matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/docs/configuring-playbook-jitsi.md

Jitsi

The playbook can install the Jitsi video-conferencing platform and integrate it with Element.

Jitsi installation is not enabled by default, because it's not a core component of Matrix services.

The setup done by the playbook is very similar to docker-jitsi-meet. You can refer to the documentation there for many of the options here.

Prerequisites

Before installing Jitsi, make sure you've created the jitsi.DOMAIN DNS record. See Configuring DNS.

You may also need to open the following ports to your server:

• 4443/tcp - RTP media fallback over TCP
• 10000/udp - RTP media over UDP. Depending on your firewall/NAT setup, incoming RTP packets on port 10000 may have the external IP of your firewall as destination address, due to the usage of STUN in JVB (see matrix_jitsi_jvb_stun_servers).

Installation

Add this to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.DOMAIN/vars.yml configuration:

matrix_jitsi_enabled: true

# Run `bash inventory/scripts/jitsi-generate-passwords.sh` to generate these passwords,
# or define your own strong passwords manually.
matrix_jitsi_jicofo_auth_password: ""
matrix_jitsi_jvb_auth_password: ""
matrix_jitsi_jibri_recorder_password: ""
matrix_jitsi_jibri_xmpp_password: ""

(Optional) Configure Jitsi authentication and guests mode

By default the Jitsi Meet instance does not require any kind of login and is open to use for anyone without registration.

If you're fine with such an open Jitsi instance, please skip to Apply changes.

If you would like to control who is allowed to open meetings on your new Jitsi instance, then please follow this step to enable Jitsi's authentication and guests mode. With authentication enabled, all meeting rooms have to be opened by a registered user, after which guests are free to join. If a registered host is not yet present, guests are put on hold in individual waiting rooms.

Add these two lines to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.DOMAIN/vars.yml configuration:

matrix_jitsi_enable_auth: true
matrix_jitsi_enable_guests: true

(Optional) LDAP authentication

The default authentication mode of Jitsi is internal, however LDAP is also supported. An example LDAP configuration could be:

matrix_jitsi_enable_auth: true
matrix_jitsi_auth_type: ldap
matrix_jitsi_ldap_url: "ldap://ldap.DOMAIN"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_base: "OU=People,DC=DOMAIN
#matrix_jitsi_ldap_binddn: ""
#matrix_jitsi_ldap_bindpw: ""
matrix_jitsi_ldap_filter: "uid=%u"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_auth_method: "bind"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_version: "3"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_use_tls: true
matrix_jitsi_ldap_tls_ciphers: ""
matrix_jitsi_ldap_tls_check_peer: true
matrix_jitsi_ldap_tls_cacert_file: "/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_tls_cacert_dir: "/etc/ssl/certs"
matrix_jitsi_ldap_start_tls: false

For more information refer to the docker-jitsi-meet and the saslauthd LDAP_SASLAUTHD documentation.

(Optional) Making your Jitsi server work on a LAN

By default the Jitsi Meet instance does not work with a client in LAN (Local Area Network), even if others are connected from WAN. There are no video and audio. In the case of WAN to WAN everything is ok.

The reason is the Jitsi VideoBridge git to LAN client the IP address of the docker image instead of the host. The documentation of Jitsi in docker suggest to add DOCKER_HOST_ADDRESS in enviornment variable to make it work.

Here is how to do it in the playbook.

Add these two lines to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.DOMAIN/vars.yml configuration:

matrix_jitsi_jvb_container_extra_arguments:
  - '--env "DOCKER_HOST_ADDRESS=<Local IP adress of the host>"'

(Optional) Fine tune Jitsi

Sample additional inventory/host_vars/matrix.DOMAIN/vars.yml configuration to save up resources (explained below):

matrix_jitsi_web_custom_config_extension: |
  config.enableLayerSuspension = true;

  config.disableAudioLevels = true;

  // Limit the number of video feeds forwarded to each client
  config.channelLastN = 4;  

matrix_jitsi_web_config_resolution_width_ideal_and_max: 480
matrix_jitsi_web_config_resolution_height_ideal_and_max: 240

You may want to suspend unused video layers until they are requested again, to save up resources on both server and clients. Read more on this feature here For this add this line to your inventory/host_vars/matrix.DOMAIN/vars.yml configuration:

You may wish to disable audio levels to avoid excessive refresh of the client-side page and decrease the CPU consumption involved.

You may want to limit the number of video feeds forwarded to each client, to save up resources on both server and clients. As clients’ bandwidth and CPU may not bear the load, use this setting to avoid lag and crashes. This feature is found by default in other webconference applications such as Office 365 Teams (limit is set to 4). Read how it works here and performance evaluation on this study.

You may want to limit the maximum video resolution, to save up resources on both server and clients.

Apply changes

Then re-run the playbook: ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-all,start

Required if configuring Jitsi with internal authentication: register new users

Until this gets integrated into the playbook, we need to register new users / meeting hosts for Jitsi manually. Please SSH into your matrix host machine and execute the following command targeting the matrix-jitsi-prosody container:

docker exec matrix-jitsi-prosody prosodyctl --config /config/prosody.cfg.lua register <USERNAME> meet.jitsi <PASSWORD>

Run this command for each user you would like to create, replacing <USERNAME> and <PASSWORD> accordingly. After you've finished, please exit the host.

If you get an error like this: "Error: Account creation/modification not supported.", it's likely that you had previously installed Jitsi without auth/guest support. In such a case, you should look into Rebuilding your Jitsi installation.

Usage

You can use the self-hosted Jitsi server in multiple ways:

• by adding a widget to a room via Element (the one configured by the playbook at https://element.DOMAIN). Just start a voice or a video call in a room containing more than 2 members and that would create a Jitsi widget which utilizes your self-hosted Jitsi server.

• by adding a widget to a room via the Dimension Integration Manager. You'll have to point the widget to your own Jitsi server manually. See our Dimension documentation page for more details. Naturally, Dimension would need to be installed first (the playbook doesn't install it by default).

• directly (without any Matrix integration). Just go to https://jitsi.DOMAIN

Note: Element apps on mobile devices currently don't support joining meetings on a self-hosted Jitsi server.

Troubleshooting

Rebuilding your Jitsi installation

If you ever run into any trouble or if you change configuration (matrix_jitsi_* variables) too much, we urge you to rebuild your Jitsi setup.

We normally don't require such manual intervention for other services, but Jitsi services generate a lot of configuration files on their own.

These files are not all managed by Ansible (at least not yet), so you may sometimes need to delete them all and start fresh.

To rebuild your Jitsi configuration:

• SSH into the server and do this:
  • stop all Jitsi services (systemctl stop matrix-jitsi-*).
  • remove all Jitsi configuration & data (rm -rf /matrix/jitsi)
• ask Ansible to set up Jitsi anew and restart services (ansible-playbook -i inventory/hosts setup.yml --tags=setup-jitsi,start)