Well-known settings

This section describes the settings that can be configured on WirePlumber.

Settings can be either configured statically in the configuration file by setting them under the wireplumber.settings section, or they can be configured dynamically at runtime by using metadata.

For more information on what “settings” are and how they work, refer to the previous section: Configuration option types.

device.restore-profile

When a device profile is changed manually (e.g. via pavucontrol), WirePlumber stores the selected profile and restores it when the device appears again (e.g. after a reboot). If this setting is disabled, WirePlumber will always pick the best profile for the device based on profile priorities and availability (or custom rules, if any).

Default value:

true

device.restore-routes

When a device route is changed manually (e.g. via pavucontrol), WirePlumber stores the selected route and restores it when the same profile is selected for this device. If this setting is disabled, WirePlumber will always pick the best route for this device profile based on route priorities and availability (or custom rules, if any).

This setting also enables WirePlumber to restore properties of the device route when the route is restored. This includes the volume levels of sources and sinks, as well as the IEC958 codecs selected (for routes that support encoded streams, such as HDMI).

Default value:

true

device.routes.default-sink-volume

This option allows to set the default volume for sinks that are part of a device route (e.g. ALSA PCM sinks). This is used when the route is restored and the sink does not have a previously stored volume.

Default value:

0.4 ^ 3 (40% on the cubic scale)

device.routes.default-source-volume

This option allows to set the default volume for sources that are part of a device route (e.g. ALSA PCM sources). This is used when the route is restored and the source does not have a previously stored volume.

Default value:

1.0 (100%)

linking.allow-moving-streams

This option allows moving streams by overriding their target via metadata. When enabled, WirePlumber monitors the “default” metadata for changes in the target.object key of streams and if this key is set to a valid node name (node.name) or serial (object.serial), the stream is moved to that target node.

This is used by applications such as pavucontrol and is recommended for compatibility with PulseAudio.

Note

On the metadata, the target.node key is also supported for compatibility with older versions of PipeWire, but it is deprecated. Please use the target.object key instead.

Default value:

true

See also:

node.stream.restore-target

linking.follow-default-target

When a stream was started with the target.object property, WirePlumber normally links that stream to that target node and ignores the “default” target for that direction. However, if this option is enabled, WirePlumber will check if the designated target node is the “default” target and if so, it will act as if the stream did not have that property.

In practice, this means that if the “default” target changes at runtime, the stream will be moved to the new “default” target.

This is what Pulseaudio does and is implemented here for compatibility with some applications that do start with a target.object property set to the “default” target and expect the stream to be moved when the “default” target changes.

Note that this logic is only applied on client (i.e. application) streams and not on filters.

Default value:

true

node.features.audio.no-dsp

When this option is set to true, audio nodes will not be configured in dsp mode, meaning that their channels will not be split into separate ports and that the audio data will not be converted to the float 32 format (F32P). Instead, devices will be configured in passthrough mode and streams will be configured in convert mode, so that their audio data is converted directly to the format that the device is expecting.

This may be useful if you are trying to minimize audio processing for an embedded system, but it is not recommended for general use.

Warning

This option will break compatibility with JACK applications and may also break certain patchbay applications. Do not enable, unless you understand what you are doing.

Default value:

false

node.features.audio.monitor-ports

This enables the creation of “monitor” ports for audio nodes. Monitor ports are created on nodes that have input ports (i.e. sinks and capture streams) and allow monitoring of the audio data that is being sent to the node.

This is mostly used by monitoring applications, such as pavucontrol.

Default value:

true

node.features.audio.control-port

This enables the creation of a “control” port for audio nodes. Control ports allow sending MIDI data to the node, allowing for control of certain node’s parameters (such as volume) via external controllers.

Default value:

false

node.stream.restore-props

WirePlumber stores stream parameters such as volume and mute status for each client (i.e. application) stream. If this setting is enabled, WirePlumber will restore the previously stored stream parameters when the stream is activated. If it is disabled, stream parameters will be initialized to their default values.

Default value:

true

node.stream.restore-target

When a client (i.e. application) stream is manually moved to a different target node (e.g. via pavucontrol), the target node is stored by WirePlumber. If this setting is enabled, WirePlumber will restore the previously stored target node when the stream is activated.

Note

This does not restore manual links made by patchbay applications. This is only meant to restore the target.object property in the “default” metadata, which is manipulated by applications such as pavucontrol when a stream is moved to a different target.

Default value:

true

See also:

linking.allow-moving-streams

node.stream.default-playback-volume

The default volume for playback streams to be applied when the stream is activated. This is only applied when node.stream.restore-props is true and the stream does not have a previously stored volume.

Default value:

1.0

Range:

0.0 to 1.0

node.stream.default-capture-volume

The default volume for capture streams to be applied when the stream is activated. This is only applied when node.stream.restore-props is true and the stream does not have a previously stored volume.

Default value:

1.0

Range:

0.0 to 1.0

node.filter.forward-format

When a “filter” pair of nodes (such as echo-cancel or filter-chain) is linked to a device node that has a different channel map than the filter nodes, this option allows the channel map of the filter nodes to be changed to match the channel map of the device node. The change is applied to both ends of the “filter”, so that any streams linked to the filter are also reconfigured to match the target channel map.

This is useful, for instance, to make sure that an application will be properly configured to output surround audio to a surround device, even when going through a filter that was not explicitly configured to have a surround channel map.

Default value:

false

node.restore-default-targets

This setting enables WirePlumber to store and restore the “default” source and sink targets of the graph. In PulseAudio terminology, this is also known as the “fallback” source and sink.

When this setting is enabled, WirePlumber will store the “default” source and sink targets when they are changed manually (e.g. via pavucontrol) and restore them when the available nodes change or after a reload/restart. It will also store a history of past selected “default” targets and restore previously selected ones if the currently selected are not available.

If this is disabled, WirePlumber will pick the best available source and sink targets based on their priorities, but it will also respect manual user selections that are done at runtime - it will just not remember them so that it can restore them at a later time.

Default value:

true