaming technology using a lossy audio codec. Popular streaming audio formats include MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Windows Media Audio, RealAudio and HE-AAC also called aacPlus. The bits are streamed or transported over the network in TCP or UDP packets, then reassembled and played within seconds. The occuring delay in the playing the streams is referred to as lag time.

Setting up the SERVER

You need a Broadcast server to broadcast the streams of sound. There are a number of server but in this tutorial, i will use shoutcast.

From where do i get shoutcast?

To download shoutcast type the code in terminal :

wget http://www.shoutcast.com/downloads/sc1-9-5/shoutcast-1-9-5-linux-glibc6.tar.gz

You will need to untar the tar archive.

Type the code in terminal to untar it :

tar -zxvf shoutcast-1-9-5-linux-glibc6.tar.gz

Now move the untared folder to a usable location like : /usr/local/bin
[one line of code at a time.]

cd shoutcast-1-9-5-linux-glibc6/

sudo cp sc_serv /usr/local/bin

sudo cp sc_serv.conf /usr/local/etc

sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/sc_serv

Editing the shoutcast configuration :

sudo nano /usr/local/etc/sc_serv.conf

The only thing you should need to change in this file is the password. After editing it save it.

[Solomon]

Now we're up for testing. Run the following command to run the Server :

sudo sc_serv /usr/local/etc/sc_serv.conf

Now test your shoutcast configuration via a web browser by typing the following address :

localhost:8000

Now We will need Ices which will encode mp3 files for streamming. Download ices :

wget http://downloads.us.xiph.org/releases/ices/ices-0.4.tar.gz

Now Untar ices :

tar -zxvf ices-0.4.tar.gz

Building ices :

Before building ices, make sure lame encoder is installed or get it by typing :

sudo apt-get install lame liblame-dev

Then build :

./configure --with-lame

If you've configured it properly and if u didn't get any error, then make it :

sudo make

sudo make install

If everything worked perfectly without showing up any error then you now have ices compiled successfully and your ready to rock n roll.

[Solomon]

Now lets configure your radio station.

Put all the mp3s that your station would be playing in one directory, sub-directories do work. Now create a play list for ices :

find /path/to/your/mp3s -type f -name "*.mp3" > /path/to/your/mp3s/play.lst

You have to modify name and path in the above code for yours. Now you have a huge playlist that ices can understand. So lets configure ices now. Type :

sudo nano /usr/local/etc/ices.conf.dist

The main thing you wanna change is the playlist handler so enter the path to that playlist we just made. Now go where server config section is, this is where you will specify how to feed the music to the server we set up earlier. Hostname will be the address to your server, localhost will usally work but you may need something more specific but if you are not sure just type localhost:8000 in a browser and see if anything happens. Keep the port at 8000 for now. Enter the password from your server config file in the password section. Now this the protocol should be set to 'icy' without quotes. That is important since we are feeding streams to a shoutcast server. The rest of the config file is up to you to figure out, you'll see parts there where you name your stream and what not. An average broadband connection can't handle very many people at 128k stereo so don't be increase it unless your internet connection is fast enough. And when your done, save it.

Now its time to Rock N Roll...
launch your server by typing :

ices -c /usr/local/etc/ices.conf.dist

You're done!
Now open your browser and enjoy some tunes...!

[vinigeremia]

i want to see the replies, if this post really function

[SUpER CoP]

i want to see the replies, if this post really function

Can you be more specific as to what are you asking? If you want to setup a radio station then you can also use Windows Media Encoder because its transmission is free and it requires very simple set up. However you will need a high speed Internet connection and also need understanding of how to program your router to forward ports.

[vinigeremia]

I was doing those steps all fine on Ubuntu 10.04, but after i compiled the ices, the localhost can't reach the target. What can i do? halp me mãn

[vinigeremia]

ok ok i'm a little newb...
i started the port 8000 and this worked, buuut when i did this code:
ices -c /usr/local/etc/ices.conf.dist
i had this error:
Cannot use config file (no XML support).
Ices Exiting...
what is this ?
huges

I only installed the libxms.dev

[vinigeremia]

when i will play my play.lst from the webrowser, i download this with the name: listen.pls where doesn't have anything and this don't work!

[vinigeremia]

when i will play my play.lst from the webrowser, i download this with the name: listen.pls where doesn't have anything and this don't work!

ok ok all this is fine now, but if i want to talk on the radio station? this is possible?
how?

[Eleeazar]

I am not sure about your tool for Radio Station server but it is possible to broadscast your own radio and speak on the same. For this there are lots of services like SHOUTcast. It is free and widely used on internet. You can try this out for your purpose once. Or else you can also go for Quicktime Streaming Server.