mpd.conf(5)

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 ~/.mpdconf 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.

REQUIRED PARAMETERS

music_directory <directory>
    This specifies the directory where music is located.

playlist_directory <directory>
    This specifies the directory where saved playlists are stored.

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

log_file <file>
    This specifies where the log file should be located.

error_file <file>
    This specifies where the error file should be located.

OPTIONAL PARAMETERS

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

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).

user <username>
    This specifies the user that mpd will run as, if set.

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.

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".

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.

mixer_type <oss, alsa or software>
    This specifies which mixer to use. The default depends on what audio output support mpd was built with.

mixer_device <mixer dev>
    This specifies which mixer to use. The default for oss is "/dev/mixer"; the default for alsa is "default".

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".

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. Default is no.

samplerate_converter <integer or prefix>
    Specifies the libsamplerate converter to use. The supplied value should either be an integer or a prefix of the name of a converter. The list of available converters at the time of writing is below. More converters may exist, consult the documentation of the Secret Rabbit Code libsamplerate (at http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/) for details.

    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, default)

    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.

audio_buffer_size <size in KiB>
    This specifies the size of the audio output buffer that mpd uses. The default is 2048.

buffer_before_play <0-100%>
    This specifies the amount of the audio buffer that will be filled before a song begins playing. The default is 25%.

http_buffer_size <size in KiB>
    This specifies the size of the buffer used for playing HTTP streams. The default is 128.

http_prebuffer_size <size in KiB>
    This specifies how much of an HTTP stream should be buffered before beginning playback. The default is 32.

http_proxy_host <hostname>
    Use to specify the proxy host used for HTTP connections.

http_proxy_port <port>
    The port that the HTTP proxy host uses.

http_proxy_user <username>
    If the HTTP proxy server requires authentication, this specifies the username.

http_proxy_password <password>
    If the HTTP proxy server requires authentication, this specifies the password.

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 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 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.

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 song metadata that will be scanned 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 "hw:0,0".

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.

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.

OPTIONAL OSS OUTPUT PARAMETERS

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

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.

sink <sink>
    The sink to output to. The default is to let PulseAudio choose a sink.

OPTIONAL AO OUTPUT PARAMETERS

driver <driver>
    This specifies the libao driver to use for audio output. Possible 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 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 icecast server.

quality <quality>
    This specifies the ogg encoding quality to use. The value must be between 0 and 10. Fractional values, such as 2.5, are permitted. Either the quality or the bitrate parameter must be specified, but not both.

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

user <username>
    This specifies the username to use when logging in to the icecast 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.

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 ALSO
mpd(1), mpc(1)