@(#)CDDB 6.2 98/10/15 CD DATABASE SERVERS ------------------- Xmcd and cda supports CDDB(tm), a very large (and rapidly growing) Internet database of CD information. The CDDB concept was pioneered by xmcd and is now embraced as a standard by many other CD and music-related applications. With CDDB, you do not have to type in the artist, disc title, track titles and other disc information for the CDs in your collection. Xmcd and cda automatically queries the public CDDB servers, and if the query is successful, the information is displayed. CDDB access is free of charge, but you can use this feature only if your system is connected to the Internet, either via a dial-up link or a dedicated connection. Xmcd/cda can connect to the public servers via either CDDBP (CD database protocol) or HTTP (Hypertext transport protocol). CDDBP is the native protocol of the CD database servers, and HTTP is what is used for web browsing. To check whether you can reach the CDDB servers using either CDDBP or HTTP, use the following procedure: 1. Testing for CDDBP connectivity Type the following command at your UNIX shell prompt: telnet cddb.cddb.com 8880 If you see a sign-on banner similar to the following then all is well: 201 www CDDBP server v1.4.1b2PL0 ready at Wed Oct 14 09:48:33 1998 Type "quit" to disconnect from the server. You can access CD database servers via the CDDBP protocol. 2. Testing for HTTP connectivity Use your web browser and go to the following URL: http://cddb.cddb.com/~cddb/cddb.cgi If you can reach this site successfully, then you can access CD database servers in the HTTP mode (don't worry about the "command syntax error" message). There are more CDDB servers supporting CDDBP than those supporting HTTP. However, your network may have a firewall that allows only HTTP access. When setting up xmcd, you will be asked to choose which protocol to use, and whether to use a HTTP proxy server. The recommended configuration is to make xmcd/cda search your local CD database for a match first (when a CD is inserted), and if a match is not found, then query the remote server. The order of the search is determined by the "cddbPath" parameter which is set in the XMCDLIB/config/common.cfg file. When you install xmcd (using "make install" or "install.sh"), you will be asked whether remote CD database servers are to be used, and select from a list of servers. That will set up the default cddbPath parameter for you. Each user can override the default cddbPath settings in their own $HOME/.xmcdcfg/common.cfg file. The XMCDLIB/config/common.cfg file contains comments about the syntax of the cddbPath parameter, should you wish to change the default configuration or set up your own private settings. You may save the information that is queried from the Internet CDDB servers to your local database. Just click the "Save" button. Alternatively, if you set the cddbRemoteAutoSave parameter to True in your common.cfg file, then xmcd/cda will automatically save remotely- queried entries to your local database. Once saved, the next time you load the same CD, xmcd/cda will no longer need to access the Internet CDDB servers to obtain the disc information. If the Internet CDDB servers do not have the information for some of your CDs, you are encouraged to enter the information, and then submit it to the master database for others to share. To do so, completely fill out the artist / disc title and track titles in the CDDB/Program subwindow. You are also encouraged to type in other interesting data in the extended disc information and extended track information areas. Once done, click on the "Save" button to save it to your local database. Choose an appropriate music category for the CD, and then click the "Send" button to submit the entry to the master CDDB. Using xmcd's wwwWarp feature, you may go directly to the CDDB web site at http://www.cddb.com/ for more information. You may also use the CDDB search engine at this site to perform keyword searches on the entire database. E-mail regarding the CD database itself, as well as the CDDB servers should be directed to "cddb-support@cddb.com".