[nas] `nasd -v -d 99 -aa` under FreeBSD -current gives "Output open(/dev/dsp) failed: No such file"

[Tillman Hodgson]

Howdy folks,

I'm trying to set up nasd to serve audio to an NCD 451 an an IBM Network
Station 1000. The X clients (using X's backwards terminology) is a
generic AMD box running FreeBSD -current (which these days is still
fairly closely related to 5.3-RELEASE).

# nasd -v -d 99 -aa
@(#)Network Audio System Release 1.7
@(#)Network Audio System Release 1.7
AuInitPhysicalDevices();
Init: will close device when finished with stream.
Init: will initialize mixer device options.
openDevice OUT /dev/dsp mode 2
Output open(/dev/dsp) failed: No such file or directory
Fatal server error:
could not create audio connection block info

That makes sense to me: I don't have a /dev/dsp (or a /dev/audio or
anythng ...). You see, I don't have a sound card in the server -- it's
sitting headless in a server room (hooked up to a serial terminal
server).

My goal is to have the thin clients log in to it via XDMCP (which
they're been doing fine for a year now) and run apps that generate audio
streams (like /usr/ports/audio/mpg123 with HAVE_NAS=yes enabled). Those
audio streams would then be sent across to the network to the NAS
clients on the thin clients.

That's my theory, anyway. I was somewhat surprised to see that nasd
wanted an audio device to exist on the server end ... that seemed
somewhat counter to my idea of what it's purpose was. And FreeBSD
-current uses devfs[1], which only creates entries in /dev if the
hardware exists to require said entry.

Am I going about this the right way? Are there any workarounds for cases
where audio hardware (and /dev entries) don't exist on the server end?

-T


1. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=devfs&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.3-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=html



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