Server Types

You can run your server in one of three “modes” (either at home or on a 3rd party host):

1. Public

Your server will be listed in the central server list that clients use by default. Musicians can then discover and connect to your server. It is not necessary to run as a public server since many other people already run them. Just connect to one with low latency and start jamming.

This mode is activated by checking the “Register my server…” checkbox and (optionally) entering your server information.

When running without the GUI (“headless”), the following would configure a public server:

Jamulus --nogui --server \
        --centralserver genreServer:port \
        --serverinfo "yourServerName;yourCity;[country ID]"

Note: It is not necessary to port-forward or otherwise configure your router to run a public server.

See also Command Line Options for other parameters you can set.

2. Private

This type of server will not be listed on a central server list. You must give musicians your server address to connect their clients to. See Running a Private Server for what needs to be done to enable others to connect to it.

This mode is activated by un-checking “Register my server…”.

When running without the GUI (“headless”), the following would configure a private server:

Jamulus --nogui --server

See also Command Line Options for other parameters you can set.

3. Central

Configuring your server as a Central Server need only be done under special circumstances (e.g. for online events or musical associations). Most people can ignore this type.

To view servers listed by a custom central server, musicians must enter the address in their client’s “Custom Central Server” settings field. They will then see a Connection Setup list which is generated by that central server.

Normal server operators can also register with your custom central server so their servers can show up in your server list by setting yours as their --centralserver option.

To run a server as a central server, it should be configured with --centralserver localhost (that is, specify itself as the central server to query).

Configuration points to note

If you want to control which servers can register with your Central Server, you can enable a whitelist with the --listfilter command line option. See the command line options page for further information about this feature and other parameters you can set.

When running a public Central Server behind a NAT firewall on a private network, use the --serverpublicip option to specify the public IP address of the server(s) being listed by your Central Server. This is necessary to allow clients on the public Internet to connect to them via NAT. Note that for the servers using this option, you will still need proper port forwarding in your router/firewall.