[Icecast] Using Icecast relay function with dynamic IP at remote source end

Jack Elliott
Wed, 19 Apr 2017 14:20:43 -0000

For our community radio station's live music festivals broadcasts, we
set up a small broadcast studio at the festival's venue, and use
B.U.T.T. to send a stream to an Icecast server located at the radio
station's building.

REMOTE LOCATION                        STATION BUILDING
B.U.T.T.         ======= WAN =======>> ICECAST SERVER

It's pretty reliable, though BUTT does sometimes lose connection,
probably due to network congestion.

The folks on the Darkice listserv claim that using Icecast to do the
sending provides a more reliable connection. So I want to try this idea:

REMOTE LOCATION                                    STATION BUILDING
B.U.T.T. --> Icecast on localhost  ==== WAN ====>> ICECAST SERVER

I'm finding the terminology for setting up a relay (on
http://icecast.org/docs/icecast-2.4.0/config-file.html#relay) to be a
bit confusing and could use some help.

I believe I want to set up a Specific Mountpoint Relay. It's where the
IP addresses get plugged in that I need some clarification. The IP
address for the building is static, but the IP address for the remote
server is unknown before every festival, and may be dynamic.

The documentation says that for the <relay> section of the xml, we have
a <server>127.0.0.1</server> setting. And that is described as
"This is
the IP for the server which contains the mountpoint to be relayed."

I can't tell whether the <relay? section is on the remote server, in
which case we only need to put the static IP of the building in the
<server> section, or whether the <relay> section is on the
building's
server, in which case we need to know ahead of time what our remote IP
will be, and hope it doesn't change during the festival.

I hope this question makes sense. My confusion is clearly because I am
unclear which server (remote or building) the <relay> section applies to.

--
That Jack Elliott
(541) 848 7021
KPOV 88.9 FM High Desert Community radio
Producer, The Wednesday Point
Host, The Sunday Classics