Streaming music to the office

ochadd

ochadd

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 9, 2008
Messages
1,339
I'm wanting to allow some streaming music on the LAN without overloading our internet connection. Seems like an obvious use that I just can't find the solution for. Some people have taken to flash drives passed around the office. Others are even sharing music folders from their PC via various and ever changing methods. Some bypass the blacklists entirely.

Our business is out in the boon docks. $750/month for a 10Mbps fiber link. I can't have 50-100 PCs streaming music on the WAN link. Is there some wizbang service that would allow me to bring in a stream or three and allow each user to pick from a limited amount of choices?
Thanks
Adam
 
Icecast (2) supports relaying (Icecast or Shoutcast compatible streams) or you could setup local stream(s) within the network. Commercial radio is no go?
//Danne
 
I tell people to bring in a portable music player and dock/amplified speakers. With phones today more than capable of playing streams or stored music, there is not much reason to allow streams. Dedicated PMPs can be found for chump change new.
 
Let them use their own damn data plans of their phones/devices?

I have blocked all of them here. Not enough pipe for all that crap.
 
Thanks for the replies. The catch is that our production facility is a complete dead zone. No cell phone signal at all but there is office staff over there. We used to have standard FM radio as hold music that our phones could "tune" into. That's gone away with a change in phone system.
People have been sitting in silence or fighting me for a few months. Any, easy, way to capture FM radio and stream it to the LAN?
 
Server software:
Icecast (2)
http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/icecast/icecast2_win32_2.3.2_setup.exe - Windows
http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/icecast/icecast-2.3.3.tar.gz - Linux/BSD/Unix

Source:
http://edcast-reborn.googlecode.com/files/edcast_standalone_3.37.2011.1214.exe - Windows
Only install BASS Audio dll - you'll get updated audio libs later
http://www.rarewares.org/files/mp3/lame3.99.5.zip
Grab latest version of LAME and extract dll-file in edcasts directory

Linux/BSD/Unix
Darkice - http://code.google.com/p/darkice/

Get a tuner of kind, a 3.5mm to RCA plug and hook it up to line in to the computer that runs edcast. Set LAME/MP3 as format, 192kbps and adjust audio levels to avoid distortion.

Clients:
http://ip.of.my.server/mount.point
foobar2k, winamp etc works fine, you can also use a flash client on a page if that's more convenient.

//Danne
 
I use Subsonic to stream music personally. Never had any issues with it.
 
2nd vote for subsonic

I work at a business in a crowded area of southern CA about 300' from the beach and we pay more than that for 6Mb internet. :(
 
How many PCs do you have? You could just have QoS set up on your ISP's edge router outbound over your WAN link, add port ranges for some services you want to support (Pandora, Spotify, Grooveshark, Slacker, IHeartRadio, etc), and assign it to a best-effort (lowest-priority) queue. All other traffic should be treated at a higher (normal) priority. Then unblock those ports on your firewall.

Tell them that you're allowing streaming audio using whatever services you've decided to add to the QoS policy, but you can't help them if the circuit maxes out as traffic for their work will have priority so that too much streaming doesn't make getting work done impossible, and it will be their responsibility if they start buffering all the time to communicate internally to one-another to reduce bandwidth usage so that the streams become smooth again.

EDIT - Just to clarify for those that don't understand, this will allow the streaming services to use whatever bandwidth is left over from what the business is using, but that bandwidth will automatically be taken away if business traffic needs it. QoS is an extremely useful tool and I often find it underutilized in enterprise environments. (Either that or overutilized; some people don't get that prioritizing everything effectively negates the purpose of QoS!)
 
Last edited:
The issue isn't outbound but inbound, no point in dropping it if it already hit the WAN-connection.
//Danne
 
RocketTech said:
I tell people to bring in a portable music player and dock/amplified speakers. With phones today more than capable of playing streams or stored music, there is not much reason to allow streams. Dedicated PMPs can be found for chump change new.
Click to expand...

This.

I also see mention in OP about passing thumb drives around and users creating shares on their PC...not on my network:cool:

I have a majority of these services blocked via untangle and only company laptops are on wifi. Others use their phone/data plan or stored music on their ipods.
 
diizzy said:
The issue isn't outbound but inbound, no point in dropping it if it already hit the WAN-connection.
//Danne
Click to expand...

Sorry, yeah I'm thinking of this as an ISP. But he should be able to have them set it up exactly as described outbound across the WAN link from the ISP's side provided his ISP provides some sort of QoS service. For that $750 a month, they should be able to!

I've corrected my post with the appropriate perspective.
 
johnnydoe said:
I'd rather have them listen to me pooping in a cup. That'd sound better than the crap that loops 7/24 on the radio to be honest.
Click to expand...

As the IT guy you cannot control their behavior, well you can and can't.

I highly recommend you push back to their phones, hand out chargers if you want to be nice.
 
sc0tty8 said:
As the IT guy you cannot control their behavior, well you can and can't.

I highly recommend you push back to their phones, hand out chargers if you want to be nice.
Click to expand...

He's already said they have little to no 3G reception in the area. Sure, people can put music on their phones, but those without smartphones are going to be asking the people with music to dump it on their workstations so they have something to listen to, which is a problem the OP is already dealing with.
 
sc0tty8 said:
As the IT guy you cannot control their behavior, well you can and can't.

I highly recommend you push back to their phones, hand out chargers if you want to be nice.
Click to expand...

I'd rather stream Edgar Winter into the office and tell anybody who doesn't like it to GTFO.

The quality of music someone listens to can tell A LOT about the quality of person. Those that listen to the radio aren't THAT smart or good workers anyway. So just throw the garbage to the bin, and replace them with higher quality individuals. ;)
 
johnnydoe said:
I'd rather stream Edgar Winter into the office and tell anybody who doesn't like it to GTFO.

The quality of music someone listens to can tell A LOT about the quality of person. Those that listen to the radio aren't THAT smart or good workers anyway. So just throw the garbage to the bin, and replace them with higher quality individuals. ;)
Click to expand...

I hope you don't actually believe what you just said...

The nice thing about music and art is that nobody can tell what you do or don't like. One person's garbage music is another person's musical masterpiece.
 
Electrofreak said:
I hope you don't actually believe what you just said...

The nice thing about music and art is that nobody can tell what you do or don't like. One person's garbage music is another person's musical masterpiece.
Click to expand...

Yes, music is subjective, but I do. I classify people by their taste of music.

You aren't going to put the guy that listens to Ricky Martin in the same shoes with the guy that listens to Paul Rodgers.
 
johnnydoe said:
Yes, music is subjective, but I do. I classify people by their taste of music.

You aren't going to put the guy that listens to Ricky Martin in the same shoes with the guy that listens to Paul Rodgers.
Click to expand...

That's unfortunate.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "correlation does not imply causation"? I would hardly judge someone's intelligence level based upon the music they listen to. I mean, I could go out and find evidence that people of a certain color are more likely to be criminals, but would you judge someone as a criminal based upon the color of their skin? I would hope not. Perhaps using music preference to judge people is a less extreme example, but you're just as likely to judge wrong.

But anyhow, back on track with the thread.
 
Not really as the musical "ear" neurons are directly related to your brain functions, so listening to "noise" might POSSIBLY mean you're dumber than someone listening to "high quality" music. It's just my way of doing it. But yeah, that's just me and that is you there. Yep, let's not go any more OT. GG. :)
 
What about a cheap second cable or DSL connection and they can connect with their smartphone and stream from them?
 
Electrofreak said:
He's already said they have little to no 3G reception in the area. Sure, people can put music on their phones, but those without smartphones are going to be asking the people with music to dump it on their workstations so they have something to listen to, which is a problem the OP is already dealing with.
Click to expand...

You don't need data services to play stored music...
 
Or you could just make a public share and people can make playlists via winamp/wmp and call it good...
 
sc0tty8 said:
Or you could just make a public share and people can make playlists via winamp/wmp and call it good...
Click to expand...

And allow ripped and pirated music to be shared(broadcast) on a network? One pissed employee and welcome RIAA lawsuit. Yeah, you didn't think that one through.
 
schizrade said:
And allow ripped and pirated music to be shared(broadcast) on a network? One pissed employee and welcome RIAA lawsuit. Yeah, you didn't think that one through.
Click to expand...

He's already admitted that people have determined ways to share the music...and wants to allow them to stream music as well, who knows what else they could be doing...
 
How did people ever cope before network resources were so abundant, we could devote them to trivial puposes such as storing and streaming music?
My personal view is unless management is willing to back and fund the project, it's a non-starter. All non-work services are blocked at the gateway. I tell workers to bring a PMP (Personal Music Player, MP3 player, ipod, iphone, walkman, Rio; depending on your generation and level of snobbery); whether the PMP is part of their phone or a separate device is not my problem.
I'm not making this up, this is the policy I've implemented to great success. Management says no non-work streams or sites across the gateway, I let the staff know it's coming and suggest PMPs/Docks. Most of my locations don't have good 3G reception either; they store music on phones/PMPs. If you just cut the streams and lock down shares, I gaurantee it is just a matter of time until users solve their 'problem'- the only difference will be how big of a jerk they think you are.
You can't claim users are too stupid to solve their own issues AND claim they are smart enough to get around security to upload music onto shares and machines.
 
apply IT policy
proxy server may help
implement multicast routing
limit bwd for stemming traffic(they will no use company internet in the future)
separate non-business traffic to the new link (bwd lower than the primary link), this solution, you will get the single point of failure

i have found the some knowledge, this could might be useful First Hop Redundancy Protocol (HSRP, VRRP and GLBP) http://cisconetworkingcenter.blogspot.com/2013/01/first-hop-redundancy-protocol.html
 
boylazer said:
apply IT policy
proxy server may help
implement multicast routing
limit bwd for stemming traffic(they will no use company internet in the future)
separate non-business traffic to the new link (bwd lower than the primary link), this solution, you will get the single point of failure

i have found the some knowledge, this could might be useful First Hop Redundancy Protocol (HSRP, VRRP and GLBP) http://cisconetworkingcenter.blogspot.com/2013/01/first-hop-redundancy-protocol.html
Click to expand...

Uh, do you know what you're talking about? I'd like to know how failover protocols like HSRP or VRRP have anything to do with this scenario.

Some of us here actually work with the acronyms you pulled out of Google every day and can tell that you're just trying to look smart.
 
Thanks for all the replies. My answer for now is going to be to "Bring your music in with you."

Some of my users are using iphones, droids, etc. but they also share this music. They used to try dumping them on the file shares and I nixed that by telling them to dump them on C:\. Only once in 7 years has a hard drive filled up as a result, in case you're wondering. We need max 30GB and there isn't a PC on the network with < 80GB drive. Think there's any liability on myself or the company by not monitoring or restricting this?
 
ochadd said:
Think there's any liability on myself or the company by not monitoring or restricting this?
Click to expand...

IANAL, but my understanding is if you receive notice as a network admin you have infringing content and you are not complicit in distribution, as long as you delete it when requested you are clear.
As to whether you comply with your own company policy, there is no way for me to know that.
In the situation you describe, as long as it is not hurting anything (performance/space issues) I would leave it alone.
 
ochadd said:
Think there's any liability on myself or the company by not monitoring or restricting this?
Click to expand...

There sure as hell is liability for the company. This day in age, how can you possibly think otherwise. I make it clear to our employees that *no* personal media is to be stored on a work device (Computer/Server/Thumb drive etc).
 
OP even though this might not be what you're after I thought I'd mention it for interest.

Zach Holman at GitHub has created a central music system called Play. Yes, it relies on a Mac server and iTunes but nonetheless it's very cool and has clients for all types of OSs. Also, it can be used to stream your office music to employees in other countries.

https://github.com/play/play
http://zachholman.com/talk/play/
 
I have a free solution I am using for myself.

Foobar2k http://ninite.com/foobar
Foobar HTTP page (for allowing multiple people to manage and view whats playing) - http://code.google.com/p/foo-httpcontrol/downloads/list
Teamspeak Beta Server 3.0.7 (has OPUS codex which sounds phenomenal compared to any other VOIP program i've used) And Teamspeak client.

Server- http://ftp.4players.de/pub/hosted/t...use_this_version/in_a_production_environment/
Client - http://forum.teamspeak.com/showthread.php/80608-Beta-Channel-TeamSpeak-3-Client-3-0-10

I am waiting for the client on iOS and Droid to become updated but knowing teamspeak GMBH they will have a stable version of client/server avail shortly. It actually is flawless.

I then allow users to upload songs through ftp to a folder that you cannot view the contents, the Foobar automatically adds the song to available songs immediately and is viewable via : http://address:8888/default and can find them by searching for part of a word or by genre, or made up play lists.

I also use Virtual Audio Cable. This allows the media player to go straight ot output but would assume XP vbox would have Stereo Mix option to allow the same function.


I had to edit the HTML of the foobar addon to specify what text box = search. I also used <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="20" > to update the page often so if others were searching for songs it would show that activity and let someone else know to wait.

It uses a very negligible amount of bandwidth ( XXKBps) and sounds as if i was playing directly from an mp3 player even when testing from remote VPN locations simulating distance.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top