Successful installation of forked-daapd, an iTunes music server for Linux

Hello and thank you for coming to this article that you found on Google. I've updated it here later in the blog with this article

Forked-daapd as found in the Ubuntu 15.10 repositories works great. It keeps running and running. I'm using Kubuntu 15.10, the KDE variant on the Ubuntu theme.

If you found this article and wondered how to do the tricks with ssh on a Windows machine; well, you want Putty, an ssh client for Windows. You can find out about it here and download it, too.

So enjoy using forked-daapd. Please leave a comment if you found it useful.

Tom Briant
Editor, MacValley Blog


Note: This is a draft of an upcoming article in the MacValley Voice.

I would like to thank Arind Srinivasan and his terrific article in the December 2009 MacLife magazine and Website "

Build an OS X Friendly Linux Media Server From Your Old PC" It is accessible here.

This article inspired me. If you see references to AFP, Netatalk, and Avahi; go read that article for the pertinent information.

I would also like to thank Toby Moore, who posted the original instructions for installing forked-daapd into Ubuntu 10.10. They also worked with a nightly build of 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" I'm happy to say.

My thanks to Jason McCandless, who coded forked-daapd and to those who included it in the Debian Squeeze repository.

Now for the article. Contact me if you have questions. Yes, the illustrations are missing. I'm not that good with Blogger yet.

the vaunted Firefly media server has reached the end of the line. It was last updated in 2008. Changes to iTunes have made it impossible to stream music from Firefly to iTunes.

Fortunately, Toby Moore has compiled instructions for installing the new and improved successor to Firefly, which is called forked-daapd, in its place.

Here's the original instructions:

1. Add “deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian squeeze main” to your /etc/apt/sources.list
2. 2. Run “sudo apt-get update”, which will recognise the new repository
3. 3. run “sudo apt-get install forked-daapd” which will install it and anything else it needs
4. 4. If the forked-daapd failed to start up with the error “main: libgcrypt version mismatch” then run“sudo apt-get install libgcrypt11ʺ″ which will install an updated version of libgcrypt11
5. 5. Edit /etc/forked-daapd.conf with your settings
6. 6. run “/etc/init.d/forked-daapd start”
7. 7. If everything has worked correctly, remove the additional line from /etc/apt/sources.list and run “sudo apt-get update” again.

Right. If that makes sense to you, then proceed. If your reaction is “What is that? Magic spells from Harry Potter?!”, I'll break it down for you.

First of all, Ubuntu doesn't include this rewritten music server in its repositories. Repositories are where you get programs for your Linux box. Think of it as the antecedent for the Mac App Store.

What to do?! Well, you need to use a trick. That trick is that Debian, the father of Ubuntu from which Ubuntu is derived, does include forked-daapd in the main section of its Squeeze release.

So how to get ahold of that file? You add the Debian Squeeze repository to the already installed list of repositories which came with Ubuntu 10.10.

On the top menu bar, go to System. You want the submenu of Administration, not the Preferences menu. On the Administration menu, you want Synaptic Package Manager.

Go to the Settings menu. Under Settings you want Repositories.

You'll get a windows with 5 tabs: Ubuntu Software, Other Software, Updates, Authentication, Statistics. Click on Other Software.

To the right of APT line: type in this:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian squeeze main

You will see a box appear in the lower right-hand corner asking if you want to add source, which is the source code of the programs. Click on it to add it, too.

You will see a message asking you to reload, or refresh, the repositories. Click on Reload.

Now you will get a message that the new repository lacks a public key security code. You can bypass this. This is Ubuntu warning you that they haven't tested this code for safety.

Now you can proceed to actually installed forked-daapd. Type daapd in the Quick Search box. You should see two packages with daapd in their names. You want forked-daapd. I took these screenshots after I installed forked-daapd.

Click on forked-daapd to highlight it.

Now right-click on it. You will see a black box with a list in white lettering. Click on Mark for Installation.

You will get a warning that the software you want to install can't be authenticated. In this case, you'll take the risk. Click on OK

Now click on Apply in the top toolbar. It has the icon of a green check-mark. The installation takes place.

Now you come to the “edit /etc/forked-daapd.conf”. What in the world?!

You can use the barebones nano editor or you can switch to a more graphic gedit editor.

To use gedit, enter this line sudo gedit /etc/forked-daapd.conf

Enter your password and up comes the configuration file.

The first line to consider is name = “My Music on %h”

As you can see, I changed it to My Wonderful Music on %h. You can change this name to fit your needs.

The next change to make is where you store your music. The default configuration is

directories = { “/srv/music” }

As I think you won't store your music in those directories or folders, edit that line to resemble mine

directories = { “/home//Music/” }

If you don't remember your user name, open a Terminal window. The prompt will be

@:~$

Mine is thomas@thomas-VirtualBox:~$ Yes I installed Ubuntu using the Virtual Box virtualization program on my Windows 7 box. You can install Ubuntu on your Mac using VirtualBox. But that's another topic for another column.

Note two things. The folder names are preceded and followed by slashes. Don't forget the slash after the last name!

Linux is case-sensitive. So make sure to match the capitalization of any folder names, such as Music.

So click on Save and quit gedit.

Now the fun starts.

Now it's time to start the music server. Open a Terminal window and type

sudo /etc/init.d/forked-daapd start

Enter your password if necessary.

To stop the program, type sudo /etc/init.d/forked-daapd stop

Enter your password if necessary.

If you didn't add any music to your Music folder, add it using your AFP connection via Netatalk and Avahi.

Now run the stop command for forked-daapd. Count to 5. Now start it again.

You should see your new music server under Shared in iTunes along with your music library.

Enjoy.