A few questions
 

I just got my shoutcast server running on my RedHat 8 box. It is up and working, but now I wanted to tweak it a bit and do some fine tuning...

First off...Do I have to have all the mp3's encoded at the bitrate I wish to broadcast at, or can I simply set a broadcast bitrate.

Second...I have the link to a .pls file which has an mp3 with the same name as instructed...however, the stream only plays that one song, not all of the songs in the directory

Third...If I wanted to create links on my website in order for people to tune in, how do I have it say "Listeners : X/X" "Now playing: xxxxx" "Server Status: Up" etc...

Thanks

1a.
No

1b.
Yes

Note: It is best to have your mp3 sources in a bitrate equal to or higher than what you will broadcast. Never have your mp3 sources at a lower bitrate than what you will broadcast.

2.
Link to one song = plays one song.
For more information, check out the Sticky post titled:
SHOUTcast: Important Info & Answers to FAQs. READ ME!

Scroll down a bit and look for the section titled:
How to Setup On-Demand with SHOUTcast -> Sawg's Lame Rip-Off: On Demand Audio
How to Setup On-Demand with SHOUTcast -> On Demand Audio (Radio Toolbox)

3a.
Links:
DNAS link: http://yourDNASip:yourDNASport
Listen link: http://yourDNASip:yourDNASport/listen.pls

Replace yourDNASip with the ip of the DNAS (SHOUTcast server) and yourDNASport with the DNAS port (default is 8000)

Also, machines on the same lan as the DNAS (you) need to use the lan ip of the DNAS to connect/listen.
Machines not on the same lan as the DNAS (the rest of the world) need to use the real, world-visible ip of the DNAS to connect/listen.

3b.
DNAS info:
Check out the Sticky post titled...
SHOUTcast: Important Info & Answers to FAQs. READ ME!

Scroll down a bit and look for the section titled...
General SHOUTcast Information -> SHOUTcast ToolBox (All sorts of nifty add-ons for SHOUTcast)