Streaming Music
Streaming Methods
Koel supports three streaming methods which can be configured via the STREAMING_METHOD
setting in .env
file:
php
: Uses native PHP file reading. This is the default method.x-accel-redirect
: Only applicable if your webserver is nginx. Uses nginx's X-Accel module, designed for serving larger contents directly to the end user. Refer tonginx.conf.example
for a sample nginx configuration file.x-sendfile
: Only applicable if your webserver is Apache (with or without a proxy server like nginx). Uses Apache's mod_xsendfile module. You'll need to install and configure the module manually. A sample configuration is as following:apacheNote that although its home page denotes "Apache2/Apache2.2," the module itself is known to work with later versions of Apache as well.LoadModule xsendfile_module libexec/apache2/mod_xsendfile.so # These configuration can be put in the VirtualHost directive as well <IfModule mod_xsendfile.c> XSendFile on XSendFilePath /mnt/media </IfModule>
Tip
If you're using Koel mobile app and can't play the songs, try switching the streaming method to x-accel-redirect
or x-sendfile
instead of php
.
Notice
Koel always uses the native PHP method if you're transcoding or streaming from a cloud storage.
Transcoding FLAC
Koel supports transcoding FLAC to mp3 on the fly when streaming music. This behavior can be controlled via a TRANSCODE_FLAC
setting in .env
file:
false
: Disable FLAC transcoding. Koel will stream FLAC files as-is, producing the lossless audio quality. This is the default behavior.true
: Enable FLAC transcoding. Koel will transcode FLAC to mp3 on the fly. You'll need to have FFmpeg installed on your server and set its executable path via theFFMPEG_PATH
setting in the.env
file. The transcoding quality can also be controlled viaOUTPUT_BIT_RATE
(defaults to128
).