Icecast - May 2011 - Standard method to read current listeners without user/password

Is there a standard method to read the current number of listeners from an
icecast2 server without knowing the admin user/password?

 

We produce radio broadcasting/streaming software for Windows which can show
the current number of listeners.  Many Icecast hosting companies won't
provide the admin password as they have lots of other customers using the
same server, so the software doesn't have access to the stats.xml.

 

I'm guessing there isn't any other built-in method, in which case we
would
have to suggest the customer switches to a Shoutcast server which is
disappointing.

 

Regards,

Ross.

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There is a file /status.xsl that contains all the status information for 
your server.

For example, mine:  http://radio.foxcub.net:8000/status.xsl

You can either parse it with your favorite x?l parsing library or scrape 
it for listener info.

You can see an example of this in action at my page:  
http://radio.foxcub.net

It shows number of listeners and song playing.

Josh

On 05/12/2011 05:48 PM, Ross Levis wrote:
>
> Is there a standard method to read the current number of listeners 
> from an icecast2 server without knowing the admin user/password?
>
> We produce radio broadcasting/streaming software for Windows which can 
> show the current number of listeners.  Many Icecast hosting companies 
> won't provide the admin password as they have lots of other customers 
> using the same server, so the software doesn't have access to the 
> stats.xml.
>
> I'm guessing there isn't any other built-in method, in which case
we
> would have to suggest the customer switches to a Shoutcast server 
> which is disappointing.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ross.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Icecast mailing list
> Icecast at xiph.org
> http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast

-- 
--
"Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a
tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." - Albert
Einstein

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I see, so basically look for this in the html data and scrape it.

 

<td>Current Listeners:</td>

<td class="streamdata">3</td>

 

Has this format not changed since Icecast2 was released?

 

Ross.

From: icecast-bounces at xiph.org [mailto:icecast-bounces at xiph.org] On Behalf
Of josh at thepruitts.org
Sent: Friday, 13 May 2011 1:56 PM
To: icecast at xiph.org
Subject: Re: [Icecast] Standard method to read current listeners without
user/password

 

There is a file /status.xsl that contains all the status information for
your server.

For example, mine:  http://radio.foxcub.net:8000/status.xsl

You can either parse it with your favorite x?l parsing library or scrape it
for listener info.

You can see an example of this in action at my page:
http://radio.foxcub.net

It shows number of listeners and song playing.

Josh

On 05/12/2011 05:48 PM, Ross Levis wrote: 

Is there a standard method to read the current number of listeners from an
icecast2 server without knowing the admin user/password?

 

We produce radio broadcasting/streaming software for Windows which can show
the current number of listeners.  Many Icecast hosting companies won't
provide the admin password as they have lots of other customers using the
same server, so the software doesn't have access to the stats.xml.

 

I'm guessing there isn't any other built-in method, in which case we
would
have to suggest the customer switches to a Shoutcast server which is
disappointing.

 

Regards,

Ross.

 
 
_______________________________________________
Icecast mailing list
Icecast at xiph.org
http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast






-- 
--
"Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a
tree
it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." - Albert Einstein
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Hi Ross,

Sorry if anyone else has already answered this.

Yes there is.  Icecast can produce stats in any format desired using XSLT 
templates.  These take the built-in XML as input and can format the output 
any way you like.

There are two XSLT templates included with Icecast2 by default, status.xsl 
and status2.xsl.  Status2.xsl would be easy to parse as it outputs in CSV 
format.  The format is:

MountPoint,Connections,Stream Name,Current Listeners,Description,Currently 
Playing,Stream URL

Of course, as these are external files, the server admin could call them 
whatever they want.  But in my experience, most people leave them exactly 
where they are installed.  So you'll be able to find it at 
http://server:port/status2.xsl

I've actually been meaning to write to you about this as I'm not  real 
wild about broadcasters having the admin password to the server either.  I 
wish there were some way to password-protect XSL-generated stats with some 
other password in Icecast2 in order to keep the information safe from 
prying eyes, but I don't think it is.  Maybe a feature for 2.3.3, whenever 
it comes out?

Geoff.

Hi,

Forgot to add...

It'd probably be possible to write an XSLT template which would spit out 
the same XML data that's already available under the admin password, which 
would avoid the need to implement new parsing code.  But that'd require 
someone who knows more about XSLT than I do.  It'd also need 
Stationplaylist Studio to support being able to modify the URL for 
retrieving this data in order to be able to get it, but at least you have 
control over that *smile*.

Geoff.

Hi Geoff,

Status2.xsl looks very promising and easy to read.

If status2.xsl will continue to be included as it is now then we'll modify
the software to read this.

Regards,
Ross.

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Shang [mailto:geoff at QuiteLikely.com] 
Sent: Friday, 13 May 2011 6:19 PM
To: Ross Levis
Cc: icecast at xiph.org
Subject: Re: [Icecast] Standard method to read current listeners without
user/password

Hi Ross,

Sorry if anyone else has already answered this.

Yes there is.  Icecast can produce stats in any format desired using XSLT 
templates.  These take the built-in XML as input and can format the output 
any way you like.

There are two XSLT templates included with Icecast2 by default, status.xsl 
and status2.xsl.  Status2.xsl would be easy to parse as it outputs in CSV 
format.  The format is:

MountPoint,Connections,Stream Name,Current Listeners,Description,Currently 
Playing,Stream URL

Of course, as these are external files, the server admin could call them 
whatever they want.  But in my experience, most people leave them exactly 
where they are installed.  So you'll be able to find it at 
http://server:port/status2.xsl

I've actually been meaning to write to you about this as I'm not  real 
wild about broadcasters having the admin password to the server either.  I 
wish there were some way to password-protect XSL-generated stats with some 
other password in Icecast2 in order to keep the information safe from 
prying eyes, but I don't think it is.  Maybe a feature for 2.3.3, whenever 
it comes out?

Geoff.

Hi all,

This is the output of status2.xsl:

MountPoint,Connections,Stream Name,Current 
Listeners,Description,Currently Playing,Stream URL
Global,Client:60461 Source: ,,7,,
/foxcub,,,7,, - Brian Eno - Dune Prophecy theme,

It doesn't look like any csv output I've ever seen.

Some of the output seems to be string literal and some of it is the 
actual server information, and at some parts there's more than one
','
between each entity.

Can anyone explain how this format works?

Thanks,

Josh

On 05/12/2011 11:19 PM, Geoff Shang wrote:
> Hi Ross,
>
> Sorry if anyone else has already answered this.
>
> Yes there is.  Icecast can produce stats in any format desired using XSLT
> templates.  These take the built-in XML as input and can format the output
> any way you like.
>
> There are two XSLT templates included with Icecast2 by default, status.xsl
> and status2.xsl.  Status2.xsl would be easy to parse as it outputs in CSV
> format.  The format is:
>
> MountPoint,Connections,Stream Name,Current Listeners,Description,Currently
> Playing,Stream URL
>
> Of course, as these are external files, the server admin could call them
> whatever they want.  But in my experience, most people leave them exactly
> where they are installed.  So you'll be able to find it at
> http://server:port/status2.xsl
>
> I've actually been meaning to write to you about this as I'm not 
real
> wild about broadcasters having the admin password to the server either.  I
> wish there were some way to password-protect XSL-generated stats with some
> other password in Icecast2 in order to keep the information safe from
> prying eyes, but I don't think it is.  Maybe a feature for 2.3.3,
whenever
> it comes out?
>
> Geoff.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Icecast mailing list
> Icecast at xiph.org
> http://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/icecast

-- 
--
"Everyone is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a
tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." - Albert
Einstein