couple steamcast questions and stuff

Lane · Post by **Lane** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:05 am

I'm a fan of open source, but I certainly see the YP issue as a very valid reason not to release it. But what about one day releasing a version that doesn't include any YP code in it? You could have a companion binary that the open source code can use for YP functions, so no one will be compelled to add those in.

Just a thought. I'd like the opportunity to add multiple passwords per mount for guest DJ's, and I'm not rich enough to bribe Jay right now.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:53 am

Who cares about open source anyway? Who ever does anything good with the code for a program like this? That's right, no one. Jay knows what he's doing. Shoutcast yp support is by far the most important feature. As much as some may like to deny it, an online station can never perform at its best without being listed in the Shoutcast directory.

Post by **betatester** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 12:58 pm

I have taken a few open source projects and turned them around into something great. I would almost be willing to bet you are using atleast 1 of them.

And that is absolutely not true at all about the SC directory. Any station that works hard can be just as big without being listed there, as all of the stations listed there combined. A YP directory should not make or break you or you have set yourself up for a huge fall should it ever go down.

I mearly asked about the server being open source because as I mentioned earlier here, poor code writing can kill a lot of stations or the YP themselves indirectly. Because of that nature, it would not be good for it to be open source. Conversly, the YP should be open source for the exact same reason... Poor writing can kill a YP, so people should have a good solid example to begin with- so as not to break things unintentionally when building one from the ground up.

I liked the suggestion to icecast2, honestly I haven't played much with it...was never a big fan of ice*. But the tools for learning are all there, so I will probably go back to it at some point to get a better idea of how these things function internally.

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:11 am

Steamcast seems to be dieing on me intermittently for no particular reason.

The only thing I've found about it so far is this line in the log file:

[06/30/2005@22:48:32] SIGTERM recieved; shutting down!
[06/30/2005@22:48:32] Source Closed Connection

So I guess, what it the SIGTERM from, and why is it doing this on its own?

I'm also finding a list like this in the log file, starts up in the middle of running just fine:

[06/30/2005@16:48:04] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:48:04] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:23] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:23] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:36] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:36] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:47] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:47] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:58] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:58] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:50:09] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:50:09] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:50:20] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:50:20] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:50:31] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:50:31] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:50:43] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:50:43] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:50:53] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!

Post by **Jay** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:23 pm

some process or the system is sending it signals.

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:55 pm

Every 10-20 seconds? Its not rutine enough to be a cron job, and I'm not running any anyways. And you'd have to type pretty quick to run these commands repeatedly for that long eh?

Nothing is sending it signals, its coming up with these on its very own.

I have no records of any of these in my server logs. Steamcast is just pulling them out of thin air as far as I can tell. If a system command or anything else was triggering it, I would see something about it in my log files.

Its doing this under Red Hat E3 on more then 1 server.

Post by **Jay** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:07 pm

it would be quite impossible for steamcast to just do this on it's own

I use signal() to register to interrupt SIGUSR1 and SIGTERM as well as SIGHUP and SIGPIPE. (SIGWINCH is a typo in the logging, it's actually SIGUSR1)

Steamcast does not itself generate any of these signals to itself nor does it ever just call these internal functions.

I have seen shell clients cause these signals to be run because these clients send certain commands to keep the program informed of it's state.

I would say this is epecially true of restarting steamcast results in no change in it's bahavior.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:10 pm

betatester wrote:And that is absolutely not true at all about the SC directory. Any station that works hard can be just as big without being listed there, as all of the stations listed there combined. A YP directory should not make or break you or you have set yourself up for a huge fall should it ever go down.

Let's be realistic here, not idealistic. The Shoutcast directory is an extremely important resource for streaming radio, and any mp3 stream will be worse off for not being listed there, plain and simple. My station gets a larger percent of our listeners from the directory than we would like -- we would like more to come straight from the home page. Although we have an extremely well-visited site with a good domain. We're trying to get listed on iTunes too right now still -- also quite important.

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:13 pm

^It is realistic, a lot of stations are big and have stayed big before and without the shoutcast directory or any other YP...Idealistic is "not throwing all your eggs in one basket"...meaning, don't really on a third party to make or break you.

Anyways, back to whats really important...

Jay wrote:it would be quite impossible for steamcast to just do this on it's own

I use signal() to register to interrupt SIGUSR1 and SIGTERM as well as SIGHUP and SIGPIPE. (SIGWINCH is a typo in the logging, it's actually SIGUSR1)

Steamcast does not itself generate any of these signals to itself nor does it ever just call these internal functions.

I have seen shell clients cause these signals to be run because these clients send certain commands to keep the program informed of it's state.

I would say this is epecially true of restarting steamcast results in no change in it's bahavior.

Well, it is doing it on its own with no input from the outside, impossable or not. I sat and watched it start doing it out of the blue earlier this morning.

I also watched the system processes which at no time pushed any of these commands.

What is interesting is how there is a long list of:

[06/30/2005@16:48:04] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:48:04] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:23] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:23] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:36] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:36] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:47] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:47] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf
[06/30/2005@16:49:58] SIGWINCH recieved; config file reloading!
[06/30/2005@16:49:58] Configuration loaded from steamcast.conf

About 6 pages long, hitting the server every 10-20 seconds, then the server kills itself with the sigterm. It does this a couple times per day at random.

You would agree that if the system was putting these commands on steamcast, I would see these commands in my system logs...Would you not?

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:01 pm

Here it just did it again. It ran for about 7-9 hours and just shut down on its own.

I open the log file (which should be populated with some information by now)...and all thats in it is:

[07/01/2005@16:43:58] SIGHUP recieved; flushing log files!
[07/01/2005@16:44:06] SIGTERM recieved; shutting down!

This is pretty frustrating

This is deffinitly happening with absolutely no outside input what so ever. It would be great if at the very least it wouldn't flush its log files, so that I can figure out what the hell is going on by looking back in the log file

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:26 pm

Shiznat... I just coralated this with restarting apache.

Searching my error logs, the steamcast servers are dieing off every time I mess with apache. The time/date stamps are identical.

I can reproduce this any time by simply posting these "steamcast" commands to apache. When I sighup apache, it sighups steamcast. If I sigterm apache, I sigterm steamcast.

They are hand in hand.

What the hell is up with that?

Post by **Jay** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:40 pm

how are you controlling apache, do you use kill or killall or are you using some panel of theirs.

Post by **betatester** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:50 pm

I can reproduce it by doing any of the following on a Cpanel server w/RedHat Enterprise 3:

In WHM "restart httpd"

In SSH:

service httpd stop (sigterms steamcast)
service httpd start (sighups steamcast)
service httpd restart (sighups and sigterms steamcast)

For the service commands, those (unless I'm missing something) are not related to Cpanel.

I can also reproduce it under FreeBSD 4.9 by doing the same service functions (no Cpanel, but rather H*Sphere).

I can also reproduce it on my home dev server (mandrake) w/apache 1.3.3 (no cpanel software...just gnome desktop)

I'm not too sure about service commands in windows? Not much of a windows person except using the home versions.

Weird!

webranger · Post by **webranger** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:21 pm

Buying ads for my site is what really drives any revenue for these streams. I buy about $50 in very cheap advertising every month. This gives me about $150 in revenue back, new users, members etc.

Using the YP will get your slots full, but that is about all it will do for you. I think the days of membership driven shoutcast TV are over. There are simply too many channels that people can watch for free. I'm only picking up about 3 new members a month (and losing 1). I was actually thinking about not offering this any more. People are a hassle.

One thing I am doing is trying to make sure that people almost never have to hammer. Believe it or not this saves a ton of bandwidth. People just leave when they are done watching. They don't get jealous, because they know that it's cool, they can just hook back up at will. I am using double the amount of slots and using less bandwidth.

Shoutcast feeds shoutcast. You need to get the word out on your site in the real, non winamp world.

djclae · Post by **djclae** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:36 pm

Yeah, I agree with WebRanger.