pipewire - Man Page

The PipeWire media server

Examples (TL;DR)

Start the PipeWire daemon: pipewire
Use a different configuration file: pipewire --config path/to/file.conf
Set the verbosity level (error, warn, info, debug or trace): pipewire -v|vv|...|vvvvv
Display help: pipewire --help

tldr.sh

Description

PipeWire is a service that facilitates sharing of multimedia content between devices and applications.

The pipewire daemon reads a config file that is further documented in pipewire.conf(5) manual page.

Options

-h | --help: Show help.
-v | --verbose: Increase the verbosity by one level. This option may be specified multiple times.
--version: Show version information.
-c | --config=FILE: Load the given config file (Default: pipewire.conf).
-P | --properties=PROPS: Add the given properties as a SPA JSON object to the context.

Runtime Settings

A PipeWire daemon will also expose a settings metadata object that can be used to change some settings at runtime.

Normally these settings can bypass any of the restrictions listed in the config options above, such as quantum and samplerate values.

The settings can be modified using pw-metadata(1):

pw-metadata -n settings                  # list settings
pw-metadata -n settings 0                # list server settings
pw-metadata -n settings 0 log.level 2    # modify a server setting

log.level = INTEGER

Change the log level of the PipeWire daemon.

clock.rate = INTEGER

The default samplerate.

clock.allowed-rates = [ RATE1 RATE2... ]

The allowed samplerates.

clock.force-rate = INTEGER

Temporarily forces the graph to operate in a fixed sample rate. Both DSP processing and devices will switch to the new rate immediately. Running streams (PulseAudio, native and ALSA applications) will automatically resample to match the new rate.

Set the value to 0 to allow the sample rate to vary again.

clock.quantum = INTEGER

The default quantum (buffer size).

clock.min-quantum = INTEGER

Smallest quantum to be used.

clock.max-quantum = INTEGER

Largest quantum to be used.

clock.force-quantum = INTEGER

Temporarily force the graph to operate in a fixed quantum.

Set the value to 0 to allow the quantum to vary again.

Environment Variables

Socket directories

PIPEWIRE_RUNTIME_DIR

XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

USERPROFILE: Used to find the PipeWire socket on the server (and native clients).
PIPEWIRE_CORE: Name of the socket to make.
PIPEWIRE_REMOTE: Name of the socket to connect to.
PIPEWIRE_DAEMON: If set to true then the process becomes a new PipeWire server.

Config directories, config file name and prefix

PIPEWIRE_CONFIG_DIR

XDG_CONFIG_HOME

HOME: Used to find the config file directories.

PIPEWIRE_CONFIG_PREFIX

PIPEWIRE_CONFIG_NAME: Used to override the application provided config prefix and config name.
PIPEWIRE_NO_CONFIG: Enables (false) or disables (true) overriding on the default configuration.

Context information

As part of a client context, the following information is collected from environment variables and placed in the context properties:

LANG: The current language in application.language.
XDG_SESSION_ID: Set as the application.process.session-id property.
DISPLAY: Is set as the window.x11.display property.

Modules

PIPEWIRE_MODULE_DIR: Sets the directory where to find PipeWire modules.
SPA_SUPPORT_LIB: The name of the SPA support lib to load. This can be used to switch to an alternative support library, for example, to run on the EVL realtime kernel.

Logging options

JOURNAL_STREAM: Is used to parse the stream used for the journal. This is usually configured by systemd.
PIPEWIRE_LOG_LINE: Enables the logging of line numbers. Default true.
PIPEWIRE_LOG: Specifies a log file to use instead of the default logger.
PIPEWIRE_LOG_SYSTEMD: Enables the use of systemd for the logger, default true.

Other settings

PIPEWIRE_CPU: Selects the CPU and flags. This is a bitmask of any of the CPU flags
PIPEWIRE_VM: Selects the Virtual Machine PipeWire is running on. This can be any of the VM types.
DISABLE_RTKIT: Disables the use of RTKit or the Realtime Portal for realtime scheduling.
NO_COLOR: Disables the use of colors in the console output.

Debugging options

PIPEWIRE_DLCLOSE: Enables (true) or disables (false) the use of dlclose when a shared library is no longer in use. When debugging, it might make sense to disable dlclose to be able to get debugging symbols from the object.

Stream options

PIPEWIRE_NODE: Makes a stream connect to a specific object.serial or node.name.
PIPEWIRE_PROPS: Adds extra properties to a stream or filter.
PIPEWIRE_QUANTUM: Forces a specific rate and buffer-size for the stream or filter.
PIPEWIRE_LATENCY: Sets a specific latency for a stream or filter. This is only a suggestion but the configured latency will not be larger.
PIPEWIRE_RATE: Sets a rate for a stream or filter. This is only a suggestion. The rate will be switched when the graph is idle.
PIPEWIRE_AUTOCONNECT: Overrides the default stream autoconnect settings.

Plugin options

SPA_PLUGIN_DIR: Is used to locate SPA plugins.
SPA_DATA_DIR: Is used to locate plugin specific config files. This is used by the bluetooth plugin currently to locate the quirks database.
SPA_DEBUG: Set the log level for SPA plugins. This is usually controlled by the PIPEWIRE_DEBUG variable when the plugins are managed by PipeWire but some standalone tools (like spa-inspect) uses this variable.
ACP_BUILDDIR: If set, the ACP profiles are loaded from the builddir.

ACP_PATHS_DIR

ACP_PROFILES_DIR: Used to locate the ACP paths and profile directories respectively.
LADSPA_PATH: Comma separated list of directories where the ladspa plugins can be found.
LIBJACK_PATH: Directory where the jack1 or jack2 libjack.so can be found.

Authors

The PipeWire Developers <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/issues>; PipeWire is available from <https://pipewire.org>