Senta Playlist - User Guide

👋 About the Program

Senta Playlist (SP) is a convenient solution for managing media resources: radio, internet TV, and streams.

📺🗂️ SP allows you to organize channels by themes and packages. You can create individual playlists for each user.

📜 Table of Contents

• Installation and Setup
  • 💾 How to Download?
  • 🚪 First Launch
    • Linux
    • Windows
  • 🔑 Admin Configuration
• Channel Organization
  • 📺 Channels
  • 🎨📺 Channel Groups
  • 📦📺 Channel Packages
  • 🏠📡 Viewers
• 🔐 Middleware for Astra
• 🔎📊 Moderation and Monitoring
  • 📤 Playlist Export
  • 📈 User Statistics
    • Device Limit

Installation and Setup

💾 How to Download?

SP is currently available for Windows and Linux. You can also download an archive containing both versions.

SP is a standalone file. It only needs to save data in the same folder where it is located.

🚪 First Launch

Linux

$ ./senta-playlist

Windows

./senta-playlist.exe

💡 On Windows, you can double-click the .exe file. The Windows firewall may ask if you allow Senta Playlist to send and receive data.

ℹ️ During the first launch, the program will perform some preparatory steps, so it might take longer than usual.

Once you see the message in the console:

Senta Playlist is listening on port :3000

open the link http://localhost:3000 in your browser. If everything is set up successfully, you will see the Senta Playlist start page 🎉🎉🎉.

💡 To see the available launch parameters, run:

./senta-playlist --help

💡 You can change the Senta Playlist port using the command:

./senta-playlist --port 3001

🔑 Admin Configuration

After registering an account, you will be prompted to configure Senta Playlist.

⚠️ First, you need to enter the license key in the appropriate field and apply the settings.

Without a license, Senta Playlist will not function.

Next, configure the method of delivering channel icons to users. You can use Senta Playlist's resources or distribute original icons through external CDNs, such as Imgur.

Important! If you choose to use Senta Playlist as the icon server, specify the address through which your clients can access Senta Playlist. Alternatively, you can set up a reverse proxy to redirect requests to SP. In this case, provide the proxy address.

Channel Organization

📺 Channels

The easiest way to add channels is to upload an .m3u8 playlist downloaded from Astra Cesbo.

You can also create a channel manually using a dedicated form.

To organize channels, we offer two categories: groups and packages.

Channels are grouped by themes, and groups are combined into packages. A package is a set of channels provided to viewers (e.g., through a subscription plan).

🎨📺 Channel Groups

You can create a new group on the respective screen by clicking the Add Group button. Enter the name and select channels for this group. Click Save, and the group will be created!

💡 A channel can belong to multiple groups.

📦📺 Channel Packages

Creating a package is similar to creating a group. On the Packages screen, click Add Package, enter the name, and select groups for this package. Click Save. Done!

💡 A group can belong to multiple packages.

🏠📡 Viewers

On the Users page, you can create clients and assign them channel packages.

🔐 Middleware for Astra

When configuring Astra Cesbo, you can specify Senta Playlist as a middleware for verifying viewers' access to channels:

Service URL for verification:

GET %Path from Astra Cesbo to Senta Playlist%/astra/tokens/verifications

_For example:_
GET http://localhost:3000/astra/tokens/verifications

ℹ️ Important! To configure the path from Astra Cesbo to Senta Playlist, Astra Cesbo must be able to send API requests to Senta Playlist. The requests can be made either via the internet or a local network—what matters is the ability to communicate.

🔎📊 Moderation and Monitoring

Once you've organized the playlist, you can download it and share it with clients.

During use, Astra Cesbo will verify with Senta Playlist whether the user is allowed to watch the channel. For instance, it will check if the device limit for the user is met.

You can view channel-opening statistics on the corresponding screen.

📤 Playlist Export

After creating a user and organizing channels, you can download the playlist file to your computer and share it with users.

There are two ways to download the playlist:

1. Click the download button in the user list:
2. Use the viewer editing screen:

📈 User Statistics

As viewers watch channels from the playlist, Senta Playlist collects usage statistics. Based on this data, the number of devices used by a viewer is checked.

Device Limit

Viewers' requests to open a channel will be allowed if:

The number of unique IP addresses within 24 hours does not exceed the device limit for that viewer and denied otherwise.