The native protocol module implements the PipeWire communication between a client and a server using unix local sockets.

Normally this module is loaded in both client and server config files so that they cam communicate.

Module Name

libpipewire-module-protocol-native

Module Options

The module supports the following arguments:

sockets: [ { name = "socket-name", owner = "owner", group = "group", mode = "mode", selinux.context = "context" }, ... ]

Array of Unix socket names and (optionally) owner/permissions to serve, if the context is a server. If not absolute paths, the sockets are created in the default runtime directory.

Has the default value [ { name = "CORENAME" }, { name = "CORENAME-manager" } ], where CORENAME is the name of the PipeWire core, usually pipewire-0.

The permissions have no effect for sockets from Systemd socket activation. Those should be configured via the systemd.socket(5) mechanism.

General Options

The name of the core is obtained as:

PIPEWIRE_CORE : the environment variable with the name of the core
PW_KEY_CORE_NAME : in the context properties
a name based on the process id

The context will also become a server if:

PIPEWIRE_DAEMON : the environment is true
PW_KEY_CORE_DAEMON : in the context properties is true

The socket will be located in the directory obtained by looking at the following environment variables:

PIPEWIRE_RUNTIME_DIR
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
USERPROFILE

The socket address will be written into the notification file descriptor if the following environment variable is set:

PIPEWIRE_NOTIFICATION_FD

When a client connect, the connection will be made to:

PIPEWIRE_REMOTE : the environment with the remote name
PW_KEY_REMOTE_NAME : the property in the context.
The default remote named "pipewire-0"

A Special remote named "internal" can be used to make a connection to the local context. This can be done even when the server is not a daemon. It can be used to treat a local context as if it was a server.

Example configuration

context.modules = [
{ name = libpipewire-module-protocol-native }
]

context.modules = [
 { name = libpipewire-module-protocol-native,
   args = { sockets = [ { name = "pipewire-0" }, { name = "pipewire-0-manager" } ] } }
]