Setting up RasPod

RasPod – A simple music server for Raspberry Pi

RasPod, a simple music server which turns your raspberry pi into a music system. It uses your wireless card/router to provide a wireless remote control to everyone who has a device that supports wifi and a web browser (supporting javascript). Use it as your car music system, in your music room, in parties, clubs etc. Let's set it up.

How to setup RasPod?

Stuff You need :-

1. Raspberry Pi
2. Wireless Router or a wireless card.
3. Speakers
4. Ethernet Wire (only required for wireless router)
5. Aux Cable (To connect RPI to the speakers)

My setup looks something like :-

Note: I'll be using a wireless router to describe the setup process. If you are using a wireless card or any other device to emit wireless signals please follow your device's manual.

The Setup :-

1. Connect raspberry pi to the wireless router and the speakers using an ethernet cable and an aux cable respectively.
2. Boot RPI.
3. Follow steps in the Install section below to install required programs and libraries.
4. Get your local ip address using the “ifconfig” command.
5. Run Raspod, and note down the port number you are running it on.
6. Get a device which supports wifi and has an internet browser, like a Smartphone, Laptop, PSP etc.
7. Locate and Connect to your wireless SSID.
8. Go to the web-browser.
9. Enter ip:port. (Get IP from the 4th step and Port number from the 5th step)
10. You should see a screen like following.



How to install RasPod?

The following steps/commands have been tested on Debian Wheezy and Debian Squeeze.

• Install Python 2.7 (already installed on Debian Wheezy)

• Install python-tornado (atleast v1.2) Raspod uses python-tornado for handling HTTP requests.

sudo apt-get install python-tornado

Note: On Raspberry Pi [debian squeeze] you need to build the tornado server yourself, as the latest package availiable is v1.0 [http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/python-tornado] which would give out some errors.

• Install VLC and Alsa-drivers Raspod uses libVLC to play audio.

sudo apt-get install vlc alsa-utils

• Enable Audio (Not needed for Debian Wheezy) In most OS'es on Raspberry Pi sound is disabled by default because the ALSA sound driver is still "alpha" (not fully tested). To enable sound

sudo modprobe snd_bcm2835

• Download RasPod

• Run

$ python server.py

As a default the port is set to 8888.

How to add media files?

Copy your media files to DIR/RasPod/static/Media/, where DIR is the directory to which you copied RasPod.