pulse-daemon.conf(5) (User) pulse-daemon.conf(5)
NAME
pulse-daemon.conf - PulseAudio daemon configuration file
SYNOPSIS
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
DESCRIPTION
The PulseAudio sound server reads configuration directives
from a configuration file on startup. If the per-user file
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf exists, it is used, otherwise
the system configuration file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf is
used. In addition to those main files, configuration
directives can also be put in files under directories
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf.d/ and
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf.d/. Those files have to have the
.conf file name extension, but otherwise the file names can
be chosen freely. The files under daemon.conf.d are
processed in alphabetical order. In case the same option is
set in multiple files, the last file to set an option
overrides earlier files. The main daemon.conf file is
processed first, so options set in files under daemon.conf.d
override the main file.
Please note that the server also reads a configuration
script on startup. See default.pa(5).
The configuration file is a simple collection of variable
declarations. If the configuration file parser encounters
either ; or # it ignores the rest of the line until its end.
For the settings that take a boolean argument the values
true, yes, on and 1 are equivalent, resp. false, no, off, 0.
GENERAL DIRECTIVES
defaults to no. The --daemonize command line option takes
precedence.
daemonize= Daemonize after startup. Takes a boolean value,
configuration script default.pa fail. Takes a boolean argument,
defaults to yes. The --fail command line option takes precedence.
fail= Fail to start up if any of the directives in the
startup. This is a security feature that if disabled makes sure
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that no further modules may be loaded into the PulseAudio server
after startup completed. It is recommended to disable this when
system-instance is enabled. Please note that certain features
like automatic hot-plug support will not work if this option is
enabled. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --
disallow-module-loading command line option takes precedence.
allow-module-loading= Allow/disallow module loading after
allow-
exit= Allow/disallow exit on user request. Defaults to yes.
src-sinc-best-quality, src-sinc-medium-quality, src-sinc-fastest,
src-zero-order-hold, src-linear, trivial, speex-float-N, speex-
fixed-N, ffmpeg, soxr-mq, soxr-hq, soxr-vhq. See the
documentation of libsamplerate and speex for explanations of the
different src- and speex- methods, respectively. The method
trivial is the most basic algorithm implemented. If you're tight
on CPU consider using this. On the other hand it has the worst
quality of them all. The Speex resamplers take an integer quality
setting in the range 0..10 (bad...good). They exist in two
flavours: fixed and float. The former uses fixed point numbers,
the latter relies on floating point numbers. On most desktop CPUs
the float point resampler is a lot faster, and it also offers
slightly better quality. The soxr-family methods are based on
libsoxr, a resampler library from the SoX sound processing
utility. The mq variant has the best performance of the three.
The hq is more expensive and, according to SoX developers, is
considered the best choice for audio of up to 16 bits per sample.
The vhq variant has more precision than hq and is more suitable
for larger samples. The Soxr resamplers generally offer better
quality at less CPU compared to other resamplers, such as speex.
The downside is that they can add a significant delay to the
output (usually up to around 20 ms, in rare cases more). See the
output of dump-resample-methods for a complete list of all
available resamplers. Defaults to speex-float-1. The --resample-
method command line option takes precedence. Note that some
modules overwrite or allow overwriting of the resampler to use.
resample-method= The resampling algorithm to use. Use one of
resampling. This only works on devices which support
reconfiguring their rate, and when no other streams are already
playing or capturing audio. The device will also not be
configured to a rate less than the default and alternate sample
rates.
avoid-
resampling= If set, try to configure the device to avoid
different channel maps. Instead, do a simple name-based matching
only. Defaults to yes. There is no known valid use case for
setting this option to no, therefore, this option is deprecated
and may be removed in a future version of PulseAudio.
enable-
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remixing= If disabled never upmix or downmix channels to
when remixing. Otherwise, remix to the minimal set of sink
channels needed to reproduce all of the source channels. (This
has no effect on LFE remixing.) Defaults to yes.
remixing-use-all-sink-
channels= If enabled, use all sink channels
and remixing-consume-lfe to the same value at once. This option
only exists for backward compatibility and may be removed in a
future version of PulseAudio.
enable-lfe-remixing= This is a way to set remixing-produce-
lfe
have the LFE channel, synthesize the output LFE channel as a
(lowpass-filtered, if lfe-crossover-freq is not 0) average of all
input channels. Also, when lfe-crossover-freq is not 0, filter
out low frequencies from other channels while producing a
synthetic LFE output. If disabled, the output LFE channel will
only get a signal when an input LFE channel is available as well.
Defaults to no.
remixing-produce-
lfe= If enabled, and the sink input does not
LFE channel, redirect the input LFE channel (if any) to other
channels. If disabled, the input LFE channel will remain unused
unless the sink has the LFE channel as well. Defaults to no.
remixing-consume-
lfe= If enabled, and the sink does not have an
filter. Set it to 0 to disable the LFE filter. Defaults to 0.
lfe-crossover-
freq= The crossover frequency (in Hz) for the LFE
($XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/pulse/pid). If this is enabled you may use
commands like --kill or --check. If you are planning to start
more than one PulseAudio process per user, you better disable
this option since it effectively disables multiple instances.
Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --use-pid-file
command line option takes precedence.
use-pid-file= Create a PID file in the runtime directory
on platforms where it is supported. This option is useful when
debugging/profiling PulseAudio to disable disturbing SIGXCPU
signals. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to no. The --no-cpu-
limit command line argument takes precedence.
cpu-
limit= If disabled do not install the CPU load limiter, even
root privileges. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to no. The
--system command line argument takes precedence.
system-instance= Run the daemon as system-
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wide instance, requires
to! This option is currently only useful when you want D-Bus
clients to use a remote server. This option may be removed in
future versions. If you only want to run PulseAudio in the system
mode, use the system-instance option. This option takes one of
user, system or none as the argument. This is essentially a
duplicate for the system-instance option. The difference is the
none option, which is useful when you want to use a remote server
with D-Bus clients. If both this and system-instance are defined,
this option takes precedence. Defaults to whatever the system-
instance is set.
local-server-
type= Please don't use this option if you don't have
memory. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --
disable-shm command line argument takes precedence.
enable-shm= Enable data transfer via POSIX or memfd shared
argument, defaults to yes.
enable-memfd=. Enable memfd shared memory. Takes a boolean
daemon, in bytes. If left unspecified or is set to 0 it will
default to some system-specific default, usually 64 MiB. Please
note that usually there is no need to change this value, unless
you are running an OS kernel that does not do memory overcommit.
shm-size-bytes= Sets the shared memory segment size for the
While this might increase drop-out safety when used in
conjunction with real-time scheduling this takes away a lot of
memory from other processes and might hence considerably slow
down your system. Defaults to no.
lock-
memory= Locks the entire PulseAudio process into memory.
sink volume equal the maximum of the volumes of the inputs
connected to it. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to no.
flat-
volumes= Enable 'flat' volumes, i.e. where possible let the
source becomes unavailable. Takes a boolean argument. If set to
yes, pulseaudio will try to move the streams from a sink or
source that becomes unavailable to the default sink or source. If
set to no, streams will be killed if the corresponding sink or
source disappears. Defaults to yes.
rescue-
streams= Enable rescuing of streams if the used sink or
SCHEDULING
priority process. This a good idea if you experience drop-outs
during playback. However, this is a certain security issue, since
it works when called SUID root only, or RLIMIT_NICE is used. root
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is dropped immediately after gaining the nice level on startup,
thus it is presumably safe. See pulseaudio(1) for more
information. Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --
high-priority command line option takes precedence.
high-
priority= Renice the daemon after startup to become a high-
IO threads. The same security concerns as mentioned above apply.
However, if PA enters an endless loop, realtime scheduling causes
a system lockup. Thus, realtime scheduling should only be enabled
on trusted machines for now. Please note that only the IO threads
of PulseAudio are made real-time. The controlling thread is left
a normally scheduled thread. Thus enabling the high-priority
option is orthogonal. See pulseaudio(1) for more information.
Takes a boolean argument, defaults to yes. The --realtime command
line option takes precedence.
realtime-
scheduling= Try to acquire SCHED_FIFO scheduling for the
realtime-scheduling is enabled. Note: JACK uses 10 by default, 9
for clients. Thus it is recommended to choose the PulseAudio
real-time priorities lower. Some PulseAudio threads might choose
a priority a little lower or higher than the specified value.
Defaults to 5.
realtime-priority= The realtime priority to acquire, if
priority is enabled. Note: on some distributions X11 uses -10 by
default. Defaults to -11.
nice-
level= The nice level to acquire for the daemon, if high-
IDLE TIMES
and this time in seconds passed. Use a negative value to disable
this feature. Defaults to 20. The --exit-idle-time command line
option takes precedence.
exit-idle-
time= Terminate the daemon after the last client quit
When PulseAudio runs in the per-user mode and detects a
login session, then any positive value will be reset to
0 so that PulseAudio will terminate immediately on
logout. A positive value therefore has effect only in
environments where there's no support for login session
tracking (or if the user is logged in without a session
spawned, a.k.a. lingering). A negative value can still
be used to disable any automatic exit.
When PulseAudio runs in the system mode, automatic exit
is always disabled, so this option does nothing.
being idle for this time in seconds. Defaults to 20. The --
scache-idle-time command line option takes precedence.
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scache-idle-
time= Unload autoloaded sample cache entries after
PATHS
(DSOs/plugins). You may specify more than one path separated by
colons. The default path depends on compile time settings. The
--dl-search-path command line option takes precedence.
dl-search-
path= The path where to look for dynamic shared objects
load. Specify an empty string for not loading a default script
file. The default behaviour is to load
~/.config/pulse/default.pa, and if that file does not exist fall
back to the system wide installed version /etc/pulse/default.pa.
If run in system-wide mode the file /etc/pulse/system.pa is used
instead. If -n is passed on the command line or default-script-
file= is disabled the default configuration script is ignored.
default-script-
file= The default configuration script file to
file as specified in default-script-file=. Defaults to yes.
load-default-script-
file= Load the default configuration script
LOGGING
journal (optional), auto, file:PATH or newfile:PATH. On
traditional systems auto is equivalent to syslog. On systemd-
enabled systems, auto is equivalent to journal, in case daemonize
is enabled, and to stderr otherwise. If set to file:PATH, logging
is directed to the file indicated by PATH. newfile:PATH is
otherwise the same as file:PATH, but existing files are never
overwritten. If the specified file already exists, a suffix is
added to the file name to avoid overwriting. Defaults to auto.
The --log-target command line option takes precedence.
log-
target= The default log target. Use either stderr, syslog,
Log messages with a lower log level than specified here are not
logged. Defaults to notice. The --log-level command line option
takes precedence. The -v command line option might alter this
setting.
log-
level= Log level, one of debug, info, notice, warning, error.
message was generated from. Defaults to no.
log-meta= With each logged message log the code location the
startup. Defaults to no.
log-
time= With each logged message log the relative time since
a code stack trace up the specified number of stack frames.
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Defaults to 0.
log-
backtrace= When greater than 0, with each logged message log
RESOURCE LIMITS
See getrlimit(2) for more information. Set to -1 if
PulseAudio shall not touch the resource limit. Not all
resource limits are available on all operating systems.
rlimit-as Defaults to -1.
rlimit-rss Defaults to -1.
rlimit-core Defaults to -1.
rlimit-data Defaults to -1.
rlimit-fsize Defaults to -1.
rlimit-nofile Defaults to 256.
rlimit-stack Defaults to -1.
rlimit-nproc Defaults to -1.
rlimit-locks Defaults to -1.
rlimit-sigpending Defaults to -1.
rlimit-msgqueue Defaults to -1.
client libraries may require more locked memory.
rlimit-memlock Defaults to 16 KiB. Please note that the JACK
nice level as configured with nice-level fits in this resource
limit, if high-priority is enabled.
rlimit-
nice Defaults to 31. Please make sure that the default
real-time priority level as configured with realtime-priority=
fits in this resource limit, if realtime-scheduling is enabled.
The JACK client libraries require a real-time priority of 9 by
default.
rlimit-
rtprio Defaults to 9. Please make sure that the default
rlimit-rttime Defaults to 1000000.
DEFAULT DEVICE SETTINGS
Most drivers try to open the audio device with these
settings and then fall back to lower settings. The default
settings are CD quality: 16bit native endian, 2 channels,
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44100 Hz sampling.
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/SupportedAudioFormats/
for possible values.
default-sample-format= The default sampling format. See
default-sample-rate= The default sample frequency.
default-sample-channels The default number of channels.
default-channel-map The default channel map.
sources will use either the default-sample-rate value or this
alternate value, typically 44.1 or 48kHz. Switching between
default and alternate values is enabled only when the
sinks/sources are suspended. This option is ignored in
passthrough mode where the stream rate will be used. If set to
the same value as the default sample rate, this feature is
disabled.
alternate-sample-
rate The alternate sample frequency. Sinks and
DEFAULT FRAGMENT SETTINGS
Some hardware drivers require the hardware playback buffer
to be subdivided into several fragments. It is possible to
change these buffer metrics for machines with high
scheduling latencies. Not all possible values that may be
configured here are available in all hardware. The driver
will find the nearest setting supported. Modern drivers that
support timer-based scheduling ignore these options.
4.
default-
fragments= The default number of fragments. Defaults to
Defaults to 25ms (i.e. the total buffer is thus 100ms long).
default-fragment-size-
msec=The duration of a single fragment.
DEFAULT DEFERRED VOLUME SETTINGS
With the flat volume feature enabled, the sink HW volume is
set to the same level as the highest volume input stream.
Any other streams (with lower volumes) have the appropriate
adjustment applied in SW to bring them to the correct
overall level. Sadly hardware mixer changes cannot be timed
accurately and thus this change of volumes can sometimes
cause the resulting output sound to be momentarily too loud
or too soft. So to ensure SW and HW volumes are applied
concurrently without any glitches, their application needs
to be synchronized. The sink implementation needs to support
deferred volumes. The following parameters can be used to
refine the process.
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support it. This feature is enabled by default.
enable-deferred-
volume= Enable deferred volume for the sinks that
by which the HW volume increases are delayed and HW volume
decreases are advanced. Defaults to 8000 usec.
deferred-volume-safety-margin-
usec= The amount of time (in usec)
which HW volume changes are delayed. Negative values are also
allowed. Defaults to 0.
deferred-volume-extra-delay-
usec= The amount of time (in usec) by
AUTHORS
The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists
(dot) freedesktop (dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from
http://pulseaudio.org/
SEE ALSO
pulse-client.conf(5), default.pa(5), pulseaudio(1), pacmd(1)
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