HowTo: Musicpd (Music Player Daemon) on FreeBSD

MPD stands for Music Player Daemon. It is made to control music through a very unique way. MPD has support for MP3, Ogg, FLAC, AAC, Mod, and wav files.

Let's proceed with the steps needed to install musicpd from ports:

• % su
• # cd /usr/ports/audio/musicpd ; make install clean
• if you want select additional audio formats such as AAC and MOD files

Now let's move onto the configuration by copying the port's supplied example and editing from there:

• # cp /usr/local/share/doc/mpd/mpdconf.example /usr/local/etc/mpd.conf
• # chmod 644 /usr/local/etc/mpd.conf
• # vi /usr/local/etc/mpd.conf

music_directory "/mnt/music"
playlist_directory "~/playlists"
db_file "~/database"
log_file "~/log"
error_file "~/error"
pid_file "~/pid"
state_file "~/state"
user "musicpd"

port "6600"
bind_to_address "127.0.0.1"

audio_output {
type "oss"
name "OSS"
}

To prevent MPD running as root we can setup a new user (musicpd):

• # adduser
  

Username: musicpd
Full name: Music Player Daemon
Uid (Leave empty for default):
Login group [musicpd]:
Login group is musicpd. Invite mpd into other groups? []:
Login class [default]: daemon
Shell (sh csh tcsh bash rbash nologin) [sh]: nologin
Home directory [/home/musicpd]:
Use password-based authentication? [yes]: no
Lock out the account after creation? [no]: yes
Username : musicpd
Password :
Full Name : Music Player Daemon
Uid : 1002
Class : daemon
Groups : musicpd
Home : /home/musicpd
Shell : /usr/sbin/nologin
Locked : yes
OK? (yes/no): yes
Add another user? (yes/no): no
Goodbye!

• # mkdir -p /home/musicpd/playlists
• # chown muiscpd:musicpd /home/musicpd/playlists

To start MPD at boot time:

• # echo 'musicpd_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf
  

Finally we start MPD and create the database:

• # /usr/local/bin/mpd --create-db /usr/local/etc/mpd.conf

Now that we have the daemon up and running we need to put it to good use. I use the NCMPC client for the job.

To install NCMPC from ports:

• # cd /usr/ports/audio/ncmpc ; make install clean
  

That's it. ;)

I suggest the following websites to further research information on MPD:
http://musicpd.org/
http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://wiki.bsdforen.de/howto/mpd_einrichten
http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/Icecast_and_Musicpd