UPnP / DLNA

Three independent UPnP/DLNA modes — sink, media server and renderer.

Rockbox has three UPnP/DLNA modes that can be enabled independently. They combine freely: e.g. expose your library to BubbleUPnP and stream live to Kodi at the same time.

Mode 1 — PCM sink (push to a renderer)

Rockbox encodes live PCM as a continuous WAV-over-HTTP stream and tells a UPnP MediaRenderer to play it via AVTransport SOAP.

music_dir         = "/path/to/Music"
audio_output      = "upnp"
upnp_renderer_url = "http://192.168.1.x:7777/AVTransport/control"
upnp_http_port    = 7879   # WAV broadcast HTTP port (default 7879)

Track metadata (title, artist, album, album art, duration) is sent as DIDL-Lite XML in SetAVTransportURI and refreshed on every track change.

Finding upnp_renderer_url: start rockboxd with RUST_LOG=info — it scans the LAN at startup and logs upnp scan: found renderer "<name>" av=http://... for every renderer found.

Mode 2 — Media Server (let others browse your library)

Exposes your music library as a UPnP ContentDirectory. BubbleUPnP, Kodi, VLC, foobar2000 and the like can browse artists / albums / tracks and pull audio directly from Rockbox.

upnp_server_enabled = true
upnp_server_port    = 7878         # default
upnp_friendly_name  = "Rockbox"    # name shown in apps

Mode 3 — MediaRenderer (let others push to you)

Rockbox registers as a MediaRenderer:1. Any control point can push a URI and control playback remotely. Incoming DIDL-Lite metadata is parsed and displayed in the UI.

upnp_renderer_enabled = true
upnp_renderer_port    = 7880        # default
upnp_friendly_name    = "Rockbox"

All UPnP keys

Key	Default	Description
audio_output = "upnp"	—	Enable the PCM → WAV streaming sink
upnp_renderer_url	—	AVTransport controlURL of the target renderer
upnp_http_port	7879	WAV broadcast HTTP port
upnp_server_enabled	false	Start the ContentDirectory media server
upnp_server_port	7878	Media server HTTP port
upnp_renderer_enabled	false	Start the MediaRenderer endpoint
upnp_renderer_port	7880	MediaRenderer HTTP port
upnp_friendly_name	"Rockbox"	Display name shown to control points

Typical setups

Stream to Kodi (sink mode)

Find Kodi’s AVTransport URL with RUST_LOG=info rockboxd, then:

audio_output      = "upnp"
upnp_renderer_url = "http://192.168.1.42:7777/AVTransport/control"

Library on the LAN (server mode)

audio_output         = "builtin"
upnp_server_enabled  = true
upnp_friendly_name   = "Living-room music"

Phone control (renderer mode)

audio_output           = "builtin"
upnp_renderer_enabled  = true
upnp_friendly_name     = "Rockbox"

Now BubbleUPnP can pick “Rockbox” as the playback target.