Jukebox mode

Subsonic’s Jukebox mode lets playback happen directly on the server, with the Subsonic client app acting as the remote control instead of streaming the audio itself.

BeetstreamNext exposes (in addition to the server’s own hardware) two network backends: Sonos and Chromecast, allowing the audio to be played through a speaker on the server’s local network.

Backend choice

Set jukebox_backend to:

Jukebox mode must be enabled with the server-wide jukebox_allowed setting, and allowed per-user via that user’s jukeboxRole (see Accounts, permissions & chat).

Selecting a device

For any of the three backends, you can set which device will play the audio with jukebox_hardware_device:

• for server_hardware: an mpv --audio-device value (e.g. alsa/hw:0,0 on Linux, coreaudio/BuiltInSpeakerDevice on macOS, etc). Empty for the system default.

• for sonos: the Sonos speaker’s IP address.

• for chromecast: the Chromecast device’s UUID, or its IP address/hostname.

Note

The admin panel also allows to scan for what devices are available on the current selected backend.

Running in Docker

Both network device-discovery mechanisms (SSDP/UPnP for Sonos, mDNS/Zeroconf for Chromecast) rely on LAN multicast, which does not cross Docker’s default bridge network.

If you’re containerizing BeetstreamNext, you have a few options:

• network_mode: host: the container shares the host’s network namespace, so multicast just works and “Discover devices” behaves like it would bare-metal.

  • Simplest option, but it’s Linux-only in practice (Docker Desktop on macOS/Windows runs containers inside a VM, so host networking doesn’t give the container real access to your LAN’s multicast traffic).

• A macvlan/ipvlan network: the container has its own IP directly on the LAN, so it sits on the same layer as your Sonos/Chromecast devices and multicast works.

  • This needs a physical (usually wired) interface, as most Wi-Fi drivers/APs won’t allow the extra MAC addresses macvlan relies on. Also you’d need an extra macvlan shim interface on the host (to still reach BeetstreamNext’s web UI locally). Bit of a hassle, but should be possible.

• Don’t use discovery: set jukebox_hardware_device directly in the Web UI or in config.yaml (the speaker’s IP for Sonos, the Chromecast’s UUID/IP/hostname).

The server_hardware backend needs a real audio output device passed into the container:

• ALSA (jukebox_hardware_device like alsa/hw:0,0): pass the host’s sound card in, and give the container access to it:

  # ... in your docker-compose.yaml
      devices:
        - /dev/snd:/dev/snd
      group_add:
        - "29"   # The host's 'audio' group gid, you can double-check yours with `getent group audio`
  # ...
  

• PulseAudio/PipeWire (jukebox_hardware_device like pulse): bind-mount the host user’s runtime socket, and point mpv at it:

  # ... in your docker-compose.yaml
      volumes:
        - /run/user/1000/pulse:/run/pulse:ro   # Replace 1000 by the uid of the user who owns that socket on the host
      environment:
        PULSE_SERVER: unix:/run/pulse/native
  # ...