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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.

NB: The Youtube Tutorial on Scaling is outdated and describes an old configuration method.

NB: 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. Use the manual install for details on how to setup Jitsi on a single host. 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, 5347 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
EOF

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)
• 5347 TCP (for Jicofo)

NGINX

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

Prosody

Follow the steps in the manual install for setup tasks

You will need to adapt the following files (see the files in example-config-files/scalable)

• /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua
• /etc/prosody/conf.avail/meet.example.com.cfg.lua

Jitsi-Meet

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

Jicofo

You will need to adapt the following files (see the files in example-config-files/scalable)

• /etc/jitsi/jicofo/config (hostname, jicofo_secret, jicofo_password)
• /etc/jitsi/jicofo/sip-communicator.properties (hostname)

Configuration of the Videobridge

Firewall

Open the following ports:

Open to world:

• 443 TCP
• 10000 UDP

jitsi-videobridge2

You will need to adapt the following files (see the files in example-config-files/scalable)

Each videobridge will have to have it's own, unique nickname

• /etc/jitsi/videobridge/config (hostname, password)
• /etc/jitsi/jicofo/sip-communicator.properties (hostname of jitsi-meet, nickname of videobridge, vb_password)

With the latest stable (April 2020) videobridge, it is no longer necessary to set public and private IP addresses in the sip-communicator.properties as the bridge will figure out the correct configuration by itself.

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.