Jitsi Meet
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It would be really be great to get Jitsi on Cloudron
Two questions:
- What are the differences between Kopano and Jitsi...it seems to me the tech is similar, but one you need to install an account to use which is not as good (Kopano)
- What are the limitation of using the meet.jit.si, i.e. is running our own instance improve performance
Sorry for my ignorance...
@avatar1024 Hi @avatar1024 , I just went through the install process for Jitsi Meet, thinking it would be different/better than Zoom or Kopano. However, I am not convinced it is. A few things: 1) The other users STILL need to download the Jitsi app to connect. I tried on an iPhone 6, an iPad, a Pixel phone, and Chrome on my Mac and every one needed to download the Jitsi app to connect. 1A) the Jitsi app is not intuitive. The user has to enter the full url of the chat not just the room name. 2) The install (self-installed using https://jitsi.org/news/new-tutorial-installing-jitsi-meet-on-your-own-linux-server/) leaves you with a Jitsi server that is wide open to the internet. ANYONE who finds the url can start their own chat. Switching this to a authentication approach is long and convulated and requires installing Proxody and some other apps and making another virtual host using yet another subdomain... reading https://community.jitsi.org/t/easiest-way-to-secure-jitsi-meet/21330/43 led me to think it was "easy" but I did not find it so. 3) the pixel, iPad (2018) and Mac connected fine... the iPhone 6 couldn't maintain a connection and the app crashed every time, so somehow only newer mobiles seem to work.
The only good thing I can say was the base install went fine, using a OpenVZ VPS with 2.5 GB ram. I wish I could say it is easier or better than Zoom or Kopano, but I haven't not found it so. Assuming that Kopano can allow guests to join with just a browser (and not an app like Zoom or Jitsi), and isn't wide open like Jitsi Meet is (without extra extra extra steps), then Kopano might be the dark horse of self-hosted group video chats.
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https://jitsi.org/Projects/JitsiMeet
This open source video conferencing solution is amazing - it pretty much works like join.me allowing people to instantly create group video chat rooms where people can join so long as they have the room URL
This software works with rocketchat to provide an integrated video conferencing solution. It is also the basis for hipchat's video conferencing feature set.
@nebulon I'm finding that for many of these chat apps the idea that promote the idea that "people can join so long as they have the room URL" are misleading because it isn't as simple as needing the URL... they end up needing the app too. I went and installed Jitsi Meet to see if it was true, and it wasn't. The four devices used all had to download the Jitsi Meet app. Maybe I'm the only one looking for a video chat solution that truly requires guests to have only the URL, but thus far Jitsi Meet and Zoom both need it. I am hoping that Kopano Meet doesn't, but as I've been reading about it it seems like a user needs to activate some other Turn service to allow guests from outside the network... still checking.
A life lived in fear is a life half-lived
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@nebulon I'm finding that for many of these chat apps the idea that promote the idea that "people can join so long as they have the room URL" are misleading because it isn't as simple as needing the URL... they end up needing the app too. I went and installed Jitsi Meet to see if it was true, and it wasn't. The four devices used all had to download the Jitsi Meet app. Maybe I'm the only one looking for a video chat solution that truly requires guests to have only the URL, but thus far Jitsi Meet and Zoom both need it. I am hoping that Kopano Meet doesn't, but as I've been reading about it it seems like a user needs to activate some other Turn service to allow guests from outside the network... still checking.
@scooke said in Jitsi Meet:
but as I've been reading about it it seems like a user needs to activate some other Turn service to allow guests from outside the network... still checking.
The admin always needs to configure a turn service, that is true for all webrtc based solutions (Jitsi, Nextcloud talk, ..). But once guest access is configured in Meet users do not need to install additional apps or extensions.
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@scooke said in Jitsi Meet:
but as I've been reading about it it seems like a user needs to activate some other Turn service to allow guests from outside the network... still checking.
The admin always needs to configure a turn service, that is true for all webrtc based solutions (Jitsi, Nextcloud talk, ..). But once guest access is configured in Meet users do not need to install additional apps or extensions.
@fbartels Well, that's good news, if you could get this solution up to speed I think you'll get ahead of the pack... For various reasons I really don't like the "just the link is needed" promises which then require the participants to download an app to actually make it work.
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@avatar1024 Hi @avatar1024 , I just went through the install process for Jitsi Meet, thinking it would be different/better than Zoom or Kopano. However, I am not convinced it is. A few things: 1) The other users STILL need to download the Jitsi app to connect. I tried on an iPhone 6, an iPad, a Pixel phone, and Chrome on my Mac and every one needed to download the Jitsi app to connect. 1A) the Jitsi app is not intuitive. The user has to enter the full url of the chat not just the room name. 2) The install (self-installed using https://jitsi.org/news/new-tutorial-installing-jitsi-meet-on-your-own-linux-server/) leaves you with a Jitsi server that is wide open to the internet. ANYONE who finds the url can start their own chat. Switching this to a authentication approach is long and convulated and requires installing Proxody and some other apps and making another virtual host using yet another subdomain... reading https://community.jitsi.org/t/easiest-way-to-secure-jitsi-meet/21330/43 led me to think it was "easy" but I did not find it so. 3) the pixel, iPad (2018) and Mac connected fine... the iPhone 6 couldn't maintain a connection and the app crashed every time, so somehow only newer mobiles seem to work.
The only good thing I can say was the base install went fine, using a OpenVZ VPS with 2.5 GB ram. I wish I could say it is easier or better than Zoom or Kopano, but I haven't not found it so. Assuming that Kopano can allow guests to join with just a browser (and not an app like Zoom or Jitsi), and isn't wide open like Jitsi Meet is (without extra extra extra steps), then Kopano might be the dark horse of self-hosted group video chats.
@scooke Thank you for the reply. It is useful that you shared your experience. However as @yusf pointed out, if Jitsi was a Cloudron app then the set-up would be easy.
Now I'm not sure I agree with you on the usability, and this might be a matter of personal preference which I don't we should discussed back and forth on here. As long as you use a laptop, you indeed only need the URL with Jitsi and you do not need an app. So @nebulon is right on this. Only on a phone you need an app, and while the jitsi app is not perfect, it works fine. You do not need to enter the whole url, only room name works (by default it uses the meet.jit.si domain but you can change the server url in the settings to put your own). Personally, out of the other Free Software option out there, Jitsi stills seem the most mature, reliable and easy to use so it'd be a great addition to Cloudron (and indeed very needed currently).Do we know if anyone is working on this? (I wish I could contribute but I'm not a programmer sadly)
@jdaviescoates Thanks for the reply
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For jitsi to work properly, we would need a coturn instance on Cloudron, which unfortunately has to run on port 80/443 to work reliably on public wifis (other ports are often blocked there). So far we haven't found a solution to make turn work with our nginx reverse proxy, which also has to run on the same ports. If anyone finds a solution here, which we can try, I am happy to give it a shot.
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For jitsi to work properly, we would need a coturn instance on Cloudron, which unfortunately has to run on port 80/443 to work reliably on public wifis (other ports are often blocked there). So far we haven't found a solution to make turn work with our nginx reverse proxy, which also has to run on the same ports. If anyone finds a solution here, which we can try, I am happy to give it a shot.
@nebulon damn, guess that means Jitsi wont be coming to Cloudron any time soon
wish I could help, but have no idea! -
For jitsi to work properly, we would need a coturn instance on Cloudron, which unfortunately has to run on port 80/443 to work reliably on public wifis (other ports are often blocked there). So far we haven't found a solution to make turn work with our nginx reverse proxy, which also has to run on the same ports. If anyone finds a solution here, which we can try, I am happy to give it a shot.
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For jitsi to work properly, we would need a coturn instance on Cloudron, which unfortunately has to run on port 80/443 to work reliably on public wifis (other ports are often blocked there). So far we haven't found a solution to make turn work with our nginx reverse proxy, which also has to run on the same ports. If anyone finds a solution here, which we can try, I am happy to give it a shot.
@nebulon said in Jitsi Meet:
For jitsi to work properly, we would need a coturn instance on Cloudron, which unfortunately has to run on port 80/443 to work reliably on public wifis (other ports are often blocked there)
Perhaps an interim solution would be to use other ports? I'm mean, it'd be great if people could join using open public WiFi, but I think in many use cases Jitsi not working on such networks wouldn't be too much of an issue. Eg. Like right now the need is for people in covid_19 coronavirus lockdown using their own private WiFi to be able to use it.
I note @iqweb has managed to install a coturn server on the same VPS as their Cloudron, for use with Nextcloud Talk, could that be part of the solution to getting Jitsi working too? https://forum.cloudron.io/post/4207
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Before everyone jumps to conclusions
So far, @nebulon has been trying to make coturn to be part of the app itself. This is indeed quite hard.So, I think what this means is that we have to integrate the turn server into the platform code base itself. So, it would become an addon/service just like the databases and other things. And then nextcloud, jitsi, kopano meet etc can just use this coturn service. Integrating coturn into cloudron is not very hard but will require a new release of Cloudron.
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Before everyone jumps to conclusions
So far, @nebulon has been trying to make coturn to be part of the app itself. This is indeed quite hard.So, I think what this means is that we have to integrate the turn server into the platform code base itself. So, it would become an addon/service just like the databases and other things. And then nextcloud, jitsi, kopano meet etc can just use this coturn service. Integrating coturn into cloudron is not very hard but will require a new release of Cloudron.
@girish said in Jitsi Meet:
So, I think what this means is that we have to integrate the turn server into the platform code base itself. So, it would become an addon/service just like the databases and other things. And then nextcloud, jitsi, kopano meet etc can just use this coturn service. Integrating coturn into cloudron is not very hard but will require a new release of Cloudron.
That'd be totally awesome!
Which I guess is what we've come to expect from Cloudron
It also sounds like having a turn server service/ addon that can be used by nextcloud talk/ jitsi meet/ kopano meet etc, would be a much better solution anyway, so I'm actually really glad that making it part of the app is hard!
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LDAP seems to be supported out of the box in dockerized Jitsi Meet!
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Sounds like end to end encryption coming to jitsi soon (although also sounds like perhaps only for chromium/ chrome):
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Any news on a Jitsi app on Cloudron?
The Privacy Authority of The Netherlands published a overview of video-call apps (https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/keuzehulp-privacy-bij-videobel-apps) and here (https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/sites/default/files/atoms/files/keuzehulp_privacy_videobellen.pdf) you see that it looks like Jitsi is the best choice!
