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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.

danger

The Youtube Tutorial on Scaling is outdated and describes an old configuration method.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

Prosody

Follow the steps in the manual install for setup tasks

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.