[Icecast] Shoutcast?

[Geoff Shang]

On Wed, 4 Aug 2021, Dave Madsen wrote:

> The link that we’ve published for people to get our student-run radio
> station is http://shoutcast.morningside.edu:8000/KMSC-Music.m3u, but the
> people at Shoutcast say they have nothing to do with our stream, and that
> we’re actually using icecast.

You are.

Version          Icecast 2.3.2

http://shoutcast.morningside.edu:8000/server_version.xsl

At time of writing, there are two MP3 streams, one at 128 KBPS and one at 
24 KBPS.

> Can someone please help me figure out exactly
> HOW our streaming is working? I’m not a tech guy, and the stream has been
> working here for many years…but nobody currently here knows how it was set
> up. We’re using a really old PC that I think is functioning as a server…but
> I’m not sure. That PC doesn’t seem very stable, so I’m looking for
> alternatives/fixes/whatever!

As you can see, Icecast is very much set and forget a lot of the time. 
Yes, you could pay someone to do this, but if you've got the resources, 
you can probably update your setup and have it be stable for many more 
years.

The Icecast server software is very simple.  It accepts audio streams from 
one or more sources and sends those streams out to any listener clients 
that are connected to that server mountpoint.

This means that, in addition to Icecast, there is also some software 
somewhere which is encoding the MP3 audio of your station and sending it 
to Icecast.  It could be running on the same PC, with the audio coming 
into a soundcard on the machine and a piece of software taking that audio 
and encoding it.  It could also be happening on another PC, with it being 
sent over the network to your Icecast server.

Given that there are two streams at time of writing, both could be 
happening.

If I had access to the admin page, I might be able to tell you more, such 
as the IP address that the streams are coming from and possibly the 
software that's encoding it.  I'm sure whoever set it up would have been 
sensible enough to change the default username and password for the admin 
screen, and I'm not disrespectful enough to try and hack my way in.

Don't worry if you don't have the admin credentials, if you can access the 
PC itself then you can see the credentials for the admin screen in the 
Icecast config file, and may be able to figure out a lot without it.

We may be able to provide more specific help if you can tell us which 
operating system the computer is running.

If it turns out that the audio is being streamed in from other machines, 
replacing the server computer may well be just as simple as:

* Copy current config file from old system
* Install Icecast on new system
* Drop in old config on new system
* Point appropriate DNS to  the new machine and do any other necessary 
network/firewall changes
* Start Icecast

Of course, you'd want to do some testing along the way, but swapping out 
the server PC *could* be fairly straight-forward, depending on your setup.

Cheers,
Geoff.