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Installation

Application Files​

The application is deployed from a development machine to the Pi using rsync. The repo contains a Makefile with all the deployment targets — you never SSH in to make changes manually.

Create the application directory on the Pi:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/radio/public
sudo chown -R YOUR_USER:www-data /var/www/radio

Deploy the files from your dev machine:

rsync -av server/ pi-user@your-pi:/var/www/radio/
rsync -av public/ pi-user@your-pi:/var/www/radio/public/

Initialise the Database​

On the Pi, run the setup script once to create the SQLite schema:

cd /var/www/radio
python3 setup_db.py

This creates the songs, tags, plays, and skips tables.

Install Scripts​

Copy the shell scripts to /usr/local/bin/ and make them executable:

sudo cp scripts/*.sh /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/*.sh

Systemd Services​

Two services keep the station running:

pi3radio.service — the Python API server:

[Unit]
Description=Pi Radio Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=YOUR_USER
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/radio
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /var/www/radio/server.py
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
EnvironmentFile=-/var/www/radio/.env

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

song-logger.service — watches MPD and logs every song:

[Unit]
Description=MPD Song Logger
After=mpd.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=mpd
Group=audio
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/song_logger.sh
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Install and enable both:

sudo cp systemd/*.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable pi3radio song-logger
sudo systemctl start pi3radio song-logger

Crontab​

All cron jobs must run under your regular user — not root. Running them as root causes every job to fire twice.

crontab -e

Add:

0 * * * *    /usr/local/bin/radio_scheduler.sh
0 3 * * 0    /usr/local/bin/create_playlists.sh
0 0 * * *    /usr/local/bin/generate_stationid_hours.sh
@reboot      sleep 60 && /usr/local/bin/radio_scheduler.sh
*/5 * * * *  /usr/local/bin/mpd_watchdog.sh

Verify root has no radio cron jobs:

sudo crontab -l   # should say "no crontab for root"

Environment File​

Create /var/www/radio/.env with your API key:

OPENWEATHER_API_KEY=your_key_here

This is loaded by the systemd EnvironmentFile directive. The key is injected into the frontend JavaScript at deploy time — it never lives in the source code.

MPD Playlists​

Build the initial playlists. This scans your music directory and generates genre-based .m3u files in /var/lib/mpd/playlists/:

/usr/local/bin/create_playlists.sh

Then start MPD and verify it's playing:

sudo systemctl start mpd
mpc status

Verify Everything​

Check all services are running:

systemctl status mpd icecast2 nginx pi3radio song-logger

Open the web player in a browser:

http://your-pi-ip

Listen to the stream:

http://your-pi-ip:8000/radio.mp3