1. Introduction

This document explains how to create an Internet jukebox based on the e-smith server and gateway, an open source Linux distribution. MP3s stored on the e-smith jukebox can be streamed or made available for download over a LAN or the entire Internet, with or without password protection. Multiple jukeboxes can be hosted by a single e-smith server, each configured for different permissions.

This functionality is added to a stock e-smith server by running three commands, each of which fetches one of Adrian Chung's contributed RPMs from the e-smith ftp site and installs it on the server. A brief explanation of the three RPMs follows:

• MP3::Info is a Perl module that can fetch ID3 version 1 tags from MP3-formatted files. ID3 tags are used to store artist, title, genre, album, and track information in the MP3 itself.

• Apache::MP3 is a Perl module for the Apache web server, which uses MP3::Info and interoperates with Apache to generate a user-friendly interface to directories containing MP3s. It makes it easy to display, organize and stream MP3s.

• e-smith-ApacheMP3 is a package that ties these two Perl modules together into the e-smith architecture. It adds a new web panel and actions necessary to make the jukebox feature seamless.

2. Installing the software

The e-smith jukebox provides a simple means of modifying an existing i-bay so that it can display, organize and stream MP3s.

Complete the following steps to add jukebox functionality to your e-smith server and gateway:

1. Access the underlying Linux operating system by logging in as the user "root" with the admin password that you created during the configuration process. If your e-smith server is displaying the server console and not a login prompt, press Alt-F2 to switch to another console screen with a login prompt. To switch back, press Alt-F1.

2. Run the command:

   rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.e-smith.com/pub/e-smith/contrib/AdrianChung/RPMS/noarch/MP3Info-0.90-1.noarch.rpm

3. At the next prompt, run the command:

   rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.e-smith.com/pub/e-smith/contrib/AdrianChung/RPMS/noarch/ApacheMP3-2.15-1.noarch.rpm

4. At the next prompt, run the command:

   rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.e-smith.com/pub/e-smith/contrib/AdrianChung/RPMS/noarch/e-smith-ApacheMP3-1.1.0-07.noarch.rpm

5. When you are finished, log out from the root account.

3. Activating the jukebox

To activate the e-smith jukebox, first create one or more i-bays using the e-smith manager.

If you have successfully installed the three RPMs described above, a new menu heading ("Multimedia") and link ("Jukebox") will have been added to the e-smith manager, as shown below.

Click on the Jukebox link and you will see a list of all i-bays on the system. To turn an i-bay into an e-smith jukebox, simply place a checkmark in the box next to the i-bay name, as shown below, and save your changes.

The jukebox will conform to the configuration parameters that you specified when you created the i-bay; these parameters can be modified at any time by accessing the "i-bays" panel of the e-smith manager. This allows you to control who has access to the MP3 files stored in your jukebox (the adminstrator only, members of a specified group or everyone on the Internet) and whether or not they require a password.

4. Adding MP3s to the jukebox

To add MP3 files to the jukebox, simply move or copy them to the HTML directory associated with that i-bay. To view the jukebox, enter http://www.yourdomain.xxx/i-bayname in your web browser (where yourdomain.xxx is the domain you entered when configuring your server, and i-bayname is the name of the i-bay used for your jukebox). Assuming you are entitled to access this i-bay, you will see a list of your MP3s. If a password is required to access the contents of the jukebox, a password dialog box will appear before the contents of the jukebox are displayed.

You can organize your MP3s (for example, by genre, artist and/or album name) by creating additional directories inside the HTML directory. These will appear in the jukebox with a distinctive icon.

If you place a file named cover.jpg in any of the directories, that image will be displayed at the top of the directory listing. You can use this to display cover art.

If you place a list of MP3 file names in a plain text file with the .m3u extension, it will be treated as a playlist and displayed to the user with a distinctive icon. Selecting the playlist icon will download the playlist and stream its contents. The playlist must contain relative file names, but may refer to subdirectories, as in this example:

  Beatles - A Day in the Life.mp3
  John Lennon - Imagine.mp3
  Comedy/Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen.mp3
  

In this case, the first two songs are in the same directory as the playlist file, while the third is in a directory called "Comedy".

Additional help is available by clicking the "Quick Help Summary" link within the jukebox, which brings up this image:

You can deactivate your jukebox at any time by unchecking the box next to the i-bay name in the "Jukebox" panel. To remove all traces of the jukebox feature from your server, log into the server as root and remove the three RPMs described above.

If you have comments or corrections, please e-mail rlaver@e-smith.com

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Text and no Back-Cover Text. A copy of the GNU Free Documentation License is available on our web site at http://www.e-smith.org/docs/gfdl.html and from the Free Software Foundation at http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/fdl.html.

The e-smith logo and the terms "e-smith" and "i-bay" are trademarks or registered trademarks of e-smith, inc. in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. The terms "ssh" and "Secure Shell" are trademarks of SSH Communications Security Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.