posted in Selfhosted

Personal radio station

Apologies if this has been asked before however after some searching I’ve found several posts / articles here in Lemmy (plus generally around via web searches). Some of the posts are dated however so want to see what the most ‘up to date’ suggestions are.

I have spare hardware so this is more a software query.

I want to run my own private radio station where I can listen to my music while on the move and at work. Nothing special and it doesnt need bells and whistles however at minimum :

  1. able to listen via web browser (android app would be a bonus but not required)
  2. able to lock it down so only people with the password can listen (me and other half in UK and brother in Australia)
  3. ) a generic login so people without the password do not know what it is or what its for
  4. option to set playlists and / or random via genre over specific time periods

Thanks in advance.

enPage

Replying to @⁨Technoworcester@feddit.uk⁩

Just a heads up, their example Docker compose comes with a support for 50 radio stations (with 50+ ports mapped), and it isn’t meant to sit behind a reverse proxy. Below is a simplified Docker compose that I made to run a single radio station.

services:
  azuracast:
    image: ghcr.io/azuracast/azuracast:latest
    container_name: azuracast
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      AZURACAST_VERSION: latest
      AZURACAST_HTTP_PORT: "80"
      AZURACAST_SFTP_PORT: "2022"
      AZURACAST_STATION_PORTS: "8000,8005,8006"
      AUTO_ASSIGN_PORT_MIN: "8000"
      AUTO_ASSIGN_PORT_MAX: "8006"
      MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD: 1
    ports:
      - "4580:80"
      - "4522:2022"
    volumes:
      - /dir-for-db:/var/lib/mysql
      - /dir-for-stations:/var/azuracast/stations
      - /dir-for-storage:/var/azuracast/storage
      - /dir-for-music:/var/azuracast/music
    ulimits:
      nofile:
        soft: 65536
        hard: 65536
    logging:
      driver: json-file
      options:
        max-size: 1m
        max-file: "5"

My nginx routes traffic to port 4580 using the subdomain I assigned for my station, and LetsEncrypt handles SSL. I use SWAG to manage all of that.

I can’t remember why, but AZURACAST_STATION_PORTS: “8000,8005,8006” is in fact required for a single station. The Azuracast admin portal has an option to consolidate the public player and admin portal behind a single domain, so radio.example.com hits the public player and radio.example.com/login hits the admin login.

It’s nowhere near the level of pain you have to go through to run Matrix with chat bridges on Docker, but getting all of that right and simplified was more work than I wanted it to be. Hope this helps!

EDIT: Got carried away sharing my setup and ignored the login requirement for the player. SWAG supports adding an auth layer like Authentik. Or, as the previous commenter mentioned, you could just forego exposing to the outside web entirely and use Tailscale. Or Wireguard.

Replying to @⁨Technoworcester@feddit.uk⁩

I use navidrome. You could set it up with individual accounts and use any Subsonic compatible player. I’m not sure what you mean by specific time periods, so I’m not sure about that.

It has a very serviceable web app, and lots of front end clients. I like Tempus on Android, and Strawberry on PC.

I’ve found that navidrome is just more stable and usable than other server apps. Yes, you could do it through Home Assistant or Jellyfin or NextCloud, but those apps are not purpose-built for music. Just my 2 cents.

Replying to @⁨Technoworcester@feddit.uk⁩

For your points 2 and 3 specifically: if you go the Icecast route (AzuraCast also uses Icecast under the hood), Icecast can require a username and password per mount point, so the stream URL alone is useless to anyone who stumbles on it, and you can give the mount a bland name. Put it behind HTTPS on your reverse proxy so the password isn’t sent in clear text.

For point 4 (genres at certain times), AzuraCast’s playlist scheduling handles that from the web UI. If you build it yourself instead, Liquidsoap can switch playlists by time of day, but it’s a scripting language with a learning curve.

If what you really want is your own library rather than one stream everyone hears at the same time, the Navidrome suggestion is simpler: separate logins and plenty of Subsonic apps on Android.

Replying to @⁨Technoworcester@feddit.uk⁩

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters CA (SSL) Certificate Authority Plex Brand of media server package nginx Popular HTTP server

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