[Icecast] Listener statistics on a fallback stream

[Philipp Schafft]

Goedemorgen.

On Sun, 2015-12-06 at 13:13 +0100, Jeroen van Oosten wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've come across a small problem and I'm not sure it's a bug or a
> misconfiguration in icecast, so I thought I'd ask here.
> 
> The situation: we have an automated radio station that is fed from a
> dedicated virtual machine with SAM broadcaster. I set up a stream with a
> fallback mount; SAM connects to the fallback. Now, whenever the DJ wants
> to broadcast live all he has to do is start up his studio and connect to
> the 'real' stream, thus taking over the stream without having to logon
> to the server, stop encoders, etc. When he's done he disengages the
> stream and listeners are automatically back on the automated stream.
> This setup may be somewhat unusual in that we're running in "fallback"
> mode most of the time.

Ok, That is fine so far. Even a quite common setup.


> The problem I have is that the listener statistics are now on the
> fallback stream, not the 'real' one, so now are listener graphs are flat
> at zero :( Of course I could pull the statistics from the fallback
> mount, but then we won't have listener stats for when we're live.
> 
> To me it sounds like a bug; surely the fallback never needs statistics,
> only the real steam because this is where listeners connect to. Or maybe
> I need a different configuration.

Ok, I think there is some confusion here:
There is *no* difference between a mount used as fallback and one that
isn't. The only difference is in the configuration of the mount falling
to a specific other mount. That is also why the config looks like it
does.

When a stream falls back to another one the listeners are *moved* from
one to the other mount. So they are no longer on the mount they entered.
Therefore they're not on it's statistics.

> This the portion of my configuration that deals with the streams:
> 
>     <mount type="normal">
>         <mount-name>/high.mp3</mount-name>
>         <fallback-mount>/high-server.mp3</fallback-mount>
>         <fallback-override>1</fallback-override>
>     </mount>
>     <mount type="normal">
>         <mount-name>/high-server.mp3</mount-name>
>         <public>0</public>
>         <hidden>1</hidden>
>     </mount>
> 
> Listeners are directed to http://radiogfm.dyndns.org:8200/high.mp3, SAM
> connects to .../high-server.mp3. There are also 2 ACC+ streams with the
> same structure.

Beside that you use non-free codecs this looks fine to me. (And it seems
to work fine for you beside the statistics problem).


> So, what I want to know is: how do I get the proper listener statistics
> from /high.mp3? Is it a bug?

They are proper and there is no bug here.


> Is there a different configuration that will work?
> The main requirement is that switching over to live streaming
> is effortless, i.e. just turn on the encoder on the DJ machine and start
> streaming.

Ok, I after clarifying (at least I hope so) above here is what I would
suggest:
If you only have a 1:1 mapping between entry and fallback mounts I would
just sum up the numbers.
If there is a more complicated mapping you can used more advanced
options to track how listeners move between mounts. E.g. based on the
event of entry update your statistical data.

What the best option is depends a bit on what you're using and how.
On the other mail you mentioned MRTG. I think it supports both a broad
way of adding data. Both poll and trigger based. If you like I can asks
our in-house MRTG staff for his opinion.

Have a good Sunday!

-- 
Philipp.
 (Rah of PH2)
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