Ubuntu → Spotify Connect speaker (ALSA-only, headless)

Goal

Turn an Ubuntu box into a Spotify Connect target named Apartment Jam using ALSA only.

What this does

• Builds librespot with alsa-backend and libmdns
• Pins audio to plughw:0,0
• Runs as system user spotify
• Advertises over mDNS and opens firewall
• Persists creds under /var/lib/librespot

Install

# download and run the installer
curl -fsSL https://example.com/librespot_alsa_install.sh -o /tmp/librespot_alsa_install.sh
sudo bash /tmp/librespot_alsa_install.sh

One-time OAuth on a headless box

On the server:

sudo -u spotify /usr/local/bin/librespot \
  -n "Apartment Jam" -B alsa -d plughw:0,0 -b 160 -R 75 -E log \
  -i $(hostname -I | awk '{print $1}') -z 8765 -C /var/lib/librespot -K 8888 -j

Leave that running. From your laptop:

ssh -L 8888:127.0.0.1:8888 cobra@SERVER_LAN_IP
# open the printed Spotify URL, finish login, wait for "Logged in"

Then:

sudo systemctl restart librespot

Connect from phone

Same Wi-Fi → play a track → device icon → Apartment Jam.

Quick ops

journalctl -u librespot -f
sudo systemctl restart librespot
avahi-browse -rt _spotify-connect._tcp | grep "Apartment Jam"

Notes

• If the device never appears, disable AP “client isolation” and allow UDP 5353.
• To update:

cargo install librespot --locked --no-default-features --features "alsa-backend native-tls with-libmdns"
sudo install -m0755 ~/.cargo/bin/librespot /usr/local/bin/librespot
sudo systemctl restart librespot