User Management

The Collection Manager has a separate Users tab for user management. The Require login checkbox lets you specify whether the system will require users to enter a user account and password. By default, the server supports unrestricted access to your data but allows users to register if they want to do so. To change this behavior, enable the Disable registering checkbox to completely disable the registration function.

The Collection Manager General tab offers advanced configuration options. The General tab lets you modify the Title and Tagline in the web interface. The changes in this and other fields within the tab are automatically applied by the server. The logging feature lets you export user registration and login activity to a file, in which you can evaluate the information later. Another option lets you give users the ability to upload their own tracks. To do so, check the Enable uploads checkbox and define a target directory for file uploads.

Sockso also offers a set of command-line tools for managing the server. To use the tools, first launch the Sockso server in non-GUI mode by entering ./linux.sh -nogui. Once Sockso is running, you can enter the Sockso commands at the command line. For example, the coladd and coldel commands let you add tracks or delete tracks from your collection. To do so, just add a path to the command line. The collist command shows you which directory you are currently sharing.

In addition, you can configure Sockso at the command line. proplist gives you an overview of configurable parameters. propset lets you modify individual options. For example, propset uploads.enabled yes enables uploads.

External Access

To give your friends Internet access to your Sockso music collection, you must tell them the URL shown at the bottom of the Configuration Manager window. The URL includes the IP address assigned to your machine when you opened the Internet connection, a colon, and the port number. By default, the Sockso server runs on port 4444.

If your computer is behind a firewall, you'll need to configure the firewall to pass traffic to the Sockso server system. Please note that changing a firewall setting on your DSL router can open up a gaping hole for attackers; make sure you do not disable any existing security settings. See your firewall documentation for more on securely forwarding traffic to the internal network.

Conclusions

Sockso is an especially good choice for heterogeneous networks because it can play music in almost any browser on a multitude of platforms. Despite the extensive feature set, the Sockso web interface requires very little in the line of configuration. Don't forget you need a license for any music you serve up outside your home network. Failure to respect licensing agreements might get you into trouble with the music industry.