System Requirements | Hardware
Requirements for Centova Cast
It's important to note the distinction between Centova Cast, ShoutCast/IceCast, and your autoDJ. Centova Cast itself is just a control panel; it simply configures ShoutCast, IceCast, and your autoDJ, and then it gets out of the way
Because it does not do any streaming itself, the requirements for Centova Cast itself are minimal. Any modern server that can run Apache, PHP, and MySQL should work just fine.
Requirements for ShoutCast/IceCast
ShoutCast and IceCast are extremely lightweight and efficient. They'll have very little impact on your CPU load, memory usage, or disk space, even if you're hosting a lot of streams.
Streaming audio does use a lot of bandwidth, however, and if you have any significant number of listeners, you will need to ensure that you have enough bandwidth available. More information about ShoutCast/IceCast system requirements, and instructions to calculate your estimated bandwidth requirements are available in our knowledge base.
Requirements for your autoDJ
For most stream hosts, the autoDJ is the primary bottleneck on the server. If you are using realtime media re-encoding (virtually all stream hosts do), your autoDJs will use a significant amount of CPU time.
Most autoDJ software vendors do not publish specific requirements, but additional information available is provided in our knowledge base.
It's important to note the distinction between Centova Cast, ShoutCast/IceCast, and your autoDJ. Centova Cast itself is just a control panel; it simply configures ShoutCast, IceCast, and your autoDJ, and then it gets out of the way
Because it does not do any streaming itself, the requirements for Centova Cast itself are minimal. Any modern server that can run Apache, PHP, and MySQL should work just fine.
Requirements for ShoutCast/IceCast
ShoutCast and IceCast are extremely lightweight and efficient. They'll have very little impact on your CPU load, memory usage, or disk space, even if you're hosting a lot of streams.
Streaming audio does use a lot of bandwidth, however, and if you have any significant number of listeners, you will need to ensure that you have enough bandwidth available. More information about ShoutCast/IceCast system requirements, and instructions to calculate your estimated bandwidth requirements are available in our knowledge base.
Requirements for your autoDJ
For most stream hosts, the autoDJ is the primary bottleneck on the server. If you are using realtime media re-encoding (virtually all stream hosts do), your autoDJs will use a significant amount of CPU time.
Most autoDJ software vendors do not publish specific requirements, but additional information available is provided in our knowledge base.
System Requirements | End-Users
Centova Cast is designed to be standards-compliant, and has been tested with a wide variety of browsers including:
- Internet Explorer 6.0+ (Windows)
- Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ (Windows, Linux, Mac)
- Apple Safari 3.2+ (Windows, Mac)
- Mozilla 1.6+ (Windows, Linux)
- Netscape 7.0+ (Windows, Linux)
- Google Chrome (Windows, experimental)
System Requirements | Software
Centova Cast is designed for Linux-based servers only. You'll need:
You'll also need a streaming server, and if you plan to use autoDJ capabilities, you'll need a compatible streaming source and FTP server. Centova Cast supports any of the following:
Note that Centova Cast is not just a PHP script which you can upload to your web site. It does a lot more "under the hood" than a plain PHP script, and it must be installed by a qualified systems administrator via secure shell (SSH) using the "root" user account**.
Other miscellaneous requirements:
* FreeBSD is unofficially supported but reported to work fine. We officially support Debian/RHEL/CentOS/Fedora but other Linuxes should also work.
** Root access is required during installation to avoid having streams run under the web server's user account, which could represent a security/stability issue. After installation, Centova Cast does not use root privileges.
| Operating system: | RHEL/CentOS, Fedora, Debian Linux FreeBSD* |
|
| Webserver: | Apache v1.3.x or 2.x | |
| PHP: |
PHP v4.3+ or PHP v5.x GD & FreeType extensions required safe_mode/open_basedir/etc. disabled |
|
| Database server: | MySQL v4.1+ or v5.x | |
You'll also need a streaming server, and if you plan to use autoDJ capabilities, you'll need a compatible streaming source and FTP server. Centova Cast supports any of the following:
| Streaming server: | ShoutCast v1.9.x IceCast v2.x |
|
| Streaming source: | ices-cc (strongly recommended) ices v0.4 ezstream 0.5.3 sc_trans 0.4.0 sc_trans v2 (BETA) |
|
| FTP server: |
ProFTPd v1.3.0+ mod_sql or AuthUserFile support Pure-FTPd v1.0.21+ MySQL or external auth support |
|
Note that Centova Cast is not just a PHP script which you can upload to your web site. It does a lot more "under the hood" than a plain PHP script, and it must be installed by a qualified systems administrator via secure shell (SSH) using the "root" user account**.
Other miscellaneous requirements:
- Both the PHP Apache module and CLI binary must be installed.
- The gcc compiler and GNU C library are required during installation.
- Ability to setup a scheduled task (cron job) is necessary.
- ionCube Loader is required (it's bundled with Centova Cast and usually requires no extra setup).
* FreeBSD is unofficially supported but reported to work fine. We officially support Debian/RHEL/CentOS/Fedora but other Linuxes should also work.
** Root access is required during installation to avoid having streams run under the web server's user account, which could represent a security/stability issue. After installation, Centova Cast does not use root privileges.