Jitsi (New Appliance)

[ghost]

These guys are building a great web conferencing system. Should be easy to implement as well since it has Debian packages available and config editing post install should just involve the URL it is served from.

Details Here: https://jitsi.org

Try It Out Here: https://meet.jit.si

[ghost]

Any issues with installing packages at first boot? At install this wants the fqdn of server which is end user specification. Easily could ask during first boot script the install by using debconf-set-selections.

[JedMeister]

Sorry for slow response.

It is possible and could be done. Although IMO it would be preferable to install at build time, then at firstboot, get the user to set the fqdn and reconfigure the package.

Although whether that's possible will depend on what checks it does on the fqdn (although setting localhost may be an option?).

That would make the firstboot a bit quicker and should ensure that it can run non-interactively.

Having said that, if you already have a working solution, I'm happy to have a look.

PS, looks like a pretty cool app and would make an awesome appliance! :smile:

[ghost]

Working both solutions in parallel right now (first boot and during build). Trying to sort through where everything is configured on this one and from reading threads on the subject there is no clear "everything is configured in this file". Right down to the auto-generated certs being named with the domain entered during install. Will look into the localhost option as a default.

Current plan is to install with unique domain name and grep my way through the installed files to find where I would need to make adjustments.

[JedMeister]

The most important thing is that it supports pre-seeded non-interactive firstboot. And it can only require the variables APP_DOMAIN, APP_EMAIL and/or APP_PASS. It can accept others, but they need to be optional - and if not set, have firstboot.d/40APP_NAME script hand defaults to the bin/APP_NAME.py script.

I hope that makes sense.

[deutrino]

I may be setting up Jitsi Meet on a Turnkey Mattermost box, so there's at least some possibility of turning that into some work toward this. Poking the ticket so I get subscribed to it.

[EstebanSalpeter]

Hello everyone from my quarantine hideaway! ;) Are there any news about this project? It would be great to deploy some of these Jitsi servers globe-wide... I'd like to help if, I can... obviously. Best regards and thanks for all the efforts!

[phoenixsampras]

Hello, We need urgently this project!! What is the eta for downloading?

[JedMeister]

Hi @EstebanSalpeter & @phoenixsampras

Whilst we (i.e. TurnKey GNU/Linux) would love to see a Jitsi appliance, we're not currently actively working on it. So we cannot guarantee if/when a TurnKey Jitsi appliance will be produced.

I have spent a little time looking into it and it seems quite involved, with lots of moving parts. It should still be possible, but it's non-trivial (e.g. much more involved than say a PHP app installed on a LAMP server).

Seeing as there has been a fair bit of interest, it's definitely something we'd love to see and we may have some spare cycles to look into it closer at some point, but I can't say when (or even if).

If anyone else wants to do some work on it, I'm more than happy to provide some coaching and assistance working with TKLDev. Any assistance or work on this would be warmly welcomed.

[EstebanSalpeter]

Thanks for your response and offering @JedMeister . I can spend some free time to see what I can do. So far, I've tried to install Jitsi on a Ubuntu 18 vm, but didn't succeed with the videobridge config. I haven't yet go back on that issue to try to solve it. Maybe I can learn some of the TKLDev procedures and contributing to the team might be more useful than keep on trying on my own. There's also the alternative BigBlueButton to investigate if suits better for a TKL template. I wait for your suggestions on where to start @JedMeister . Best regards, Esteban

[deutrino]

I have not abandoned the plans I mentioned 9 months ago, just haven't gotten to them yet. But it might happen :sweat_smile:

[EstebanSalpeter]

That's great! @deutrino :) My attempt was over a TKL NGINX, sorry I said Ubuntu 18 before.

[JedMeister]

@EstebanSalpeter - I haven't really got much specific advice for you sorry...

That's because my general suggestion of a starting point for a TurnKey appliance is to start with a logical appliance (as it sounds like you did) and then manually install the desired software on top (as it sounds you did). So long as it works, and you carefully document what is required as you go, then converting that to TKLDev build code is generally not too hard (there are often a few tricky bits; but we've got a fair bit of experience so can often help out and/or tidy that up after the fact).

So if you are having trouble getting it to work, then that's a bit of a blocker... If you do decide to try again another time, I'd be happy to do my best to help out if/when you get stuck. Probably best to do that on the forums though (start a new thread ideally - requires a separate free website user account).

FYI TKLDev build code is essentially just an install script(s) with some additional files/scripts (e.g. pre configured config files) that are overlaid. Generally, when I develop a new appliance, I do it in a VM of the desired appliance (via SSH session), with a SSH session also open to a fork of the same appliance build code on my TKLDev at the same time. I can then copy paste commands to a new appliance conf script and scp files from my test VM to the overlay of my new appliance build code.

Anyway, it sounds like I'm not much use to you right now... :cry:

Re BigBlueButton; I've never actually used it myself, but I've always thought that it looks like a great piece of software and that it'd make an awesome appliance!

[JedMeister]

@deutrino - I hear hear you! :smile: Feels like the story of my life sometimes...