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DevOps Guide (scalable setup)

A single server Jitsi installation is good for a limited size of concurrent conferences. The first limiting factor is the videobridge component, that handles the actual video and audio traffic. It is easy to scale the video bridges horizontally by adding as many as needed. In a cloud based environment, additionally the bridges can be scaled up or down as needed.

warning

The Youtube Tutorial on Scaling is outdated and describes an old configuration method. The current default Jitsi Meet install is already configured for horizontal scalability.

note

Building a scalable infrastructure is not a task for beginning Jitsi Administrators. The instructions assume that you have installed a single node version successfully, and that you are comfortable installing, configuring and debugging Linux software. This is not a step-by-step guide, but will show you, which packages to install and which configurations to change. It is highly recommended to use configuration management tools like Ansible or Puppet to manage the installation and configuration.

Architecture (Single Jitsi-Meet, multiple videobridges)​

A first step is to split the functions of the central jitsi-meet instance (with nginx, prosody and jicofo) and videobridges.

A simplified diagram (with open network ports) of an installation with one Jitsi-Meet instance and three videobridges that are load balanced looks as follows. Each box is a server/VM.

               +                                       +
               |                                       |
               |                                       |
               v                                       v
          80, 443 TCP                          443 TCP, 10000 UDP
       +--------------+                     +---------------------+
       |  nginx       |  5222 TCP           |                     |
       |  Jitsi Meet  |<-------------------+|  jitsi-videobridge  |
       |  prosody     |         |           |                     |
       |  jicofo      |         |           +---------------------+
       +--------------+         |
                                |           +---------------------+
                                |           |                     |
                                +----------+|  jitsi-videobridge  |
                                |           |                     |
                                |           +---------------------+
                                |
                                |           +---------------------+
                                |           |                     |
                                +----------+|  jitsi-videobridge  |
                                            |                     |
                                            +---------------------+

Machine Sizing​

The Jitsi-Meet server will generally not have that much load (unless you have many) conferences going at the same time. A 4 CPU, 8 GB machine will probably be fine.

The videobridges will have more load. 4 or 8 CPU with 8 GB RAM seems to be a good configuration.

Installation of Jitsi-Meet​

Assuming that the installation will run under the following FQDN: meet.example.com and you have SSL cert and key in /etc/ssl/meet.example.com.{crt,key}

Set the following DebConf variables prior to installing the packages. (We are not installing the jitsi-meet package which would handle that for us)

Install the debconf-utils package

$ cat << EOF | sudo debconf-set-selections
jitsi-videobridge	jitsi-videobridge/jvb-hostname	string	meet.example.com
jitsi-meet	jitsi-meet/jvb-serve	boolean	false
jitsi-meet-prosody	jitsi-videobridge/jvb-hostname	string	meet.example.com
jitsi-meet-web-config	jitsi-meet/cert-choice	select	I want to use my own certificate
jitsi-meet-web-config	jitsi-meet/cert-path-crt	string	/etc/ssl/meet.example.com.crt
jitsi-meet-web-config	jitsi-meet/cert-path-key	string	/etc/ssl/meet.example.com.key
jitsi-meet-web-config	jitsi-meet/jaas-choice	boolean	false
EOF

To enable integration with Jitsi Meet Components for telephony support, set the jitsi-meet/jaas-choice option above to true.

On the jitsi-meet server, install the following packages:

  • nginx
  • prosody
  • jicofo
  • jitsi-meet-web
  • jitsi-meet-prosody
  • jitsi-meet-web-config

Installation of Videobridge(s)​

For simplicities sake, set the same debconf variables as above and install

  • jitsi-videobridge2

Configuration of jitsi-meet​

Firewall​

Open the following ports:

Open to world:

  • 80 TCP
  • 443 TCP

Open to the videobridges only

  • 5222 TCP (for Prosody)

NGINX​

Create the /etc/nginx/sites-available/meet.example.com.conf as usual

Jitsi-Meet​

Adapt /usr/share/jitsi-meet/config.js and /usr/share/jitsi-meet/interface-config.js to your specific needs

Jicofo​

No changes necessary from the default install.

Configuration of the Videobridge​

Firewall​

Open the following ports:

Open to world:

  • 10000 UDP (for media)

jitsi-videobridge2​

No changes necessary from the default setup.

Testing​

After restarting all services (prosody, jicofo and all the jitsi-videobridge2) you can see in /var/log/prosody/prosody.log and /var/log/jitsi/jicofo.log that the videobridges connect to Prososy and that Jicofo picks them up.

When a new conference starts, Jicofo picks a videobridge and schedules the conference on it.