🌐

Chromium Player

xiboplayer-chromium

Lightweight kiosk player that uses the existing system Chromium browser.

RPMDEBnoarch GitHub

🪶Uses system browser, minimal footprint

📺Video wall sync support

🔧Architecture-independent (noarch)

🔄Automatic updates via package manager

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Chromium (kiosk mode)                  │
│  http://localhost:8766/player/pwa/      │
└───────────────┬─────────────────────────┘
                │
┌───────────────▼─────────────────────────┐
│  Node.js Server (localhost:8766)        │
│  ├─ /player/pwa/*  → bundled PWA files  │
│  ├─ /xmds-proxy    → CMS SOAP API      │
│  ├─ /rest-proxy    → CMS REST API       │
│  └─ /file-proxy    → CMS media files    │
└───────────────┬─────────────────────────┘
                │
         ┌──────▼──────┐
         │  Xibo CMS   │
         └─────────────┘

Key Features

Multi-display sync (v0.7.0) — video wall support with <8ms precision, 12 choreography effects. Binds to 0.0.0.0 automatically when configured as sync lead. Full sync guide
Instance-aware (v0.7.0) — run multiple displays from one machine with --instance=NAME, each with isolated config, data dir, and browser profile
Lightweight — uses system Chromium, no bundled browser (~10MB vs ~150MB for Electron)
REST API first — uses the CMS REST API as primary protocol, SOAP fallback
Auto-restart — browser crash recovery with automatic relaunch
Kiosk mode — fullscreen, no address bar, disable screen blanking (X11 + Wayland)
First-run wizard — enter CMS URL, key, and display name in the browser

Installation

Fedora / RHEL

# Fedora 44
sudo dnf install \
  https://dl.xiboplayer.org/rpm/fedora/43/noarch/xiboplayer-release-43-7.fc43.noarch.rpm

# Fedora 43
sudo dnf install \
  https://dl.xiboplayer.org/rpm/fedora/43/noarch/xiboplayer-release-43-7.fc43.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf install xiboplayer-chromium

Ubuntu / Debian

curl -fsSLO https://dl.xiboplayer.org/deb/ubuntu/24.04/all/xiboplayer-release_1.0.2_all.deb
sudo apt install ./xiboplayer-release_1.0.2_all.deb
sudo apt update && sudo apt install xiboplayer-chromium

Configuration

On first run, Chromium opens the PWA setup page where you enter your CMS URL, key, and display name. No manual config editing needed.

Optional config at ~/.config/xiboplayer/chromium/config.json:

{
  "kioskMode": true,
  "fullscreen": true,
  "hideMouseCursor": true,
  "preventSleep": true,
  "transport": "rest",
  "browser": "chromium",
  "extraBrowserFlags": "",
  "controls": {
    "keyboard": {
      "debugOverlays": false,
      "setupKey": false,
      "playbackControl": false,
      "videoControls": false
    },
    "mouse": {
      "statusBarOnHover": false
    }
  }
}

All controls are disabled by default. Set individual control groups to true to enable them. Chromium-only options: browser, extraBrowserFlags.

Key	Description
`kioskMode`	Run in kiosk mode (default: `true`)
`fullscreen`	Start in fullscreen (default: `true`)
`hideMouseCursor`	Hide the mouse cursor (default: `true`)
`preventSleep`	Prevent display sleep (default: `true`)
`transport`	CMS transport: `rest` or `soap`
`browser`	Browser binary: `chromium` (default) or `google-chrome-stable`
`extraBrowserFlags`	Additional Chromium flags (space-separated)
`controls`	Control groups — each must be explicitly set to `true`
`serverPort`	Local server port (default: `8766`)
`relaxSslCerts`	Accept invalid SSL certs for media streams (default: `true`)

Usage

# First run — opens setup page
xiboplayer-chromium

# Run a named instance (isolated config, data, and port)
xiboplayer-chromium --instance=lobby --port=8767

# Enable auto-start on login
systemctl --user enable --now xiboplayer-kiosk.service

# Check status / logs
systemctl --user status xiboplayer-kiosk.service
journalctl --user -u xiboplayer-kiosk.service -f

Keyboard Shortcuts

All player keyboard shortcuts and mouse hover are disabled by default. Enable them via the controls section in config.json.

Key	Requires	Action
`T`	`controls.keyboard.debugOverlays: true`	Toggle timeline overlay
`D`	`controls.keyboard.debugOverlays: true`	Toggle download overlay
`V`	`controls.keyboard.videoControls: true`	Toggle video controls
`→` / `PageDown`	`controls.keyboard.playbackControl: true`	Next layout
`←` / `PageUp`	`controls.keyboard.playbackControl: true`	Previous layout
`Space`	`controls.keyboard.playbackControl: true`	Pause / resume
`R`	`controls.keyboard.playbackControl: true`	Revert to schedule

Click any layout in the timeline overlay to jump directly to it (requires controls.keyboard.debugOverlays: true).

When to Choose Chromium vs Electron

	Chromium	Electron
Browser	Uses system Chromium	Bundles its own
Package size	~5 MB (noarch)	~80 MB (x86_64)
Updates	Browser updated by OS	Browser tied to Electron version
Dependencies	Requires Chromium installed	Self-contained
Best for	Kiosks, embedded devices	General deployments

Performance monitoring

Enable Chrome DevTools Protocol to monitor FPS, memory and renderer performance. Not enabled by default.

# Enable (port 9222)
systemctl --user set-environment XIBOPLAYER_DEBUG_PORT=9222
systemctl --user restart xiboplayer-chromium

# Query targets
curl -s http://localhost:9222/json

# Disable
systemctl --user unset-environment XIBOPLAYER_DEBUG_PORT
systemctl --user restart xiboplayer-chromium

The port binds to 127.0.0.1 only. Use Performance.getMetrics via the WebSocket URL to read FPS, JS heap size, DOM node count and layout counts.