Konfigurasi BigBlueButton Open Source Web Conferencing

Welcome to the installation guide for BigBlueButton version 0.9.1. BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for on-line learning. For an overview what new in this release, see overview.

We recommend you install BigBlueButton 0.9.1 on a dedicated Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit server that is not running any other web applications. This will avoid subtle conflicts (such as with underlying configuration files) that will cause errors in BigBlueButton installation and running.

If you already have a BigBlueButton 0.81 server running Ubuntu 10.04, we recommend not trying to upgrade your server. Start with a clean Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit server, install BigBlueButton using the steps below, and then copy over the recordings from the old BigBlueButton server to the new.

Before you installAnchor link for: before you install

The prerequisites for BigBlueButton 0.9.1 server are

• Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit server
• 4 GB of memory with swap enabled (8 GB is better)
• Quad-core 2.6 GHZ CPU (or faster)
• TCP ports 80, 1935, 9123 are accessible
• UDP ports 16384 - 32768 are accessible
• Port 80 is not in use by another application
• 500G of free disk space (or more) for recordings
• 100 Mbits/sec bandwidth (symmetrical)
• Dedicated (bare metal) hardware (not virtualization)

If you intend to setup BigBlueButton for development, then installation in a virtualized environment works well. For development, you probably don’t need a VM with 500G of free disk space; 50G would be sufficient. However, if you intend to run BigBlueButton in production, we recommend installation on a dedicated (bare metal) server. BigBlueButton uses FreeSWITCH for processing the incoming real-time packets for audio, and FreeSWITCH works best in a non-virtualized environment (see FreeSWITCH recommended configurations).

For users we recommend (a minimum of) 1.0 Mbits/sec download speed and 0.5 Mbits/sec upload speed.

In addition to ensuring your server meets the above requirements, there are a few more checks. First, the locale of the server must be en_US.UTF-8. To verify , enter the following command

$ cat /etc/default/locale
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

If you don’t see LANG="en_US.UTF-8", then enter the following commands.

$ sudo apt-get install language-pack-en
$ sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

and logout and log back into your SSH session (this will reload your configuration). Run cat /etc/default/locale again and verify you see only the single line LANG="en_US.UTF-8". Note: if you see an additional line LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8, then remove the setting for LC_ALL before continuing.

Check that your server is running 64-bit.

$ uname -m
x86_64

Check your version of Ubuntu is Ubuntu 14.04.

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.X LTS"

We have designed, developed, installed, and tested BigBlueButton 0.9.1 on Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit (Trusty Tahr). In other words, we have neither installed nor tested BigBlueButton on a different release of Ubuntu (and it will likely not work).

Installing BigBlueButton 0.9Anchor link for: installing bigbluebutton 09

If you have already installed an earlier build of 0.9 then see upgrading BigBlueButton 0.9

A few words about the installation steps below. You must completely finish each step before proceeding to the next. If you encounter an error at any step, STOP and double-check you’ve entered the proper commands, and don’t continue onto the next step as you’ll only compound the errors. If you can’t resolve the error (use Google to search for the error messages), then post a description of the error to the bigbluebutton setup mailing list and the community will help.

Commercial support is also available.

1. Update your serverAnchor link for: update your server

Login to your server via SSH. You need to have an account that can execute commands as root (via sudo). First, ensure that you have trusty multiverse in your sources.list. Do the following.

$ grep "multiverse" /etc/apt/sources.list

and you should see an uncommented line for the multiverse repository, which may look like

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty multiverse

or

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse

Don’t worry if your URL is different, what’s important is you see an uncommented link that contains multiverse. If you don’t, then execute the following line to add the multiverse repository to your sources.list file.

$ echo "deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty multiverse" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Before proceeding further, do a dist-upgrade to ensure all the current packages on your server are up-to-date.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you’ve not updated in a while, apt-get may recommend you reboot your server after dist-upgrade finishes. Do the reboot before proceeding to the next step.

If you are installing BigBlueButton on EC2 (good for testing, but or production we recommend physical server for better performance), Amazon EC2 provides an external and internal IP address. After you install BigBlueButton, complete the steps outlined here.

2. Install PPA for LibreOffice 4.4Anchor link for: install ppa for libreoffice 44

Ubuntu 14.04 installs LibreOffice 4.2.x by default, but we want to use LibreOffice 4.4 for improved stability on conversion of Microsoft Office documents to PDF.

To add the repository for LibreOffice 4.4, enter the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-4-4

3. Install key for BigBlueButtonAnchor link for: install key for bigbluebutton

You need to give your server access to the BigBlueButton package repository. First, add the BigBlueButton key

$ wget http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/bigbluebutton.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Next, add the BigBlueButton repository URL (we retain the trusty-090 for the latest release 0.9.1 to make it easier for everyone to upgrade their server).

$ echo "deb http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/trusty-090/ bigbluebutton-trusty main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bigbluebutton.list

Finally, update the package list.

$ sudo apt-get update

4. Install ffmpegAnchor link for: install ffmpeg

BigBlueButton 0.9.1 uses ffmpeg to create components of the playback files (the audio, video, and desktop sharing components).

To install ffmpeg, create a file called install-ffmpeg.sh and copy-and-paste in the following script.

sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core checkinstall yasm texi2html libvorbis-dev libx11-dev libvpx-dev libxfixes-dev zlib1g-dev pkg-config netcat libncurses5-dev

FFMPEG_VERSION=2.3.3

cd /usr/local/src
if [ ! -d "/usr/local/src/ffmpeg-${FFMPEG_VERSION}" ]; then
  sudo wget "http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-${FFMPEG_VERSION}.tar.bz2"
  sudo tar -xjf "ffmpeg-${FFMPEG_VERSION}.tar.bz2"
fi

cd "ffmpeg-${FFMPEG_VERSION}"
sudo ./configure --enable-version3 --enable-postproc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx
sudo make
sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="5:${FFMPEG_VERSION}" --backup=no --deldoc=yes --default

Next, make the script executable and run it.

$ chmod +x install-ffmpeg.sh
$ ./install-ffmpeg.sh

After the script finishes, check that ffmpeg is installed by typing the command ffmpeg -version. You should see the following

$ ffmpeg -version
ffmpeg version 2.3.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Aug 18 2014 17:35:05 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
  configuration: --enable-version3 --enable-postproc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx
  libavutil      52. 92.100 / 52. 92.100
  libavcodec     55. 69.100 / 55. 69.100
  libavformat    55. 48.100 / 55. 48.100
  libavdevice    55. 13.102 / 55. 13.102
  libavfilter     4. 11.100 /  4. 11.100
  libswscale      2.  6.100 /  2.  6.100
  libswresample   0. 19.100 /  0. 19.100

5. Install BigBlueButtonAnchor link for: install bigbluebutton

We’re now ready to install BigBlueButton 0.9.1. Type

$ sudo apt-get install bigbluebutton

This single command is where all the magic happens. This command installs all of BigBlueButton’s components with their dependencies.

Type ‘Y’ and press enter to install. If you get an error message

...... Error: FreeSWITCH didn't start 

you can ignore it as you’ll do a clean restart of all the BigBlueButton components in step 9.

6. Install API DemosAnchor link for: install api demos

This step is optional.

If you want to interactively test your BigBlueButton server (as opposed to using an 3rd party integration), you can install a set of API demos.

$ sudo apt-get install bbb-demo

You’ll need the bbb-demo package installed if you want to join the Demo Meeting from your BigBlueButton server’s welcome page. This is the same welcome page you see at demo server.

Later on, if you wish to remove the API demos, you can enter the command

$ sudo apt-get purge bbb-demo

7. Install Client Self-CheckAnchor link for: install client self check

This step is optional

BigBlueButton has a self-check utility that can help diagnose networking and configuration issues that may prevent a user from launching BigBlueButton. To install the client self-check page:

$ sudo apt-get install bbb-check

This is the same welcome page you see at client self-check.

Later on, if you wish to remove the client self-check page, you can enter the command

$ sudo apt-get purge bbb-check

8. Enable WebRTC audioAnchor link for: enable webrtc audio

To enable WebRTC audio (you want to do this), do the following

$ sudo bbb-conf --enablewebrtc

9. Do a Clean RestartAnchor link for: do a clean restart

To ensure BigBlueButton has started cleanly, enter the following commands:

$ sudo bbb-conf --clean
$ sudo bbb-conf --check

The --clean option will clear out all the log files for BigBlueButton. The --check option will grep through the log files looking for errors.

The output from sudo bbb-conf --check will display your current settings and, after the text, “ Potential problems described below “, print any potential configuration or startup problems it has detected.

Here’s a sample output from a new install on a server with IP address 192.168.0.100.

$ sudo bbb-conf --check

BigBlueButton Server 0.9.1-YYY (NNN)
                    Kernel version: 3.13.0-46-generic
                      Distribution: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (64-bit)
                            Memory: 32071 MB

/var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml (bbb-client)
               Port test (tunnel): 192.168.0.100
                              Red5: 192.168.0.100
              useWebrtcIfAvailable: true

/opt/freeswitch/conf/sip_profiles/external.xml (FreeSWITCH)
                    websocket port: 5066
                    webRTC enabled: true

/etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton (nginx)
                       server name: 192.168.0.100
                              port: 80
                    bbb-client dir: /var/www/bigbluebutton

/var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB-INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties (bbb-web)
                      bbb-web host: 192.168.0.100

/var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/demo/bbb_api_conf.jsp (API demos)
                           api url: 192.168.0.100

/usr/share/red5/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB-INF/red5-web.xml (red5)
                  voice conference: FreeSWITCH
                     capture video: true
                   capture desktop: true

/usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/bigbluebutton.yml (record and playback)
                     playback host: 192.168.0.100


** Potential problems described below **
# Warning: The API demos are installed and accessible from:
#
#    http://192.168.0.100/
#
# These API demos allow anyone to access your server without authentication
# to create/manage meetings and recordings. They are for testing purposes only.
# If you are running a production system, remove them by running:
#
#    sudo apt-get purge bbb-demo

Here the potential problem is just a warning – you currently have the API demos installed, which would enable anyone with access to the server to launch sessions.

At this point, you could try out your server by opening http://192.168.0.100 with your web browser (FireFox or Chrome recommended as they support WebRTC audio).

If BigBlueButton didn’t install or run, see troubleshooting installation.

Upgrading BigBlueButton 0.9Anchor link for: upgrading bigbluebutton 09

If already have a BigBlueButton 0.81 server, these instructions will not upgrade your server. To install BigBlueButton 0.9, you need to install on a clean installation of Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit and follow the steps previous in this document.

To upgrade your BigBlueButton 0.9 server, add the package repository for LibreOffice 4.4 (if you’ve not already done this). To check if you have libreoffice 4.3, enter the command dpkg -l | grep libreoffice and you should see a version 4.4.X of libreoffice.

$ dpkg -l | grep libreoffice

ii  libreoffice  1:4.3.6~rc2-0ubuntu1~trusty1  amd64  office productivity suite (metapackage)
...

If you see

ii  libreoffice  1:4.2.7-0ubuntu2   amd64        office productivity suite (metapackage)
...

then enter the following commands to upgrade to LibreOffice 4.4 (you need only do these commands once).

$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-4-4

To upgrade an earlier version of BigBlueButton 0.9 to the last release, do the following:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

$ sudo bbb-conf --enablewebrtc
$ sudo bbb-conf --clean
$ sudo bbb-conf --check

Respond with ‘Y’, if you get prompted to update any configuration file during the upgrade

Configuring HTTPS on BigBlueButtonAnchor link for: configuring https on bigbluebutton

Configure BigBlueButton to use a domain nameAnchor link for: configure bigbluebutton to use a domain name

In order to obtain a valid SSL certificate for your server, you must configure the server to use a domain name that you own or control.

For the purposes of documentation, we will be using the domain name “example.com”, with a BigBlueButton server hosted at “bigbluebutton.example.com”.

Please run the commands as root.

Once you have a domain name and have configured it with a DNS host, add an A record pointing to your server. You can then use the bbb-conf setip command to configure BigBlueButton to use that domain name, for example:

bbb-conf --setip bigbluebutton.example.com

Note: Before going through the steps, be sure to (upgrade your server)[#upgrading-bigbluebutton-0-9] to the latest release of 0.9.x.

Obtain an SSL certificateAnchor link for: obtain an ssl certificate

In order to serve BigBlueButton over HTTPS, you need to have a valid SSL certificate. A domain validated (sometimes called “class 1”) certificate with a 2048 bit RSA key and SHA-256 checksum is the current recommended minimum, and it should be sufficient.

There are a number of providers that you could obtain a certificate from. Many domain name sales companies also offer certificates.

Some well known large providers of SSL certificates include Comodo, Symantec, GoDaddy, GlobalSign, and DigiCert. In addition, free SSL certificates are available from StartSSL and CACert, with some caveats: StartSSL certificates can’t be revoked without paying a service fee, and most people do not have the root for CACert installed in their web browser.

Each provider will give you a series of steps for generating the certificate, but they will normally include generating a private key and certificate request locally, sending the certificate request to be signed, and then receiving back the signed certificate after they have performed any required verification steps.

To install the certificate in BigBlueButton, you will need to have files for the certificate, private key, and any intermediate certificates in PEM format.

Configure nginx to use HTTPSAnchor link for: configure nginx to use https

Depending on your CA, you should now have 2 or more files, as follows:

• Certificate
• Private key
• Intermediate certificate (there may be more than one, or could be none)

The next step is to install the files on the server.

Create the directory /etc/nginx/ssl:

mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl

And now create the private key file for nginx to use (replace the hostname in the filename with your own). In addition, fix the permissions so that only root can read the private key:

cat >/etc/nginx/ssl/bigbluebutton.example.com.key <<'END'
Paste the contents of your key file here
END
chmod 0600 /etc/nginx/ssl/bigbluebutton.example.com.key

And the certificate file. Note that nginx needs your server certificate and the list of intermediate certificates together in one file (replace the hostname in the filename with your own):

cat >/etc/nginx/ssl/bigbluebutton.example.com.crt <<'END'
Paste (in order) the contents of the following files:
  1. The signed certificate from the CA
  2. In order, each intermediate certificate provided by the CA (but do not include the root).
END

In addition, we’ll generate a set of 2048-bit diffie-hellman parameters to improve security for some types of ciphers. This step can take several minutes to complete, particularly if run on a virtual machine.

openssl dhparam -out /etc/nginx/ssl/dhp-2048.pem 2048

Now we can edit the nginx configuration to use SSL. Edit the file /etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton to add the marked lines. Ensure that you’re using the correct filenames to match the certificate and key files you created above.

server {
  server_name bigbluebutton.example.com;
  listen 80;
  listen 443 ssl;
  ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/bigbluebutton.example.com.crt;
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/bigbluebutton.example.com.key;
  ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
  ssl_session_timeout 10m;
  ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
  ssl_ciphers "ECDH+AESGCM:DH+AESGCM:ECDH+AES256:DH+AES256:ECDH+AES128:DH+AES:ECDH+3DES:DH+3DES:RSA+AESGCM:RSA+AES:RSA+3DES:!aNULL:!MD5:!DSS:!AES256";
  ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
  ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/ssl/dhp-2048.pem;
  [...]

For reference, note that the SSL settings used above are based on those proposed in https://hynek.me/articles/hardening-your-web-servers-ssl-ciphers/ and provide support for all modern browsers (including IE8, but not IE6, on Windows XP). Please note that recommended SSL settings are subject to change as new vulnerabilities are found.

Configure FreeSWITCH & WebRTCAnchor link for: configure freeswitch webrtc

Edit the file /opt/freeswitch/conf/sip_profiles/external.xml and look for a line containing “ws-binding”. Add a new line below it, as indicated:

    <param name="tls-version" value="$${sip_tls_version}"/>
    <param name="ws-binding" value=":5066"/>
    <param name="wss-binding" value=":7443"/>

You need to make sure that the dialplan will accept the incoming secure websocket. Open the file/opt/freeswitch/conf/dialplan/public/bbb_webrtc.xml and locate the line

   <condition field="${sip_via_protocol}" expression="^ws$" break="on-false">

and change ws to wss?:

    <condition field="${sip_via_protocol}" expression="^wss?$" break="on-false">

Now the websocket forwarding address in nginx must be updated. Edit the file /etc/bigbluebutton/nginx/sip.nginx and change the protocol and port on the proxy_pass line as shown:

location /ws {
  proxy_pass https://203.0.113.3:7443;
  proxy_http_version 1.1;
  proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
  proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
  proxy_read_timeout 6h;
  proxy_send_timeout 6h;
  client_body_timeout 6h;
  send_timeout 6h;
}

In addition, the webrtc code in the client must be updated to use the secure websockets connection. Edit the file/var/www/bigbluebutton/client/lib/bbb_webrtc_bridge_sip.js and change the line that selects the ‘ws’ protocol to use ‘wss’ instead:

function createUAWithStuns(username, server, callback, stunsConfig, makeCallFunc) {
    console.log("Creating new user agent");
    /* VERY IMPORTANT * - You must escape the username because spaces will cause the connection to fail
     * - We are connecting to the websocket through an nginx redirect instead of directly to 5066 */
    var configuration = {
        uri: 'sip:' + encodeURIComponent(username) + '@' + server,
        wsServers: 'wss://' + server + '/ws',
        displayName: username,
        register: false,
        traceSip: true,
        autostart: false,
        userAgentString: "BigBlueButton",
        stunServers: stunsConfig['stunServers'],
        turnServers: stunsConfig['turnServers']
     };

     [...]

Configure BigBlueButton to load session via HTTPSAnchor link for: configure bigbluebutton to load session via https

Edit the file /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB-INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties and update the property bigbluebutton.web.serverURL to use https:

#----------------------------------------------------
# This URL is where the BBB client is accessible. When a user sucessfully
# enters a name and password, she is redirected here to load the client.
bigbluebutton.web.serverURL=https://bigbluebutton.example.com

You must also update the file /var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml to tell the client to load components via https. Since this is tedious to do by hand, you can use the following command to apply the change:

sed -e 's|http://|https://|g' -i /var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml

If you would ever need to revert this change, you can run the reverse command:

sed -e 's|https://|http://|g' -i /var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml

BigBlueButton loads a button image for the “install Flash” prompt from Adobe’s website. In order to avoid a mixed content warning (loading non-https resources on an https page), change http to https in the file/var/www/bigbluebutton/client/BigBlueButton.html in the indicated location:

        <h2>You need Flash installed and enabled in order to use the Flash client.</h2>
        <br/>
        <div style="width:50%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; ">
          <a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
            <img src="https://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
          </a>

Edit Demo FilesAnchor link for: edit demo files

If you have the demo application installed, you also need to change them to use https.

cd /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/demo

grep joinURL.startsWith *

Edit the files from the result of the grep by switching to https. That is, change joinURL.startsWith("http://") tojoinURL.startsWith("https://").

Edit bbb_api_conf.jsp to also use https.

// This is the URL for the BigBlueButton server
String BigBlueButtonURL = "https://demo.bigbluebutton.org/bigbluebutton/";

Restart BigBlueButtonAnchor link for: restart bigbluebutton

To apply all of the configuration changes made, you must restart all components of BigBlueButton:

bbb-conf --restart

Test your HTTPS configurationAnchor link for: test your https configuration

In order to ensure you didn’t make any mistakes that could cause security compromises, please test your HTTPS configuration. A well-respected site that can do a series of automated tests is https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ - simply enter your server’s hostname, optionally check the “Do not show results” checkbox if you would like to keep it private, then Submit.

At time of writing, the configuration shown on this page should achieve an “A” ranking in the SSL Labs test page.

Troubleshooting InstallationAnchor link for: troubleshooting installation

The following will help you resolve common errors with installation.

Run sudo bbb-conf –checkAnchor link for: run sudo bbb conf check

We’ve built in a BigBlueButton configuration utility, called bbb-conf, to help you configure your BigBlueButton server and troubleshoot your setup if something doesn’t work right.

If you think something isn’t working correctly, the first step is enter the following command.

$ sudo bbb-conf --check

This will check your setup to ensure the correct processes are running, the BigBlueButton components have correctly started, and look for common configuration problems that might prevent BigBlueButton from working properly.

If you see text after the line ** Potential problems described below **, then it may be warnings (which you can ignore if you’ve change settings) or errors with the setup.

Could not get your microphone for a WebRTC callAnchor link for: could not get your microphone for a webrtc call

At the time of writing, the current release is Chrome 45. As of Chrome 47 (coming soon), Chrome will require that any access to the user’s micrphone for WebRTC be restricted to sites that are served via HTTPS. Users using Chrome Canary will also have this requirement.

If the user attempts to share their microphone, Chrome will block access and BigBlueButton will report the following error

WebRTC Audio Failure: Detected the following WebRTC issue: Could not get your microphone for a WebRTC call. Do you want to try flash instead?

To enable Chrome to access the user’s microphone, see Coniguring HTTPS on BigBlueButton.

Tomcat7 takes a long time to startupAnchor link for: tomcat7 takes a long time to startup

Tomcat relies on the SecureRandom class (which uses available entropy) to provide random values for its session IDs. On a virtualized server, however, the available entropy can run low and cause tomcat7 to block for a long period before it finishes it’s startup sequence (see Tomcat’s Entropy Source).

To provide tomcat7 with more entropy, you can install havaged

$ sudo apt-get install haveged

For more information see How to Setup Additional Entropy for Cloud Servers Using Haveged.

Errors with packagesAnchor link for: errors with packages

Some hosting providers do not provide a complete /etc/apt/source.list. If you are finding your are unable to install a package, try replacing your /etc/apt/sources.list with the following

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-security main restricted universe multiverse

then do

$ sudo apt-get update

and try installing BigBlueButton again from the beginning.

Some packages could not be installed error (libpython3.4)Anchor link for: some packages could not be installed error libpython34

Some installations of Ubuntu 14.04 might have broken python3.4 packages installed. To check if this issue affects you, run the following command:

sudo apt-get install -s libpython3.4

If you get output that looks similar to the following - in particular, if it mentions the python version “3.4.3-1ubuntu1~14.04.1”, then you are hitting this issue:

libpython3.4 : Depends: libpython3.4-stdlib (= 3.4.0-2ubuntu1.1) but 3.4.3-1ubuntu1~14.04.1 is to be installed 

To fix this problem, run the following commands:

sudo dpkg -r --force-all libpython3.4-stdlib python3.4-minimal libpython3.4-minimal libpython3.4 python3.4
sudo apt-get -f install

If those commands complete, you can go back to the installation instructions and try the package that had failed again.

BigBlueButton does not loadAnchor link for: bigbluebutton does not load

If your server has multiple network connections, the install scripts may have used the wrong IP for BigBlueButton’s configuration. Another possibility is you want to access BigBlueButton through a hostname (but not IP).

To change all of BigBlueButton’s configuration files to use a different IP address or hostname, enter

$ sudo bbb-conf --setip <ip_address_or_hostname>
$ sudo bbb-conf --enablewebrtc
 
$ sudo bbb-conf --clean
$ sudo bbb-conf --check

For example

$ sudo bbb-conf --setip my.host.com

For more information see bbb-conf options.

Host IP address has changedAnchor link for: host ip address has changed

See BigBlueButton does not load

Audio not workingAnchor link for: audio not working

If you are installing BigBlueButton on EC2 or a hosting provider that has a number of network interfaces, you need to tell FreeSWITCH to listen on your external interface on it’s IP address (shown below as EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS). You must use the external IP address where EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS is show (not the external hostname).

Edit /opt/freeswitch/conf/vars.xml

Remove this line

<X-PRE-PROCESS cmd="set" data="local_ip_v4=xxx.yyy.zzz.qqq"/>

Change

<X-PRE-PROCESS cmd="set" data="bind_server_ip=auto"/>

To

<X-PRE-PROCESS cmd="set" data="bind_server_ip=EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS"/>

Change

<X-PRE-PROCESS cmd="set" data="external_rtp_ip=stun:stun.freeswitch.org"/>

To

<X-PRE-PROCESS cmd="set" data="external_rtp_ip=EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS"/>

Change ```

To

Edit `/opt/freeswitch/conf/sip_profiles/external.xml` and change

<param name="rtp-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/>
<param name="sip-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/>
<param name="ext-rtp-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/>
<param name="ext-sip-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/> ```

to

    <param name="rtp-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/>
    <param name="sip-ip" value="$${local_ip_v4}"/>
    <param name="ext-rtp-ip" value="$${external_rtp_ip}"/>
    <param name="ext-sip-ip" value="$${external_sip_ip}"/>

Edit /usr/share/red5/webapps/sip/WEB-INF/bigbluebutton-sip.properties

bbb.sip.app.ip=<internal ip>
bbb.sip.app.port=5070

freeswitch.ip=<internal ip>
freeswitch.port=5060

Edit /etc/bigbluebutton/nginx/sip.nginx to

location /ws {
        proxy_pass http://EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS:5066;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_read_timeout 6h;
        proxy_send_timeout 6h;
        client_body_timeout 6h;
        send_timeout 6h;
}

changing EXTERNAL_IP_ADDRESS to your server’s elastic IP address.

Open the following TCP and UPD ports on the local firewall (if you have one installed) and security groups (if your using EC2):

• TCP - 5066
• UDP - 16384 to 32768
• TCP - 7443 (if you have HTTPS enabled)

Conference not found errorsAnchor link for: conference not found errors

The command sudo bbb-conf --debug searches through the red5, tomcat7, and nginx logs looking for errors and exceptions. However, the messages such as

    -- ERRORS found in /usr/share/red5/log/* --
/usr/share/red5/log/bigbluebutton.log:2015-05-02 13:50:37,681-04:00 [pool-17-thread-1] ERROR o.b.w.v.f.a.PopulateRoomCommand - Not XML: [Conference 78505 not found]

are innocious and can be ignored.

No Symbolic LinkAnchor link for: no symbolic link

If you’ve installed/uninstalled BigBlueButton packages, you may get a No Symbolic Link warning from bbb-conf --check:

** Potential Problems **
    nginx (conf): no symbolic link in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled for bigbluebutton

To solve this, add a symbolic link to nginx for the BigBlueButton site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/bigbluebutton
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Voice Application failed to register with sip serverAnchor link for: voice application failed to register with sip server

When doing sudo bbb-conf --check, you may see the warning

voice Application failed to register with sip server

This error occurs when bbb-apps-sip isn’t able to make a SIP call to FreeSWITCH. You’ll see this in BigBlueButton when users click the headset icon and don’t join the voice conference.

One possible cause for this is you have just installed BigBlueButton, but not restarted it. The packages do not start up the BigBlueButton components in the right order. To restart BigBlueButton, do the following:

    sudo bbb-conf --restart
    sudo bbb-conf --check

If you don’t want FreeSWITCH to bind to 127.0.0.1, you need to figure out which IP address it’s using. First, determine the IP address FreeSWITCH is monitoring for incoming SIP calls with the following command:

netstat -ant | grep 5060

You should see an output such as

tcp        0      0 234.147.116.3:5060    0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN

In this example, FreeSWITCH is listening on IP address 234.147.116.3. The IP address on your server will be different.

Next, edit /usr/share/red5/webapps/sip/WEB-INF/bigbluebutton-sip.properties and set the value for sip.server.host to the IP address returned from the above command. Save the changes (you’ll need to edit the file as root to save changes).

Restart BigBlueButton using the commands and run the built-in diagnostics checks.

sudo bbb-conf --clean
sudo bbb-conf --check

If the above does not resolve your problem, post to the output of the commands sudo bbb-conf --check and ifconfig tobigbluebutton-setup and we’ll help you there. `

Client WebRTC Error CodesAnchor link for: client webrtc error codes

WebRTC offers very high-quality audio. However, the user’s network settings (or firewall) may not allow WebRTC to connect (or keep connected).

Here are the following lists the possible WebRTC error messages that a user may encounter:

• 1001: WebSocket disconnected - The WebSocket had connected successfully and has now disconnected. Possible Causes:
  • Loss of internet connection
  • Nginx restarting can cause this
• 1002: Could not make a WebSocket connection - The initial WebSocket connection was unsuccessful. Possible Causes:
  • Firewall blocking ws protocol
  • Server is down or improperly configured
• 1003: Browser version not supported - Browser doesn’t implement the necessary WebRTC API methods. Possible Causes:
  • Out of date browser
• 1004: Failure on call - The call was attempted, but failed. Possible Causes:
  • For a full list of causes refer here, http://sipjs.com/api/0.6.0/causes/
  • There are 24 different causes so I don’t really want to list all of them
• 1005: Call ended unexpectedly - The call was successful, but ended without user requesting to end the session. Possible Causes:
  • Unknown
• 1006: Call timed out - The library took too long to try and connect the call. Possible Causes:
  • Previously caused by Firefox 33-beta on Mac. We’ve been unable to reproduce since release of FireFox 34
• 1007: ICE negotiation failed - The browser and FreeSWITCH try to negotiate ports to use to stream the media and that negotiation failed. Possible Causes:
  • NAT is blocking the connection
  • Firewall is blocking the UDP connection/ports
• 1008: Call transfer failed - A timeout while waiting for FreeSWITCH to transfer from the echo test to the real conference. This might be caused by a misconfiguration in FreeSWITCH, or there might be a media error and the DTMF command to transfer didn’t go through (In this case, the voice in the echo test probably didn’t work either.)
• 1009: Could not fetch STUN/TURN server information - This indicates either a BigBlueButton bug (or you’re using an unsupported new client/old server combination), but could also happen due to a network interruption.

Reprocess Recordings from 0.81Anchor link for: reprocess recordings from 081

With the update from BigBlueButton 0.81 to 0.9, we do not support upgrading a server in place. Instead, we recommend installing a fresh copy of Ubuntu 14.04 for BigBlueButton 0.9.

There are two ways of importing recordings from an old BigBlueButton server to a new one; they are described separately.

Re-process raw recordings from an old serverAnchor link for: re process raw recordings from an old server

This is the recommended way of copying recordings, since the recordings will be rebuilt using newer versions of the recording software, enabling new features and fixing bugs that may have been present with the old version. The downside is that this can take a long time, and will use a lot of CPU on your new BigBlueButton server while you wait for the recordings to process.

If your old server has all of the original recording files in the /var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw directory, then you can transfer these files to the new server, for example with rsync:

This example rsync command could be run on the new server, and will copy the recording file from the old server.

rsync -rP root@bbb-0-81-server:/var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw/ /var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw/

There are other ways of transferring these files; for example, you could create a tar archive of the/var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw directory, and copy it with scp, or use a shared NFS mount. Any method should work fine.

You will then need to fix the permissions on the newly copied recordings:

chown -R tomcat7:tomcat7 /var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw

And initiate the recording re-processing

bbb-record --rebuildall

The BigBlueButton server will automatically go through the recordings and rebuild and publish them. You can use thebbb-record --watch command to see the progress.

Transfer existing published recordings from an 0.81 serverAnchor link for: transfer existing published recordings from an 081 server

If you want to do the minimum amount of work to quickly make your existing recordings on a 0.81 server available on a BigBlueButton 0.9 server, transfer the contents of the /var/bigbluebutton/published and /var/bigbluebutton/unpublisheddirectories. In addition, to preserve the backup of the original raw media, you should transfer the contents of the/var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw directory.

Here is an example set of rsync commands that would accomplish this; run these on the new server to copy the files from the old server.

rsync -rP root@bbb-0-81-server:/var/bigbluebutton/published/ /var/bigbluebutton/published/
rsync -rP root@bbb-0-81-server:/var/bigbluebutton/unpublished/ /var/bigbluebutton/unpublished/
rsync -rP root@bbb-0-81-server:/var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw/ /var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw/

Other methods of transferring these files can also be used; for example, you could create a tar archive of each of the directories, and transfer it via scp, or use a shared NFS mount.

You will then need to fix the permissions on the newly copied recordings:

chown -R tomcat7:tomcat7 /var/bigbluebutton/published /var/bigbluebutton/unpublished /var/bigbluebutton/recording/raw

If the recordings were copied from a server with a different hostname, you will have to run the following command to fix the stored hostnames. (If you don’t do this, it’ll either return a 404 error, or attempt to load the recordings from the old server instead of the new server!)

Note that this command will restart the BigBlueButton server, interrupting any live sessions.

bbb-conf --setip <ip_address_or_hostname>

For example,

bbb-conf --setip bigbluebutton.example.com

The transferred recordings should be immediately visible via the BigBlueButton recordings API.

Finally, if you are transferring recordings from a BigBlueButton 0.80 server, they may have been done in an older recording format called “slides”. In order to correctly play back these recordings on a new BigBlueButton server, you will have to install an additional package:

apt-get install bbb-playback-slides

Root partition too smallAnchor link for: root partition too small

If the root partition on your BigBlueButton server is too small (for disk space requirements see Before you install), we recommend moving the following directories to an external partition with sufficent disk space.

BigBlueButton processing and storage of recordings:

  /var/bigbluebutton

FreeSWITCH recording of audio files:

  /var/freeswitch/meetings

And red5 recording of video files:

  /usr/share/red5/webapps/video/streams

To make the move, first stop BigBlueButton, then move the above directories to a new location on the external partition, create symbolic links from the original locations to the new locations, and restart BigBlueButton.

Anchor link for: Install_