Deploying jitsi meet on Nethserver (independent video conferencing)

Feature
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Hello all,
i know you might be wondering why this is set as a separate topic.
there is reason for that, ill clear the confusion.

i am away of this topic: Video conferencing tool on NethServer

As again i am aware of the eforts we have been putting here: Matrix - synapse

Well, so
WHAT IS JITSI MEET? : Jitsi Meet (https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/ ,
https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet , https://meet.jit.si/ )
Is a web application build atop the Jitsi Videobridge to allow for group
conferencing using browser and android, ios app.
You can choose to use https://meet.jit.si/ if you decide to trust the developers or self-host
your own instance

There is a topic discussing the confusion of jitsi products on this link here::

So, generally, jitsi meet is a standalone app that has all the bells and whistles of conducting a video call, including chat, without any external tool.
So i bring this because i would like us to install a jitsi meet instance, on nethserver.
this is mainly because i would like to offer an open server in our country for others to use for their vid calls needs.

Since Nethserver does few things differently, the aim is to get the tool working on nethserver, without breaking things.
here is a good starting point of installing jitsi meet on centos7:
here is manual original install instructions meant for debian: as well as
quickinstall, meant for debian
installing jibri, for allowing recording of sessions: https://github.com/jitsi/jibri
There was a discussion here on people who tried to install on centos, and faced challenges, i thout good to link the same here

It is my hope that with these resources, we can have a good howto, for having jitsi meet running on centos.

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IMHO, it doesn’t worth the effort neither for an howto :slight_smile:

Follow the Jitsi documentation, and you will have a working installation in 10 minutes: they did an excellent job on the automation part!

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the installation is ubuntu based ?

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IIRC debian and ubuntu. I used ubuntu and the installation was very smooth.

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Hi,

any exact URL for that please? TIA!

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The main documentations are mainly for getting it to work on ubuntu, and debian.
thats why i linked to this article below,

currently wondering if anyone has managed to get it working on Nethserver

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they stated IIRC that on centos it is a community support and they won’t work to support officially, at the time of easy virtualisation, it just cost to pop up a VM for that purpose.

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Sorry for my bad english and for occupying this topic.

A bare jitsi-meet installation in a vm or container istn to hard. But if you have jitsi-meet beside nethserver there are some sticking points (or my knowledge is to low maybe).

And using the nethserver-ad or ldap (or ejabberd) wouldtn be a bad idea to simplifying the setup and for athentication.

In my setting the nethserver runs as vm (in proxmox) beside a debian 10 container for jitsi-meet.
My (only one) extermal ip with some subdomains (a/cname in dns) pointing to this external ip.
Some necessary ports are directed to the nethserver vm and his services (e.g. mail, sogo etc.)

Thus nethserver is the main target for tcp 443 and 80 (and becomes letsencrypt certs) so the jitsi-meet installation has no chance to become own letsencrypt certs.
Or is there a Solution?

So i have used the nethserver process for getting an letsencrypt cert with subdomain for the jitsi-meet container and added an reverse proxy entry in nethserver looking for jitsi.domain.tld and pointing to the local ip of the jitsi-meet container. So the subdomain should/is reachable from extern and using the nethserver-letsencrypt-certs.

But, after the jitsi-meet installation, the jitsi-meet site wasnt reacheble over the subdomain. To many redirects and/or some trouble with „get“ requests. It seems that the “turnserver” (installed with jitsi-meet) is the showstopper here.

But jIstsi-meet can run without the turnserver so i installed ist again (from begin) with “apt-get -y --no-install-recommends install jitsi-meet”. Without turnserver the jitsi-meet site appears normal from local and from extern. (with the nethserver main-letsencrypt cert). In this Setting Meetings are possible (Yeah).

All Finished? No. If you prevent jitsi-meet so strangers cannot create (or enter) meeting rooms you need authentication.

There are some way to do this. The jitsi-way is using a own prosody xmpp and userbase. This runs fine.

You can also try to connect to an ldap (wit special modules) but i wasnt successful with that.
So i have stopped an this point and installed the nethserver-ejabberd because of this own ldap integration (jitsi-meet can use ejabberd with limitations) But if you have nethserver-ejabberd installed it was no more possible to enter an meeting room (disconnect).
This appears also when the ejabberd service is stopped. (?)

After uninstalling nethserver-ejabberd (btw not possible in the new server-panel) the problem disappears.

The ejabberd trouble with jitsi-meet is (i think) because of some adress-or service troubles in my setting but i have no idea to correct it. The most installed and configured services in jitsi-meet using his (full) hostname like “jitsi.domain.tld” . (and this is the way jitsi recommends)

But in my setting - i get never the correct ip for this hostname.

An external DNS (like 8.8.8.8) gives back the external IP (as expected). In this setting runs jitsi-meet itselv (without ejabberd or ldap) but you lose internal name resolution so i need a local DNS.

The nethserver DNS (normally used) gives also back a wrong ip, the nethserver-own ip.
I think this is because of the reverse entry or the nethserver-letsencrypt entry fr the subdomain(?) and therefore it isnt possible to set an dns entry for this name additional.

But without local DNS solution it makes no sense to play with jitsi-auth mechanics.

The jitsi-meet own entries for /etc/hosts shows (from begin) two ip entries for his hostname, 127.0.0.1 and the (real) local ip. But “host jitsi.domain.tld” nevertheless gives back nether this ip from this host itselv.

Any Suggestions?

Regards
yummiweb

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@yummiweb similar challenges on my end, with regards to authentication. Also, installing lets encrypt on a jitsi server, can be easy, but renewal can be a pain to achieve.

Since it mentioned that jitsi meet on centos is community supported, wouldn’t we the Nethserver community support a version of Jitsi meet installation, for Nethserver, that integrated authentication in some form. i believe we can also increase the number of our community with such kind of integration.

We are an open community of great minds etc. I wish i had a deeper understanding of server admin and the inner workings on Nethserver, how many great things i imagine in my head, but can only rely on other members to implement.

Someone reading this, might notice there has been a spike in video conferencing and collaboration tools on this community forum, well that’s what we need.

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Modules can be removed from Application section.

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yes normally it should. but in some cases (or all cases, deinstallation isnt to often) there is a popup with text: “liste” while (it seems) nethserver is gathering more informations in the background - but this never ends…

regards yummiweb

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Sorry to raise the dead - but I’ve written a Howto post on my experience in setting up Jitsi using the Nethserver SSL cert and with LDAP configured for users to be moderators for Jitsi rooms.

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Stirring this pot a bit :wink:

It seems that the Docker version install pretty easy. It took me very few steps as described in the docs and it was up and running in minutes.

However, I am not skilled enough to workout the certificate for a (sub)domain on a different port under nginx. (see note on install page) Maybe somebody can pitch in pls or even make a small module out if it with some config variables in the config db of ns?

TIA

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