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 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) 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

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 outside 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 special 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 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. 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. Multiple 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 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".

zeroconf_enabled <yes or no>
    If yes, and MPD has been compiled with support for Avahi or Bonjour, 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 collisions 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 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.

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 available:

    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 quality 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 output 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-quality 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 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. 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 filenames 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 hardware 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 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".

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 specify 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. 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 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 specified 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 icecast 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 permitted. Either the quality or the bitrate parameter must be specified, 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", "icecast1" and "icecast2". The default is "icecast2".

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.

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 seconds.

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)