somars - A Terminal-Based SomaFM Player

A Rust implementation of a SomaFM internet radio player with TUI interface and UDP control.

Features

• Terminal User Interface (TUI) with station browser
• MP3 stream playback
• Volume control
• Playback history tracking
• UDP remote control interface
• Cross-platform support (Linux/macOS/Windows)

Installation

cargo install --path .

Note: Requires pkg-config and libasound2-dev (Linux) for audio support:

sudo apt-get install pkg-config libasound2-dev

Note: The default UDP port is 8069. When using --listen, ensure the port is available. Use --port to specify a different port for both listening and broadcasting.

Usage

somars [OPTIONS]

Command Line Options:

• --log-level <1|2> - Log verbosity (1=minimal, 2=verbose)
• --station <ID> - Auto-play station on startup (e.g., groovesalad)
• --listen - Enable UDP control listener
• --port <NUM> - Set UDP port for both listening and broadcasting [default: 8069]
• --broadcast <MSG> - Send UDP command to network and exit

UDP Command Interface

Supported Commands:

play        - Start/resume playback
stop        - Stop playback
volume up    - Increase volume by 10%
volume down  - Decrease volume by 10%
volume <N>   - Set volume (0.0-2.0)
tune <ID>   - Switch to station by ID
tune next   - Switch to next station (wraps around)
tune prev   - Switch to previous station (wraps around)
select up    - Move selection up in station list
select down  - Move selection down in station list
toggle       - Toggle between play and stop

Example: Control via netcat

# Send play command (default port 8069)
echo "play" | nc -u -w0 localhost 8069

# Send to custom port
echo "volume 0.5" | nc -u -w0 localhost 9070

Example: Broadcast command

# Broadcast stop command to all instances on default port
somars --broadcast "stop"

# Broadcast to custom port
somars --port 9070 --broadcast "tune groovesalad"

# Using socat with broadcast
echo "tune groovesalad" | socat -u - udp-datagram:255.255.255.255:8069,reuseport,broadcast

Key Controls

• ↑/↓ - Navigate stations

• Enter - Play selected station

• Space - Toggle pause/play

• +/- - Adjust volume

• ? - Toggle help screen

• q - Quit

Alsa errors

If you are getting errors that look like ALSA lib pcm.c: 8526: (snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred being printed in terminal, try adding the following to /etc/default/alsa:

default-fragments = 5
default-fragment-size-msec = 2

/etc/pulse/daemon.conf:

CODE: SELECT ALL
default-fragments = 5
default-fragment-size-msec = 2

License

MIT License

Note: This project is not affiliated with SomaFM. Please support SomaFM at somafm.com.