• Introduction
• What is Airtime?
• Rights and royalties
• Using Airtime
• On air in 60 seconds!
• Getting started
• Smartphone journalism
• The System menu
• Preferences
• Users
• Media folders
• Stream settings
• Support feedback
• Status
• Listener stats
• The main menus
• Now playing
• Add media
• Library
• Calendar
• History
• Listen
• Help
• Airtime in the studio
• Recording shows
• Live shows with Mixxx
• Icecast and SHOUTcast
• Installation
• Preparing the server
• Easy setup
• Automated installation
• Manual installation
• Setting the server time
• Administration
• Preparing media for ingest
• Using the airtime-import script
• The airtime-log command
• Backing up the server
• Upgrading
• Troubleshooting
• Using Monit
• Advanced configuration
• Automated file import
• Icecast handover
• Promoting your station
• Stream player for your website
• Exporting the schedule
• Interface customization
• Interface localization and Git
• Host configuration
• Airtime API authentication
• Secure login with SSL or TLS
• Icecast statistics with Piwik
• Appendix
• Expert install
• HD Audio Models
• About this manual

Getting started

If the server is only being used for Airtime and has a web browser installed, you can access the administration interface directly on that server by opening the address:

http://localhost/

If you have set up Airtime so that it can be accessed from other computers, you would use a domain name instead. For example:

https://airtime.example.com/

Airtime Pro users will have been given an airtime.pro domain name when they signed up.

You can log in for the first time with the user name admin and the password set during installation. Your browser should automatically focus on the Username field.

If you enter the password incorrectly three times, you will be presented with a reCAPTCHA challenge to prove that you are a human, and not a password-guessing robot. This feature helps protect your Airtime installation against brute force attacks.

If activated, you will see a link Reset password below the password field, which enables users to obtain a password reminder by email. See the chapter Preferences for configuration details.

 

The E-mail address you enter must match the address stored in the database for your Username.

Register Airtime

After you have logged in as admin for the first time, a pop-up window will ask if you wish to send technical support data about your server to Sourcefabric.

These details can be viewed by clicking on the Show me what I am sending link, which expands a scrolling window. The data helps Sourcefabric engineers resolve any problems with your Airtime installation, as well as count the number of installations worldwide.

Sourcefabric has a privacy policy regarding data collection, which you can read by clicking the link to http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/about/policy/ further down. After checking the Send support feedback and privacy policy boxes, you can submit the data by clicking the Yes, help Airtime button.

This window also offers the opportunity to Promote my station on Sourcefabric.org (on the page http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/whosusing/) by checking the box. Fill in the form which will appear with some details about your station. The contact details are only requested for verification purposes, and will not be made available to the public. Click the Browse button to select a Station Logo image from the file manager on your computer.

The Master Panel

After the pop-up window is closed, you should now see the Master Panel, which is present at the top of every page of the Airtime interface. On the left hand side, the Master Panel displays the details of the Previous file played out, the current file playing (with an orange progress bar and time elapsed/time remaining), and the details of the Next file due to play. It also displays the name and scheduled time of the current show, with a blue progress bar.

Beneath this side of the Master Panel is the main navigation menu, with sub-menus labelled Now Playing, Add Media, Library, Calendar, System, History and Help. We'll be looking at the contents of these menus in the following chapters of this book.

On the right hand side of the Master Panel are the switches for the Source Streams, which enable you to switch from scheduled play to remote live sources, and back. (See the chapter Stream settings for details of this feature). The On Air indicator turns from dark grey to red whenever audio is being played out. Underneath this indicator is a Listen button, which opens a pop-up player that can be used to audition the available playout streams.

There is also a clock indicating the Station time and time zone. Beneath the clock and just to the left, the name of the user currently logged in is displayed, and there is the link for you to Logout. 

Clicking the username link opens a page in which you can update your Airtime password, contact details, language and time zone preferences. Click the Save button once you have made the changes that you require.

On the right of the Logout link, clicking the green check mark opens a pop-up window with information about the version of Airtime installed. If your Airtime installation is not the latest version available, the green check mark changes to a green upgrade arrow. Should your Airtime installation get too far out of date, this arrow will change to a red exclamation mark.

Checking an Icecast server

If you have installed an Icecast streaming media server, you can check that Icecast is running by opening its default server port of 8000 in your web browser. For example, on the server itself, you can use:

http://localhost:8000

or from another machine, using the domain name of the Icecast server:

http://streaming.example.com:8000

You should see the Icecast status page, with details of any connections that your Airtime server has made to this Icecast server. If you have only just installed Airtime, there may not be any media playing out yet.