Saturday, September 09, 2006

Set Up Your Own iTunes Server

I was asked the other day if it was possible to set up a home iTunes server... a centralized place to put all your music and videos that is also accesible from other computers around the home. The short answer... yes. The long answer... yes, and it's not that hard. Read on.

The first thing you have to do is designate a computer (either Windows or Mac, it doesn't matter) as your iTunes "server". Keep in mind, this will need to be a computer that will stay on all the time. Once you have that computer ready, be sure it has a good network connection (by the way, if you don't have a home network, this isn't going to work) and the latest version if iTunes installed on it.

Now that you have your hardware and software ready to go, it's time to move all your music and videos to that computer. I recommend just putting it directly on your Desktop for now. You can either do this with a thumb drive, external hard drive or (if you are comfortable enough with doing this), across your network. The method you choose may depend on how much stuff you have. If you have a lot, the easiest and fastest way to do it would be by using a semi-large external hard drive.

Once your files are located on the Desktop of your iTunes server, simply drag and drop them all into your iTunes main Library. It could take a while to copy them all into your Library, so have a copy of MacWorld laying around to read while it does this.

Next, we need to share your iTunes Library. To do this, go into the Preferences of iTunes, click on "Sharing", and choose to "Share my music". If you want to get picky here, you can choose to either share all of your Library, or just certain playlists. It's up to you. You will also want to set the name. Mine, for example, would be "Allgaier iTunes". There is also a place to set a password, but I would recommend not using this. The idea is to only allow authorized people to connect to your iTunes server, but I will assume that your network is fairly secure so that shouldn't be an issue. Plus, if you plan on accessing this through Front Row, it may have difficulties with passwords.

The last step is to now open iTunes on another computer on your home network (as with the iTunes server, be sure to have the latest version of iTunes installed). Once open, it will automatically search for shared iTunes Libraries on your network. As a result, you should see your iTunes server listed "Allgaier iTunes" in my case). Simply navigate through your available music and videos, and double-click.

Congratulations! You have now successfully configured your very own iTunes server.

posted by Kevin Allgaier at 2:43 PM

21 Comments:

  • There is a grammatical error in the last sentence. "You have 'no' (supposed to be now), configured your itunes server.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:59 AM, September 10, 2006  

  • I did this slightly different. I Have a linux box running ubuntu server. We use it for filesharing across our network. I copied my iTunes folder to this box, and then after connecting to it via samba, made an alias of the directory and put that alias in all my macs users "music" folders. Works like a charm. I share our IPhoto library the same way.

    By Anonymous stizzco, at 2:49 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • ^^^
    Don't have a heart attack.

    Anyways, very helpful and thorough tutorial!

    By Anonymous Raymond Douglas, at 2:49 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • my problem with this is that you can't edit or do anything to the server from anything but the computer it is on. you can't add music, burn cd's, or do anything to it. if you could do that, i would be very happy.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:52 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • very good

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:55 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • This also would not generate playcounts when you play something. You also can't make or edit playlists.

    This is the easiest way but not the best.

    By Anonymous Armin, at 2:58 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • I just did this the other day, works perfectly, makes me a happy happy kid.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:59 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • Rather then share all music vids etc from one comp to all comps....I do the OTHER way: share all vids music pics from ALL comps to ONE SPOT, that is to my TV/ sound system/ home theater via a box called a EyeHome from Elgato. the Eyehome is designed for the Mac but with some creative software it works with a PC too. This way I can store all media anywhere on my 5 PCs and 6 Macs and still view/listen to them on the best screen/speakers in the house

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:04 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • what happens if I want to get at my music when i'm not at home, say over the interweb?

    By Anonymous bob, at 3:07 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • Thanks for the info -- well laid out. I had done this in the past, but since moving, completely forgot about it. Just did all the computers in the house.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:15 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • or just use mt-daapd for unlimited users and not a cap of 5

    mt-daapd.org

    By Blogger Eric Shaw, at 3:40 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • Good tutorial! Have it in my must-try-out list!

    Added to howtohut

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:39 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • And you can even use iTunes over an SSH pipe when you set up your own server...

    http://www.shokk.com/blog/articles/2006/02/06/getting-ipods-and-itunes-everywhere

    By Anonymous Ernie Oporto, at 7:35 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • Corrected
    link

    By Anonymous Ernie Oporto, at 7:36 PM, September 10, 2006  

  • If you're still on iTunes 5 - don't upgrade, you'll use the ability to claim your fair-use rights using JHymn.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:59 AM, September 11, 2006  

  • The ability to listen to music over the net from your home itunes server can be done using simplify media. Check it out :)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:53 PM, August 28, 2007  

  • I think i may be missing the point - but this doesn't setup an iTunes server at all.
    All this does is allow you to listen to your library from any machine on the subnet.
    I guess technically you could pretend this is an iTunes server, but... read only, no playlists, no sync, well... nothing but listen.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:47 PM, November 25, 2007  

  • What other "client" other than Itunes can I use to connect to Itunes Server??

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:35 PM, December 09, 2007  

  • You can use an application called Slimserver (www.slimdevices.com), this will talk to the itunes library and you can either use itunes / songbird to access the library or several other devices (ther is a a device slimsevices make called a squeezebox) that the server will stream to audio to the device

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:08 PM, January 28, 2008  

  • part of the definition of a TRUE server is that you don't have to be logged in to the server in order for it to run. The program should be able to run under a SERVICE account so you can log out of the server and still have the iTunes server available.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:32 AM, February 15, 2008  

  • One contributor here mentioned that he/she shares the file system containing the music files , rather than sharing the iTunes library. A drawback that I've noticed when using this means is that iTunes on ther remote client takes a dinosaurically long time to load and start playing each music file. It experiences the delay for each file as it loads and plays it. By contrast, using iTunes's built-in means for accessing a shared library costs only a moment at the beginning of the session.

    However, as many have pointed out, using iTunes library sharing enables the remote computers to play only - no playlist manipulation, no importing, burning or (correct me if wrong) syncing iPods; sharing the file system allows all of that.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:05 PM, February 24, 2008  

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