1. DiSTANTunes technical Overview
DT consists of two parts: a server part that runs on user's machine and a
client's part that runs in browser.
The server part consists of small http web server written in C# from scratch
and GUI to manage its settings. The server scans the selected directory for
mp3 files and creates in-memory list of them. A hash key is generated for
each file during the scanning. This key is later used by the client to
request a particular file (instead of using a full file system path). The
server has some built-in security measures and doesn't serve anything besides
mp3 files and client application files (which are stored in internal server's
resources).
Server supports:
a. HTTP 1.0 (supports keep-alive connections and gzip
compression)
b. Cookies-based authentication
c. Generating playlist by extracting ID3 tags from mp3 files.
d. Simple client-server protocol for requesting playlists and mp3
files.
e. Flood protection (if a clients sends a lot of requests in a
short time, it will be blocked by IP for 1 minute)
f. Password brute force cracking protection (a client is blocked
for 1 minute after several incorrect password attempts)
g. Logging of all requests (using log4net library)
h. Caching of parsed mp3 tags in memory
i. Automatic checking for updates and installing them
• All update files must be signed with developers'
private key, otherwise the server will reject the update
(additional security against program's home page hacking).
j. Auto starting on reboot
k. 3 UI languages: English (full support), Japanese(70%
translated so far) and Russian(70% translated so far)
• The languages can be switched on the fly without
restarting the server.
• When you run the program for the first time it tries to
detect you UI language and sets its UI language accordingly.
l. Integrated internet connection tester that can tell whether
you will be able to access the files from the Internet.
m. iTunes integration (iTunes music folder is automatically
detected)
n. Simple and advanced UI (with more settings)
Server supports all Windows versions starting from Windows XP SP2 to Windows
7. To run DT on Windows XP you will need .NET Framework 2.0, other versions
have it built-in.
DT server’s executable file is obfuscated using Babel .NET obfuscator to make reverse engineering
harder.
Server has a bug reporting function. If the program crashes, it asks user whether to send a bug report to
the developers (needs Internet connection). This data is collected on DT’s website and developers are
notified.
Client part is written in Flex using Mate Framework (all components are loosely coupled). The client
requires Flash Player version 10 or later. It can play mp3 files, request playlists and share the
information about the currently playing song using Twitter. Client’s UI allow you can search for songs by

2. song name, artist, album and genre. You can shuffle your playlist and make songs loop forever. There is
a flat list mode when all files from the child directories are displayed as one big list. Playlist can be
sorted by any column. Client’s design is not finished yet.
DT has an installer written using Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset. Installer automatically checks
if .NET Framework is not installed and installs it when needed.
We developed a very simple protocol for client‐server communication based on JSON.