MPD

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MPD (Music Player Daemon) is a flexible, server-side application for playing music. Through plugins and libraries it can play a variety of sound files while being controlled by a network protocol.

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for media-sound/mpd The Music Player Daemon (mpd)

`+alsa`	Add support for media-libs/alsa-lib (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
`+audiofile`	Add support for libaudiofile where applicable
`+cue`	Enable CUE sheet support
`+curl`	Support for web stream listening
`+dbus`	Enable dbus support for anything that needs it (gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc)
`+eventfd`	Use the eventfd function in MPD's event loop
`+ffmpeg`	Enable ffmpeg/libav-based audio/video codec support
`+fifo`	Support writing audio to a FIFO
`+icu`	Enable ICU (Internationalization Components for Unicode) support, using dev-libs/icu
`+id3tag`	Support for ID3 tags
`+inotify`	Use the Linux kernel inotify subsystem to notice changes to mpd music library
`+io-uring`	Enable support for io_uring
`+mad`	Add support for mad (high-quality mp3 decoder library and cli frontend)
`+network`	Enables network streaming support
`ao`	Use libao audio output library for sound playback
`bzip2`	Enable bzip2 compression support
`cdio`	Use libcdio for ISO9660 parsing support
`chromaprint`	Enable ChromaPrint / AcoustID support
`doc`	Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally
`expat`	Enable the use of dev-libs/expat for XML parsing
`faad`	Use external faad library for AAC decoding
`flac`	Add support for FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec
`fluidsynth`	Enables Fluidsynth MIDI software synthesis (discouraged)
`gme`	Enables support for media-libs/game-music-emu for playing various video game music formats.
`jack`	Add support for the JACK Audio Connection Kit
`lame`	Support for MP3 streaming via Icecast2
`libmpdclient`	Enable support for remote mpd databases
`libsamplerate`	Build with support for converting sample rates using libsamplerate
`libsoxr`	Enable the libsoxr resampler
`mikmod`	Add libmikmod support to allow playing of SoundTracker-style music files
`mms`	Support for Microsoft Media Server (MMS) streams
`modplug`	Add libmodplug support for playing SoundTracker-style music files
`mpg123`	Enable support for mp3 decoding over media-sound/mpg123
`musepack`	Enable support for the musepack audio codec
`nfs`	Enable support for the Network File System
`openal`	Add support for the Open Audio Library
`openmpt`	OpenMPT decoder plugin
`opus`	Enable Opus audio codec support
`oss`	Add support for OSS (Open Sound System)
`pipe`	Support writing audio to a pipe
`pipewire`	PipeWire support
`pulseaudio`	Add sound server support via media-libs/libpulse (may be PulseAudio or PipeWire)
`qobuz`	Build plugin to access qobuz
`recorder`	Enables output plugin for recording radio streams
`samba`	Add support for SAMBA (Windows File and Printer sharing)
`selinux`	!!internal use only!! Security Enhanced Linux support, this must be set by the selinux profile or breakage will occur
`sid`	Enable SID (Commodore 64 audio) file support
`signalfd`	Use the signalfd function in MPD's event loop
`snapcast`	Snapcast audio plugin
`sndfile`	Add support for libsndfile
`sndio`	Enable support for the media-sound/sndio backend
`soundcloud`	Build plugin to access soundcloud
`sqlite`	Add support for sqlite - embedded sql database
`systemd`	Enable support for systemd socket activation
`test`	Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently)
`twolame`	Support twolame MPEG-2 encoding
`udisks`	Enable storage management support (automounting, volume monitoring, etc)
`upnp`	Enable UPnP port mapping support
`vorbis`	Add support for the OggVorbis audio codec
`wavpack`	Add support for wavpack audio compression tools
`webdav`	Enable using music from a WebDAV share
`wildmidi`	Enable MIDI support via wildmidi
`yajl`	Enable JSON parsing via dev-libs/yajl
`zeroconf`	Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD)
`zip`	Enable support for ZIP archives
`zlib`	Add support for zlib compression

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2024-09-22 13:06 More information about USE flags

Note
A number of these flags are set by the desktop profile.

Emerge

root #emerge --ask media-sound/mpd

Configuration

After finished installation MPD should be working with the Gentoo shipped default configuration.

A list of supported plugins/features of your MPD can be obtained by issuing:

user $mpd --version

MPD can be configured in a system-wide or per-user fashion. The configuration style choice depends on the intended usage.

System-wide configuration

Basic configuration

Below an example of a simple configuration:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

music_directory      "/var/lib/mpd/music"
playlist_directory   "/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
db_file              "/var/lib/mpd/database"
log_file             "/var/lib/mpd/log"
state_file           "/var/lib/mpd/state"

user                 "mpd"

bind_to_address      "localhost"
bind_to_address      "/var/lib/mpd/socket"

input {
        plugin "curl"
}

audio_output {
        type            "alsa"
        name            "default"
        mixer_type      "software"
}

At this point MPD should be able to run as a system daemon with its own user called mpd, which is the default setting of MPD.

PulseAudio (optional)

If MPD was build with PulseAudio support (pulseaudio USE flag), add a dedicated audio_output section to your /etc/mpd.conf:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

audio_output {
        type            "pulse"
        name            "Pulse Output"
        mixer_control   "Master"
}

Note
If running pipewire with libpulse, this option will allow a system level MPD daemon to access the user level pipewire server if one of the tcp options is enabled in /etc/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf. See "Adding multi user support" in the Pipewire page.

Note
It may be a good practice to run both PulseAudio and MPD under X11 user instead.

Pipewire (optional)

If MPD was build with Pipewire support (pipewire USE flag), add a dedicated audio_output section to your /etc/mpd.conf:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

audio_output {
        type            "pipewire"
        name            "Pipewire Output"
}

Note
Pipewire will not let an MPD system daemon access a user level pipewire socket, so this option should only be used if running MPD as a user level daemon.

Built-in HTTP streaming server (optional)

If MPD was build with network USE flag, add a dedicated audio_output section to your /etc/mpd.conf:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

audio_output {    
        type            "httpd"
        name            "HTTP Stream"
        encoder         "vorbis"                # optional, vorbis(OGG) or lame(MP3)
        port            "8000"
        bitrate         "192"                   # do not define if quality is defined      
        format          "44100:16:1"
}

bind_to_address "0.0.0.0"

Replace localhost with 0.0.0.0 or a specific interface IP. Bind to address 0.0.0.0 means here: stream on all local found IP interfaces. You could change it to a specific interface IP address like e.g. 192.168.1.2 then the streaming server is bound to that interface IP only.

Note
Some players require to specify the file format in the URL to be able to connect to the stream. Example: http://192.168.1.2:8000/mpd.ogg

Bluetooth headset (optional)

Setup a Bluetooth headset first, according to the Bluetooth headset article.

ALSA (non-PulseAudio) setup with BlueZ 5

Put a user level ~/.asoundrc file in MPD's $HOME directory, which is /var/lib/mpd by default. MPD will be able to control the volume of the headset.

FILE /var/lib/mpd/.asoundrc

# Specify the parameters of the Bluetooth connection
defaults.bluealsa {
     interface "hci0"            # host Bluetooth adapter
     device "XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX"  # Bluetooth headset MAC address
     profile "a2dp"
}

To be able to switch between the Bluetooth headset and the default sound card, add these lines to the audio_output section in /etc/mpd.conf:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

audio_output {
        type            "alsa"
        name            "My ALSA Device"
}

audio_output {
        type            "alsa"
        name            "ALSA Bluetooth Headset"
        device          "bluealsa"
        mixer_type    "software"
}

MPD might crash when switching output _while_ playing (if so, pause before switching).

If you experience some issues while trying to play AAC or other files, like:

user $mpd --no-daemon --stderr

...
alsa_output: Failed to open "My ALSA Device" [alsa]: Error opening ALSA device "bluealsa" (snd_pcm_hw_params): Invalid argument
...

Then add this line to your audio_output:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

format          "44100:16:2"

FIFO (optional)

The FIFO output setup for the visualiser plugin which in the media-sound/ncmpcpp client. Following additional settings enable the FIFO functionality:

FILE /etc/mpd.conf

audio_output {
        type  "fifo"
        name  "mpdFIFO"
        path  "/tmp/mpd.fifo"
        enabled  "yes"
        format  "44100:16:2"
}

The name and path variables values can be set to reflect own needs.

Service

OpenRC

To start MPD:

root #rc-service mpd start

To start MPD at boot time, add it the default runlevel:

root #rc-update add mpd default

systemd

To start MPD immediately:

root #systemctl start mpd

To start MPD at boot time:

root #systemctl enable mpd

Per-user configuration

It may be handy to run MPD configured for a specific user.

Basic configuration

Start with copying /etc/mpd.conf to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mpd/mpd.conf. Then you need to adjust the configuration to your needs.

Sample configuration using PulseAudio output:

FILE $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/mpd/mpd.conf

# Recommended location for database
db_file                 "~/.mpd/database"

# Input
input {
        plugin          "curl"
}

# PulseAudio output
audio_output {
        type            "pulse"
        name            "Pulse Audio"
}

Now it should be possible to start MPD simply issuing:

user $mpd

Service

Note
If your cron program supports @reboot you can create a cronjob that has /usr/bin/mpd start at boot in place of an init script.

systemd

It is possible to leverage systemd user services to control MPD in a per-user way.

To activate the MPD, start the systemd socket:

user $systemctl --user enable --now mpd.socket

Clients

Sorted List of MPD clients

Commandline/Console

media-sound/mpc — A commandline client for Music Player Daemon (media-sound/mpd) (useful for key-bindings)
media-sound/ncmpc — An ncurses client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD)
Ncmpcpp — An ncurses mpd client, ncmpc clone with some new features, written in C++
media-sound/pms — Practical Music Search, another ncurses based mpd client with vi like keys, written in Golang
media-sound/vimpc — An ncurses based mpd client with vi like key bindings
Ampc — Asynchronous Music Player Controller for Emacs
clerk — mpd client, based on rofi/fzf, written in Perl
vimus — An MPD client with vim-like key bindings, written in Haskell

Graphical (GTK)

Graphical (Qt)

Graphical (other)

x11-plugins/wmmp

Web

ympd — MPD Web GUI - written in C, utilizing Websockets and Bootstrap/JS

Scrobblers

Scrobblers are clients that submit to Audioscrobbler — compatible services (eg. libre.fm or last.fm)

Troubleshooting

For general troubleshooting refer to the MPD user manual troubleshooting section

External resources

MPD

Contents

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for media-sound/mpd The Music Player Daemon (mpd)

Emerge

Configuration

System-wide configuration

Basic configuration

PulseAudio (optional)

Pipewire (optional)

Built-in HTTP streaming server (optional)

Bluetooth headset (optional)

ALSA (non-PulseAudio) setup with BlueZ 5

FIFO (optional)

Service

OpenRC

systemd

Per-user configuration

Basic configuration

Service

systemd

Clients

Commandline/Console

Graphical (GTK)

Graphical (Qt)

Graphical (other)

Web

Scrobblers

Troubleshooting

See also

External resources