pulse-daemon.conf(5) File Formats Manual pulse-daemon.conf(5)
NAME
pulse-daemon.conf - PulseAudio daemon configuration file
SYNOPSIS
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
DESCRIPTION
The PulseAudio sound server reads configuration directives from a con-
figuration file on startup. If the per-user file ~/.config/pulse/dae-
mon.conf exists, it is used, otherwise the system configuration file
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf is used. In addition to those main files, con-
figuration directives can also be put in files under directories
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf.d/ and /etc/pulse/daemon.conf.d/. Those
files have to have the .conf file name extension, but otherwise the
file names can be chosen freely. The files under daemon.conf.d are pro-
cessed in alphabetical order. In case the same option is set in multi-
ple files, the last file to set an option overrides earlier files. The
main daemon.conf file is processed first, so options set in files under
daemon.conf.d override the main file.
Please note that the server also reads a configuration script on
startup. See default.pa(5).
The configuration file is a simple collection of variable declarations.
If the configuration file parser encounters either ; or # it ignores
the rest of the line until its end.
For the settings that take a boolean argument the values true, yes, on
and 1 are equivalent, resp. false, no, off, 0.
GENERAL DIRECTIVES
daemonize= Daemonize after startup. Takes a boolean value, defaults to
no. The --daemonize command line option takes precedence.
fail= Fail to start up if any of the directives in the configuration
script default.pa fail. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The
--fail command line option takes precedence.
allow-module-loading= Allow/disallow module loading after startup. This
is a security feature that if disabled makes sure that no further mod-
ules may be loaded into the PulseAudio server after startup completed.
It is recommended to disable this when system-instance is enabled.
Please note that certain features like automatic hot-plug support will
not work if this option is enabled. Takes a boolean argument, defaults
to yes. The --disallow-module-loading command line option takes prece-
dence.
allow-exit= Allow/disallow exit on user request. Defaults to yes.
resample-method= The resampling algorithm to use. Use one of src-sinc-
best-quality, src-sinc-medium-quality, src-sinc-fastest, src-zero-or-
der-hold, src-linear, trivial, speex-float-N, speex-fixed-N, ffmpeg,
soxr-mq, soxr-hq, soxr-vhq. See the documentation of libsamplerate and
speex for explanations of the different src- and speex- methods, re-
spectively. The method trivial is the most basic algorithm implemented.
If you're tight on CPU consider using this. On the other hand it has
the worst quality of them all. The Speex resamplers take an integer
quality setting in the range 0..10 (bad...good). They exist in two
flavours: fixed and float. The former uses fixed point numbers, the
latter relies on floating point numbers. On most desktop CPUs the float
point resampler is a lot faster, and it also offers slightly better
quality. The soxr-family methods are based on libsoxr, a resampler li-
brary from the SoX sound processing utility. The mq variant has the
best performance of the three. The hq is more expensive and, according
to SoX developers, is considered the best choice for audio of up to 16
bits per sample. The vhq variant has more precision than hq and is more
suitable for larger samples. The Soxr resamplers generally offer better
quality at less CPU compared to other resamplers, such as speex. The
downside is that they can add a significant delay to the output (usu-
ally up to around 20 ms, in rare cases more). See the output of dump-
resample-methods for a complete list of all available resamplers. De-
faults to speex-float-1. The --resample-method command line option
takes precedence. Note that some modules overwrite or allow overwriting
of the resampler to use.
avoid-resampling= If set, try to configure the device to avoid resam-
pling. This only works on devices which support reconfiguring their
rate, and when no other streams are already playing or capturing audio.
The device will also not be configured to a rate less than the default
and alternate sample rates.
enable-remixing= If disabled never upmix or downmix channels to differ-
ent channel maps. Instead, do a simple name-based matching only. De-
faults to yes. There is no known valid use case for setting this option
to no, therefore, this option is deprecated and may be removed in a fu-
ture version of PulseAudio.
remixing-use-all-sink-channels= If enabled, use all sink channels when
remixing. Otherwise, remix to the minimal set of sink channels needed
to reproduce all of the source channels. (This has no effect on LFE
remixing.) Defaults to yes.
enable-lfe-remixing= This is a way to set remixing-produce-lfe and
remixing-consume-lfe to the same value at once. This option only exists
for backward compatibility and may be removed in a future version of
PulseAudio.
remixing-produce-lfe= If enabled, and the sink input does not have the
LFE channel, synthesize the output LFE channel as a (lowpass-filtered,
if lfe-crossover-freq is not 0) average of all input channels. Also,
when lfe-crossover-freq is not 0, filter out low frequencies from other
channels while producing a synthetic LFE output. If disabled, the out-
put LFE channel will only get a signal when an input LFE channel is
available as well. Defaults to no.
remixing-consume-lfe= If enabled, and the sink does not have an LFE
channel, redirect the input LFE channel (if any) to other channels. If
disabled, the input LFE channel will remain unused unless the sink has
the LFE channel as well. Defaults to no.
lfe-crossover-freq= The crossover frequency (in Hz) for the LFE filter.
Set it to 0 to disable the LFE filter. Defaults to 0.
use-pid-file= Create a PID file in the runtime directory ($XDG_RUN-
TIME_DIR/pulse/pid). If this is enabled you may use commands like
--kill or --check. If you are planning to start more than one PulseAu-
dio process per user, you better disable this option since it effec-
tively disables multiple instances. Takes a boolean argument, defaults
to yes. The --use-pid-file command line option takes precedence.
cpu-limit= If disabled do not install the CPU load limiter, even on
platforms where it is supported. This option is useful when debug-
ging/profiling PulseAudio to disable disturbing SIGXCPU signals. Takes
a boolean argument, defaults to no. The --no-cpu-limit command line ar-
gument takes precedence.
system-instance= Run the daemon as system-wide instance, requires root
privileges. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to no. The --system com-
mand line argument takes precedence.
local-server-type= Please don't use this option if you don't have to!
This option is currently only useful when you want D-Bus clients to use
a remote server. This option may be removed in future versions. If you
only want to run PulseAudio in the system mode, use the system-instance
option. This option takes one of user, system or none as the argument.
This is essentially a duplicate for the system-instance option. The
difference is the none option, which is useful when you want to use a
remote server with D-Bus clients. If both this and system-instance are
defined, this option takes precedence. Defaults to whatever the system-
instance is set.
enable-shm= Enable data transfer via POSIX or memfd shared memory.
Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --disable-shm command
line argument takes precedence.
enable-memfd=. Enable memfd shared memory. Takes a boolean argument,
defaults to yes.
shm-size-bytes= Sets the shared memory segment size for the daemon, in
bytes. If left unspecified or is set to 0 it will default to some sys-
tem-specific default, usually 64 MiB. Please note that usually there is
no need to change this value, unless you are running an OS kernel that
does not do memory overcommit.
lock-memory= Locks the entire PulseAudio process into memory. While
this might increase drop-out safety when used in conjunction with real-
time scheduling this takes away a lot of memory from other processes
and might hence considerably slow down your system. Defaults to no.
flat-volumes= Enable 'flat' volumes, i.e. where possible let the sink
volume equal the maximum of the volumes of the inputs connected to it.
Takes a boolean argument, defaults to no.
rescue-streams= Enable rescuing of streams if the used sink or source
becomes unavailable. Takes a boolean argument. If set to yes, pulseau-
dio will try to move the streams from a sink or source that becomes un-
available to the default sink or source. If set to no, streams will be
killed if the corresponding sink or source disappears. Defaults to yes.
SCHEDULING
high-priority= Renice the daemon after startup to become a high-prior-
ity process. This a good idea if you experience drop-outs during play-
back. However, this is a certain security issue, since it works when
called SUID root only, or RLIMIT_NICE is used. root is dropped immedi-
ately after gaining the nice level on startup, thus it is presumably
safe. See pulseaudio(1) for more information. Takes a boolean argument,
defaults to yes. The --high-priority command line option takes prece-
dence.
realtime-scheduling= Try to acquire SCHED_FIFO scheduling for the IO
threads. The same security concerns as mentioned above apply. However,
if PA enters an endless loop, realtime scheduling causes a system
lockup. Thus, realtime scheduling should only be enabled on trusted ma-
chines for now. Please note that only the IO threads of PulseAudio are
made real-time. The controlling thread is left a normally scheduled
thread. Thus enabling the high-priority option is orthogonal. See
pulseaudio(1) for more information. Takes a boolean argument, defaults
to yes. The --realtime command line option takes precedence.
realtime-priority= The realtime priority to acquire, if realtime-sched-
uling is enabled. Note: JACK uses 10 by default, 9 for clients. Thus it
is recommended to choose the PulseAudio real-time priorities lower.
Some PulseAudio threads might choose a priority a little lower or
higher than the specified value. Defaults to 5.
nice-level= The nice level to acquire for the daemon, if high-priority
is enabled. Note: on some distributions X11 uses -10 by default. De-
faults to -11.
IDLE TIMES
exit-idle-time= Terminate the daemon after the last client quit and
this time in seconds passed. Use a negative value to disable this fea-
ture. Defaults to 20. The --exit-idle-time command line option takes
precedence.
When PulseAudio runs in the per-user mode and detects a login
session, then any positive value will be reset to 0 so that
PulseAudio will terminate immediately on logout. A positive
value therefore has effect only in environments where there's no
support for login session tracking (or if the user is logged in
without a session spawned, a.k.a. lingering). A negative value
can still be used to disable any automatic exit.
When PulseAudio runs in the system mode, automatic exit is al-
ways disabled, so this option does nothing.
scache-idle-time= Unload autoloaded sample cache entries after being
idle for this time in seconds. Defaults to 20. The --scache-idle-time
command line option takes precedence.
PATHS
dl-search-path= The path where to look for dynamic shared objects
(DSOs/plugins). You may specify more than one path separated by colons.
The default path depends on compile time settings. The --dl-search-path
command line option takes precedence.
default-script-file= The default configuration script file to load.
Specify an empty string for not loading a default script file. The de-
fault behaviour is to load ~/.config/pulse/default.pa, and if that file
does not exist fall back to the system wide installed version
/etc/pulse/default.pa. If run in system-wide mode the file
/etc/pulse/system.pa is used instead. If -n is passed on the command
line or default-script-file= is disabled the default configuration
script is ignored.
load-default-script-file= Load the default configuration script file as
specified in default-script-file=. Defaults to yes.
LOGGING
log-target= The default log target. Use either stderr, syslog, journal
(optional), auto, file:PATH or newfile:PATH. On traditional systems
auto is equivalent to syslog. On systemd-enabled systems, auto is
equivalent to journal, in case daemonize is enabled, and to stderr oth-
erwise. If set to file:PATH, logging is directed to the file indicated
by PATH. newfile:PATH is otherwise the same as file:PATH, but existing
files are never overwritten. If the specified file already exists, a
suffix is added to the file name to avoid overwriting. Defaults to
auto. The --log-target command line option takes precedence.
log-level= Log level, one of debug, info, notice, warning, error. Log
messages with a lower log level than specified here are not logged. De-
faults to notice. The --log-level command line option takes precedence.
The -v command line option might alter this setting.
log-meta= With each logged message log the code location the message
was generated from. Defaults to no.
log-time= With each logged message log the relative time since startup.
Defaults to no.
log-backtrace= When greater than 0, with each logged message log a code
stack trace up the specified number of stack frames. Defaults to 0.
RESOURCE LIMITS
See getrlimit(2) for more information. Set to -1 if PulseAudio shall
not touch the resource limit. Not all resource limits are available on
all operating systems.
rlimit-as Defaults to -1.
rlimit-rss Defaults to -1.
rlimit-core Defaults to -1.
rlimit-data Defaults to -1.
rlimit-fsize Defaults to -1.
rlimit-nofile Defaults to 256.
rlimit-stack Defaults to -1.
rlimit-nproc Defaults to -1.
rlimit-locks Defaults to -1.
rlimit-sigpending Defaults to -1.
rlimit-msgqueue Defaults to -1.
rlimit-memlock Defaults to 16 KiB. Please note that the JACK client li-
braries may require more locked memory.
rlimit-nice Defaults to 31. Please make sure that the default nice
level as configured with nice-level fits in this resource limit, if
high-priority is enabled.
rlimit-rtprio Defaults to 9. Please make sure that the default real-
time priority level as configured with realtime-priority= fits in this
resource limit, if realtime-scheduling is enabled. The JACK client li-
braries require a real-time priority of 9 by default.
rlimit-rttime Defaults to 1000000.
DEFAULT DEVICE SETTINGS
Most drivers try to open the audio device with these settings and then
fall back to lower settings. The default settings are CD quality: 16bit
native endian, 2 channels, 44100 Hz sampling.
default-sample-format= The default sampling format. See
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documenta-
tion/User/SupportedAudioFormats/ for possible values.
default-sample-rate= The default sample frequency.
default-sample-channels The default number of channels.
default-channel-map The default channel map.
alternate-sample-rate The alternate sample frequency. Sinks and sources
will use either the default-sample-rate value or this alternate value,
typically 44.1 or 48kHz. Switching between default and alternate values
is enabled only when the sinks/sources are suspended. This option is
ignored in passthrough mode where the stream rate will be used. If set
to the same value as the default sample rate, this feature is disabled.
DEFAULT FRAGMENT SETTINGS
Some hardware drivers require the hardware playback buffer to be subdi-
vided into several fragments. It is possible to change these buffer
metrics for machines with high scheduling latencies. Not all possible
values that may be configured here are available in all hardware. The
driver will find the nearest setting supported. Modern drivers that
support timer-based scheduling ignore these options.
default-fragments= The default number of fragments. Defaults to 4.
default-fragment-size-msec=The duration of a single fragment. Defaults
to 25ms (i.e. the total buffer is thus 100ms long).
DEFAULT DEFERRED VOLUME SETTINGS
With the flat volume feature enabled, the sink HW volume is set to the
same level as the highest volume input stream. Any other streams (with
lower volumes) have the appropriate adjustment applied in SW to bring
them to the correct overall level. Sadly hardware mixer changes cannot
be timed accurately and thus this change of volumes can sometimes cause
the resulting output sound to be momentarily too loud or too soft. So
to ensure SW and HW volumes are applied concurrently without any
glitches, their application needs to be synchronized. The sink imple-
mentation needs to support deferred volumes. The following parameters
can be used to refine the process.
enable-deferred-volume= Enable deferred volume for the sinks that sup-
port it. This feature is enabled by default.
deferred-volume-safety-margin-usec= The amount of time (in usec) by
which the HW volume increases are delayed and HW volume decreases are
advanced. Defaults to 8000 usec.
deferred-volume-extra-delay-usec= The amount of time (in usec) by which
HW volume changes are delayed. Negative values are also allowed. De-
faults to 0.
AUTHORS
The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists (dot)
freedesktop (dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from http://pulseau-
dio.org/
SEE ALSO
pulse-client.conf(5), default.pa(5), pulseaudio(1), pacmd(1)
Manuals User pulse-daemon.conf(5)
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