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Artlav

Member

Registered: 2016-07-11

Posts: 36

Website

Virtual sound card for a remote headless machine?

Greetings.

I have a headless server with Arch Linux on it, and no sound card of any sort.
It is accessible over VNC, with XFCE4 running in the Xvnc virtual X server.

I want to be able to receive sound from this machine over the network, from arbitrary programs like Skype, Firefox, games, mplayer and so on.
Preferably in a shape that is readable by some Windows program. I.e. Icecast.

How would you go about setting up something like that?

I've found and tried guides to set up PulseAudio alongside VNC, but they don't work on a system with no sound card.
I've found and tried guides to set up Icecast on a headless system, but it won't accept sound from arbitrary source.
I've found descriptions of snd_dummy kernel module and it's setup in ALSA, but that does not produce any sound or let PulseAudio get anything.

By now, i'm out of ideas. Help please?

whoops

Member

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 891

Re: Virtual sound card for a remote headless machine?

Did you try the snd-aloop module?

"modprobe snd-aloop" should give you a new device (there might also be useful settings for that module).

Not sure what to do with that once you have it though... I've read good things about "vlc compatible sound streaming" when it comes to mixed OS sound environments... theoretically you should be able to grab audio from the virtual device (with ffmpeg if vlc can't do it directly) and set up a stream with vlc or a compatible program. You might also be able to tunnel the ports trough ssl or something if you need added security.

(Just guessing! There might be MUCH better solutions. )

Good luck!

Last edited by whoops (2016-07-11 14:40:03)

Artlav

Member

Registered: 2016-07-11

Posts: 36

Website

Re: Virtual sound card for a remote headless machine?

Tried the aloop module with no real success - the device seem to be here, but nothing happens.

Is this really such an unusual scenario that there are no existing solutions?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,736

Re: Virtual sound card for a remote headless machine?

There are many, you could use pulseaudio to create a e.g. RTP sink to point your devices to, or use pulseaudio's soundcard exposing functionality (wouldn't hold up with the windows requirement though)... Can you post the guides you are talking about and what exactly you have tried from them? You could use this thread https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=209801 as a guideline on how to set a RTP sink up (follow the documentation links in the OP to find out about specific functonalities of the options you are about to use), I'm pretty sure icecast should be able to read a standard RTP source.

Rasi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-08-14

Posts: 1,914

Website

Re: Virtual sound card for a remote headless machine?

I ihavent quite understood the question. You want the headless server produce sound, but it has to come out of other computer's speakers?
Pulse can do just that. And no, you don't need pulseaudio for this on the server. libpulse is enough. set the default server in /etc/pulse/client.conf and on the other end allow anonymous access in paprefs. (yes, the receiving end actually needs a pulse server and luckily this part exists for windows too)

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