[asterisk-users] Using Asterisk to play Icecast streams

[Steve Edwards]

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016, Dovid Bender wrote:

> 1) I want to be able to add a few hundred streams per box. Not all 
> streams are being listed to at once. Once you add a MOH class to 
> musiconhold.conf it stays up forever (which I can understand why). When 
> trying realtime madplay wont be loaded until it's called in the dial 
> plan.  After that it is in Asterisk until I restart asterisk. If we have 
> 20-30 streams it's OK but once that grows it can bog down the machine.

> 2) I found that it for some reason the stream returns a 404 (it goes off 
> line etc.) then 10-15% of one core gets locked up until the stream comes 
> back online. The issue is that if a few  streams have an issue then I am 
> locking up one care.

For these and other reasons, I think streaming is dumb (in most cases).

I have a client that wanted to allow his customers to enter URLs for their 
moh. Bad idea. They kept entering invalid URLs which would cause bits to 
crash. Further, we started getting complaints from URL providers as to why 
we were streaming 24x7 and from our colo about the bandwidth.

My solution* (which the customers either haven't figured out yet or don't 
mind) was:

1) Customers submit URLs to my client.

2) Once entered into the system, the customer can select the 'station' 
from a web page.

3) I record 24 hours of the stream and then use sox to break into separate 
files on the silence between songs.

4) I create a moh class that random plays the files.

*) My client approved the solution which may be of questionable legality 
depending on the stream.

-- 
Thanks in advance,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Edwards       sedwards at sedwards.com      Voice: +1-760-468-3867 PST
             https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-edwards-4244281