NAME
moosicd - the server for the Moosic jukebox system.
SYNOPSIS
moosicd --help|-h|--version|-v
moosicd [--history-size|-s size] [--config|-c directory]
[--quiet|-q|--debug|-d] [-S|--stdout] [-t|--tcp port] [-T|--tcp-also
port] [-l|--local-only]
DESCRIPTION
moosicd is the server for the Moosic jukebox system. It sits around,
waiting to respond to commands given by a Moosic client (such as
moosic(1)). It also maintains a queue of items to be played, and if
this queue is not empty, it pops off the first item from the head of
the queue and executes a user-configurable command on that item. When
this command terminates, moosicd goes on to the next item in its queue,
assuming that the queue is not empty.
moosicd is not meant to be used as a system-wide daemon that serves all
users on a system. Rather, every user that wishes to use Moosic should
start a separate instance of moosicd, and one user cannot communicate
with the Moosic server of another user without taking special measures
(i.e. using the -c or -t options to moosic).
OPTIONS
moosicd is designed so that you normally don’t need to use any of these
options.
-h, --help
Prints help text and exits.
-v, --version
Prints version information and exits.
-s size, --history-size size
moosicd remembers the file names of previous songs that it played.
This option sets the maximum size of this history list. The default
value is 50.
-f, --foreground
By default, moosicd detaches itself from the current terminal and
puts itself in the background (i.e. it becomes a daemon). This
option disables such behavior.
-S, --stdout
By default, moosicd logs almost all of its printed output to a
file. When this option is used, the output is instead printed to
the standard output device. This also prevents the program from
putting itself in the background and detaching from the current
terminal.
-q, --quiet
This option suppresses almost all printed output from moosicd. Note
that, by default, moosicd prints this output to a file, not the
standard output device.
-d, --debug
This option causes moosicd to print lots and lots of messages about
what it’s doing. These messages are usually quite superfluous and
bothersome. Note that unless the -S option is used these messages
will appear in the log file instead of the standard output device.
-c directory, --config directory
Specifies the directory where moosicd should keep the various files
that it uses. The default directory is ~/.moosic/. This option is
useful only in extraordinary circumstances. If this option is used,
any Moosic clients that wish to communicate with moosicd must be
told to use the specified directory instead of the default.
-t port, --tcp port
This option directs the server to listen to the given TCP port
number for client requests instead of using the normal
communication method. Use of this option without the -l option is
highly discouraged unless you know what you are doing because there
is no guarantee that moosicd is secure against malicious input from
a remote location. Note that an instance of moosicd which is
started with this option will not accept requests from a client
that is using the normal communication method.
-T port, --tcp-also port
This option directs the server to listen to the given TCP port
number for client requests in addition to using the normal
communication method. Use of this option without the -l option is
highly discouraged unless you know what you are doing because there
is no guarantee that moosicd is secure against malicious input from
a remote location.
-l, --local-only
This directs the server to only listen for TCP connections that
originate from the local computer, refusing connections from remote
hosts. This only has an effect when --tcp or --tcp-also is used.
CONFIGURATION
moosicd figures out how to play items in its queue by consulting its
configuration file, which associates string patterns (in the form of
Perl-compatible regular expressions) with commands.
The format of this file is as follows: Every pair of lines forms a
unit. The first line in a pair is a regular expression that will be
matched against items in the queue. The second line in a pair is the
command that will be used to play any items that match the regular
expression. The name of the item to be played will be appended to the
end of this command, unless the command line includes a special
substitution string.
The simplest kind of substitution string is "$item". Every occurrence
of "$item" in the command will be replaced with the name of the song to
be played. The other kind of substitution is called "matched group
substitution", and is used to refer to specific parts of the name of
the song to be played.
The command will not be interpreted by a shell, so don’t bother trying
to use shell variables or globbing or I/O redirection, and be mindful
of how you use quotes and parentheses. If you need any of these fancy
features, wrap up the command in a real shell script (and remember to
use an "exec" statement in your shell script to invoke the program that
does the actual song playing, otherwise Moosic won’t be able to do
things like stop or pause the song).
Blank lines and lines starting with a ’#’ character are ignored.
Regular expressions specified earlier in this file take precedence over
those specified later.
FILES
moosicd makes use of several files, all of which are found in the
.moosic/ directory in the home directory of the user who invoked the
program (unless the -c or --config option is used).
config
This is the configuration file that moosicd uses to associate file-
types to player commands, as explained above.
server_log
moosicd logs short notices of its activities to this file unless
the -S option is used. It usually contains nothing more than a
history of what songs have been played.
player_log
This file contains the output of the player commands which are
spawned by moosicd.
socket
This is a socket file which is (normally) used to allow Moosic
clients to contact the Moosic server. If moosicd isn’t shut down
properly, this file will need to be removed by hand. You should
leave this file alone under other circumstances.
SEE ALSO
moosic(1), the standard command-line Moosic client.
The chapter entitled "Regular Expression Syntax"
<http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/re-syntax.html> from the section
dealing with the re module in the Python Library Reference, for details
on the syntax of a regular expression.
AUTHOR
Daniel Pearson <daniel@nanoo.org>