Part 1: Installing Shoutcast Server onto an SSH Shell

[morefood2001]

In this tutorial, you will be able to:
1. Install the shoutcast server in a personal shell
2. Install Winamp and the Shoutcast Streaming Plugin on a windows machine
3. Stream to the shoutcast server either via music or mic
4. Provide Listeners a file to listen to

I am writing this mainly as a request by php4fun.

So lets get started, I'm using putty to do the ssh stuff,

Prereqs:
1. You need to be aware of copyright laws. You cannot stream music unless you own the royalties to it or have permission from the owner, CodeCall nor I am responsible for what you use this tutorial to do, stream and set up your own server at your own risk.

2. You are going to need a normal shell for this tutorial, I do not have jailshell installed on the server, so I am unable to test it.

3. You are going to need the link to the shoutcast server software for wget in ssh.
In my case, I'm running centos 5 so I am going to download the "SHOUTcast Linux server (glibc) v1.9.8" from the shoutcast server download section. I got it here

4. You will need winamp (full) for windows downloaded to your desktop (in my case vista), this is also on the shoutcast site as a link. To save time, here is a link to the download pageWinamp download.

5. You will need the shoutcast dsp plugin found here: Shoutcast dsp plugin



So, lets start installing shoutcast on the shell:
Here is my shell commands to download, untar, and get to the configuration file editor (using nano).

[shoutcast@mthsweb2 ~]$ mkdir shoutcast
[shoutcast@mthsweb2 ~]$ cd shoutcast
[shoutcast@mthsweb2 ~]$ wget http://yp.shoutcast.com/downloads/sc1-9-8/sc_serv_1.9.8_Linux.tar.gz
[shoutcast@mthsweb2 shoutcast]$ tar xzf sc_serv_1.9.8_Linux.tar.gz
[shoutcast@mthsweb2 shoutcast]$ nano sc_serv.conf

In sc_serv.conf, edit the following lines:
1. "MaxUser=32"
(Figure out your server's bandwidth and what you wish to stream at. In my case, I am going to set this to 10 users because I will stream at 128Kbps which will require 1.28Mbps at max load. My server's total bandwidth is 10Mbps, so I could theoretically go to about 90 listeners without much difficulty.)
My Setting: "MaxUser=10"

2. "Password=changeme"
This will be your stream password to connect and get into the admin panel via the browser to see stats. I changed this password to shoutcast.
My Setting: "Password=shoutcast"

3. "PortBase=8000"
This is what port you are streaming on. I set this to 8080 since that port usually isn't blocked by firewalls (alternate http port). This port will show a webpage at http://serverurl:8080 and it will also be the port you connect winamp to for streaming. Some firewalls block outgoing ports for clients along with all incoming ports, so thats my reasoning for chosing 8080.
My Setting: "PortBase=8080"

4. "; AdminPassword=adminpass"
If you wish to make the password to get to the website stats / admin page different from the broadcast password, set this value and remove the front ";". In my case, I will not change this.

5. any other settings you wish to edit are available, however I will not be editing anything else. Save the file, Type in: ctrl+x, y, enter

Now lets start the server:

[shoutcast@mthsweb2 shoutcast]$ clear
[shoutcast@mthsweb2 shoutcast]$ ./sc_serv &

This will send the server into the background. The problem is, you will not be able to cleanly exit, so I just closed out the putty terminal window. This way the server will keep running and you won't see it again. Now if you login to the server using putty again and do "ps -ux", you will see sc_serv should be running still. Another test is to goto: http://serverurl:8080, In my case its "http://hansen.podnet.org:8080". If you get a website titled "SHOUTcast Administrator" thats all black for the most part, the server has been set up correctly, congrats

To kill the shoutcast server, login to ssh, type in ps -ux and find the pid of ./sc_serv and then in your next command type in "kill -9 8374". where 8374 is the pid of the sc_serv process. This will kill your shoutcast. Keep in mind that shoutcast will not restart if the server is rebooted, so you will manually need to restart it. Also, the shoutcast server uses approximately 32MB of memory while running.

Look at part 2 for how to configure windows and winamp to stream to your newly created server (also answers the remaining parts of what you should be able to do )

[Jordan]

Very nice tutorial. It is a bit hard to read your Prereqs section though. Perhaps you could separate those out or format them differently (maybe bold the numbers)?

Thanks for the tutorial!

[morefood2001]

Edited the tutorial as per your suggestion. Thanks

[Jordan]

Much better! I would +rep but I've already given points for the contest. Will you be writing more tutorials?

[morefood2001]

Much better! I would +rep but I've already given points for the contest. Will you be writing more tutorials?

More than likely, but not anytime soon.

[TkTech]

Agreed, nice tutorial thats useful and practical!

[phpforfun]

I followed this, and didnt set a password for the radio, but it asks for one..
http://prs.amphosted.com:7474/listen.pls
any idea why?

[morefood2001]

The issue you are having is in the firewall.

You have port 7474 open, but not 7475 (the broadcast port). Also, you need to have someone broadcasting in order to pick up stream Seems to work now.

[Egz0N]

Cool One .. +rep

[Mistah_insane]

I know i am kinda late for this thread, but i was reading up on how to the install a shoutcast linux server on my webhosting, i did everything you guys said to do, and when i start the server its not connecting. I dont know whats the cause of that...The message i am getting on my windamp DSP is "Connecting",.