Aconf(1)

NAME
Aconf - a network-transparent audio server for audio conferencing.

SYNOPSIS

The AF audio server is a network transparent system developed at Digital CRL. Aconf permits audio teleconferencing in a distributed environment.

DESCRIPTION

Aconf is an AF server that has no audio hardware attached. Instead, client applications that "record" from the Amsb server actually hear what all the other clients are "playing". In normal service, each user in an audio teleconference will connect to the Aconf server, and their voice (playback) will be delivered to each of the other users. In addition, applications such as arecord(1) will hear whatever anyone says, and applications such as aplay(1) will be heard by everyone.

STARTING UP
Aconf [:portOffset] [options] &

OPTIONS

-help

    Use the help switch to determine device independent arguments.

-device device

    Specifies the name of the "device"

-hrate <#>

    Causes the server to set it's nominal sample rate. The default sampling rate is 8000 Hz. Standard rates are 5512, 6615, 8000, 9600, 11025, 16000, 18900, 22050, 27428, 32000, 33075, 37800, 44100, and 48000 Hz rates.

AUDIO DEVICES

The Aconf audio server presents three audio devices to client applications. These audio devices map provide using stereo data, left channel only, and right channel only. The sampling rate of the audio devices is set by the hrate switch. The default audio data type is LIN16. AF conversion services support other datatypes.

CONNECTION NAME

From the user's prospective, every AF server has an audio connection of the form:

hostname:portOffset

This information is used by the application to determine how it should connect to the server.

hostname
    The hostname specifies the name of the machine to which the audio device is physically connected.

portOffset
    The portOffset is used to identify the audio server's port on hostname. For example, to simultaneously run two audio servers on a given host, you might select 0 or 1 for portOffset.

If the connection name to an audio server is not specified, then the environment variables AUDIOFILE or DISPLAY will be used.

ACCESS CONTROL
The sample server provides two types of access control: an authorization protocol which provides a list of ``magic cookies'' clients can send to request access, and a list of hosts from which connections are always accepted.

BUGS
If you encounter a repeatable bug, please submit a problem report to () and include the source code if possible.

SEE ALSO

AF(1), Aaxp(1), Amaxine(1), Alofi(1), Ajv(1), Aconf(1), Amsb(1), Aj300(1), aplay(1), arecord(1), apass(1), aset(1), abrowse(1), afft(1), ahost(1), aphone(1), aprop(1), ahs(1), axset(1), xpow(1), afxctl(1), aname2num(1), alsatoms(1), aevents(1), abob(1)

COPYRIGHT

See the COPYRIGHTS file.

Copyright 1991-1994, Digital Equipment Corporation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

AUTHORS
Digital Cambridge Research Lab