Sockso Music Server

Description

This page basically describes how to setup the Sockso music server on Fedora Core 8.  I wanted to test this product out, and see how it looks, and I was quite impressed, both with the simplicity / easy of use, and the slick features and look-n-feel. 

Initially I found it in the November 2008 issue of Linux Pro Magazine, and after reading it, filing it in my "to be tested" projects, and all that, eventually gave it a shot.  For the purposes of this page,its version 1.1.3thatImusing

Process/Implementation

There were a few steps to get this going.  I'll lay them out below as I had done them.

1. First, as one that is often concerned about security, I figured the best way to begin, was to setup a new group in linux, called "sockso", and a new user also called "sockso".  These will be used to run the program, and to manage the collection.  Im old fashioned, so I just edit the /etc/group file first, and after that, edit the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files.  Once they're done, manually create the home directory of /home/sockso - and change ownership for the home directory to be that of the new user and group.

2. Next thing to do is to grab the zip file from the sockso site.  Remember, Im using the linux one, so I grabbed that one.  Just download it, and extract it into the home directory.

3. Once its downloaded and extracted, reset the permissions once again with the "chown sockso:sockso /home/sockso" command.

4. After that is done, in essence, the program is loaded and ready.  Now we launch the console.  So get a command shell going that has ability to display in X Windows.  We're going to launch the gui now, so be sure to have the DISPLAY setting set.

5. Switch into the directory for the software now by typing "cd /home/sockso/sockso-1.1.3".

6. In the command line, type "sh linux.sh".  Doing that will display the splash screen as shown below :

7. After the splash screen passes, you get to see the basic console.  Switch to the "General" tab, and configure the settings.  Note that in mine, I chose against the default port of 4444.  Since the company I work for doesnt allow any web ports other than 80, 8080, 8081, 8082, and 8083 - Im forced to use those.  So I set it up to listen on 8082 instead.  Other than that, I just changed my Title, and set my tagline to tell folks to refresh if needed.  Sometimes I find that the web page times out, and refresh's are required.  I also have changed the scan interval from 5 minutes to 120 minutes to minimize the network traffic and server load.

8. Switch to the "Collection" tab, and add the directory where your music is stored.  For me, its a share mounted on /mnt/music.

9. After entering that in the "add folder" section, it scans the music and caglog's/indexes it all.  In my case, somewhere between 2.5 and 3.0 hours passed while it parsed the collection.  Once that finishes, switch to the "Music" tab to see it all listed out.  This is also where you set up playlists, but I didnt do that yet.

Thats it for the setup portion.   Now you can launch a browser from anywhere - the linux server, or a windows client (preferably with an audio card and speakers).

1. Launch a browser, and point it to the IP (or dns name) and port as shown in the bottom of the console, which you can see in the last screenshot above.

2. Enjoy the ease of use - click a song and try out the flash player - very cool !

Thats it !

Tuning / Customization

So - just a note worth mentioning.  All the data that the sockso program keeps, is located in the users home directory, under a ".sockso" hidden directory.  In my case, its "/home/sockso/.sockso".  You are able to copy this entire directory to another user if you want.  Its possible to have one user listen on port 4444, and the other listen on 8082.  But you'd have to run two unique consoles - but anything is possible.  Its nice to have the option.

Also of note - sometimes when Im clicking on the links in the web page, I get timeouts.  I suspect its an issue either on my virtual machine (web server), or its something related to my own personal setup.  But when I do, I see errors like this :

I dont believe its anything to worry about, but figured I'd share it.  

Note something else in that screenshot.  After initial setup of the Sockso server, I no longer run the gui console.  Instead, I run the text based console, as you can see above in the first line.  I use the "--nogui" option when launching it.  You can find much more about that in their online manual.

One other thing I wanted to record ... on my servers that I have tried this on so far (three different servers before finally finding the "right" home), I see that each java process takes between 220k and 280k of memory to run, and each one will consume up to the maxiumum that the cpu will allow it at times.  So since I run two different instances - I show both running around 256k of memory on average, and 45-50% of cpu ... especially when they are doing the scan of the collection.  For these servers, its not uncommon for my load average to be 3.0 at norm, and up to 8.0 or more in heavy play situation.  It actually goes up to 15 or 20 upon initial startup while it scans the collection.  So the point is that I would recommend having at least 256Mb of physical memory installed in the server for each sockso service planned.  Also because its so i/o (network and disk) intensive, I recommend against virtual instances unless your virtual server is cutting edge.  My quad Xeon 1.0Ghz multiprocessor DL580 couldnt handle this as a VM, hence the need to host it on a dedicated physical server.