Pianobar command-line Pandora client
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Pianobar command-line Pandora client
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#2Should probably have linked directly to the github repo https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#3Love pianobar! Use it daily.
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#4I like and use it, but it's based on reverse-engineering Pandora's encryption keys, so every once in awhile (when Pandora changes the keys), it breaks the client, which is annoying.
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#5I use it as well, and have been meaning to dig into the code to setup automatic login and playing. I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. But I would gladly listen to the pandora ads on it since it runs with SO MUCH LESS memory and CPU than any other player.
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#6I use it as well, and have been meaning to dig into the code to setup automatic login and playing. I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. But I would gladly listen to the pandora ads on it since it runs with SO MUCH LESS memory and CPU than any other player.
Make a config file: ~/.config/pianobar/config that looks like this:
user = me@example.com
password = mypassword
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#7Interesting. As gilesc points out, this is only possible by reverse-engineering (i.e. decompiling) the Flash client to get the encryption and decryption keys (crypt_key_input.h and crypt_key_output.h [1]). It's actually pretty easy to do this--I did the same thing a few years ago as a weekend project. So why didn't I release it? Well, IANAL, but I think there are potential legal repercussions to this kind of reverse-engineering.
And, as gilesc also points out, Pandora regularly changes their encryption keys, which makes maintaining this kind of software kind of obnoxious. (The solution to that problem, I think, is to make the software download and parse the .swf file on startup or just on failure to yank out those fresh encryption keys itself, but I never tried it.)
I just cringe a bit when I see these sorts of apps, not because I think they shouldn't exist (seriously, Pandora, just release a goddamn API), but because I'm just picturing the lawsuit hammer coming down on the well-intentioned developers who are just Pandora fans.
Regardless, I applaud PromyLOPh's work and am keeping my fingers crossed for his continued lack of legal fees.
[1]: https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/tree/master/src/libpia...
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#8Damn, I love this site! It's even in FreeBSD's ports -- how awesome is that? Kudos to the developer!
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#9its worth mentioning that mac homebrew already has a formula for installing this, and it builds and runs without a hitch.
Re: Pianobar command-line Pandora client
#10In a similar vein, shell-fm[1] is a command line client for last.fm streaming. Supports remote control, too (IIRC it uses a socket whereas pianobar uses a named pipe).