pipewire(1)

NAME
pipewire - The PipeWire media server

SYNOPSIS

pipewire [options]

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_TIMESTAMP
    Logging timestamp type: "local", "monotonic", "realtime", "none". Default "local".

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>

SEE ALSO

pw-top(1), pw-dump(1), pw-mon(1), pw-cat(1), pw-cli(1), libpipewire-modules(7)