Meet Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :)

[luckow]

Hi,

I've installed Meet Kopano unstable.
Default Settings
The first attempt was to call myself with two different user accounts in two different browsers from the same laptop. In short: it never rings in the other browser window when one of the two logged in users tried to reach the other.

The second attempt was to call myself with two different devices and two different user accounts. A Macbook and an ipad. The ipad used mobile data and the Mabook used a local network. Same behaviour as the first attempt.

Settings with own TURN server
For a separate bigbluebutton instance i had to install a TURN server. I used the settings from this TURN instance and entered the access data in /app/data/kwmserverd.cfg (turn_uris & turn_server_shared_secret).
Third and fourth attempt. Take a guess. It never rang on the other device/browser

Any hints?

Btw: I'v read the documentation about guest users (https://documentation.kopano.io/kopano_meet_manual/special_configuration.html#configuring-meet-for-guest-users) Is this a feature for the Cloudron version of Kopano? I couldn't find the default file "registration_conf =" (from kwmserverd.cfg) and it could be a problem to edit /etc/kopano/konnectd.cfg, because it's on a read-only filesystem

[fbartels]

Hi @luckow,

please call it "Meet", Kopano is so much more than just our web meeting application

@luckow said in Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :
In short: it never rings in the other browser window

Yes, I have noticed this as well already although from the quick glance I had I could not yes see where the problem is. I am currently at a conference and did not yet have the chance for a deeper look, but I have created https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/kopanomeet-app/issues/3 to look into this soon.

Group calls however work.

@luckow said in Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :

Third and fourth attempt. Take a guess. It never rang on the other device/browser

Yes, but that is not because of turn missing before. Signalling is done by kwmserver within the app, the turn server only comes into play once users have accepted the call and a direct connection should be established.

@luckow said in Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :

I'v read the documentation about guest users [..] Is this a feature for the Cloudron version of Kopano?

Yes, it will be a feature for the future. Small steps first to see if someone really wants to use it

Issue for that is https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/kopanomeet-app/issues/1

[luckow]

Many thanks for the feedback @fbartels
I've changed the name

[scooke]

This post is deleted!

[avatar1024]

@fbartels Hello, I have a few question about Kopano meet:

1. It's says on here that there is no third party, even the server provider cannot access the calls. How is that achieved? I thought that was very difficult using WebRTC. If there is encryption on top of that, would you qualified this service as E2EE?

2. Is the experience as stable using chromium-based browsers and Firefox (and Safari)?

3. Is there a hard limit on size of conference (as in number of attendees), or can it scale up as long as the server resource scale up?

4. How much RAM is necessary for say a single conf with 10 / 20 / 30 pp?

5. What codec / compression is used for audio and video?

Many thanks!

[fbartels]

Hi @avatar1024,

happy to answer your questions.

1. that is actually the default in WebRTC communications. Connections are then always peer to peer and also end to end encrypted. What this often weakens in other projects is the usage of SFU or MCU services to lessen the upload for the individual. but this also means that then there will be a central instance that needs to receive and decrypt the user connections (the same can be said to all services offering server side call recording or sip gateways, these features simply cannot work with e2ee).
2. WebRTC is best supported in Chromium browsers. Firefox is mostly fine as well. Safari is the modern day Internet Explorer and Apple is slow to pick up and fix their browser for modern technology that enables users to escape the walled garden.
3. There is no hard limit on Meet or its components itself. Since calls are peer to peer there is hardly an impact on the server for an additional connection (just another websocket connections). The only server side limitation could be turn (for the case where it needs to relay connections) and this limitation is mostly bandwidth. Backend services are done in golang and are able to scale to thousands of connections on ordinary hardware.
4. like I said, no real requirements server side. but since its all peer to peer and every participants needs to be connected to every other will likely run into user side limitations (encoding all streams, connection limits, bandwidth) on the clients if you really do calls with 10+ users.
5. video is vp8 (because it supported on all browsers and easy on the cpu) and audio is opus. screensharing is vp9 since it requires less bandwidth for needed higher resolution (compared to caller video).

[avatar1024]

@fbartels Many thanks for your reply. That's very useful and makes it clear very.

Since what you are describing is a full mesh p2p network typology, is there any optimisation implemented by Kopano Meet (compared to others) to limit uplink bandwidth requirement on each peer to improve the performance and scalability?
As far as I understand it is one of the key limitation of doing things this way (compared to going through and SFU) as a trade off for being able to implement proper E2EE.
You mention VP8 as being easy on the CPU (but also more bandwidth). Do you therefore think that limitation on the user is likely to come more from CPU rather than bandwidth (comparing increase CPU power vs increase in broadband/mobile bandwidth)?

[fbartels]

@avatar1024 said in Meet Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :

is there any optimisation implemented by Kopano Meet (compared to others) to limit uplink bandwidth requirement on each peer

You cannot generate more available bandwidth through software

Generally speaking connections are limited to 1Mbit each (for video and audio). If there is not enough bandwidth available the browser itself will limit the data transmitted (reduce video quality) until the point where video will be deactivated completely.

@avatar1024 said in Meet Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :

You mention VP8 as being easy on the CPU (but also more bandwidth).

On of the reasons its so light on cpu is because hardware acceleration does widely exist for it, btw. But yes I think this is a fair statement. In the end you could run into situations where client would be unable to handle all the incoming and outgoing streams. There is a special "audio only" mode in Meet that could kind of help in these situations, as it turn off all outgoing and incoming video (incl. screensharing) and therefore would lessen the load of encoding the video.

[scooke]

This post is deleted!

[yusf]

Since #1 was resolved the guest access feature should work now, right? I've edited `kwmserver.cfg

Enable guest access by default

[yusf]

Enable guest access by default 🎉

But when is v1.2.0 coming?

[nebulon]

The update package with guest support is released now

[luckow]

The new update works fine. I had my first guest meeting

[luckow]

@luckow If you want to have a meeting with iOS users, tell them that they (must) use Safari. There is no app for meet kopano. Don't use Firefox or other browsers on iOS. Safari is the tool of choice. But this is not a meet kopano issue.

[yusf]

I seem to be doing something wrong with guest-enabled rooms. Guests are still prompted to sign in. Are there any gotchas I'm missing?

My fault, I shared my own room URL rather than using the "Share Group link" feature. Maybe a shared room URL should redirect to the guest onboarding as well, since that still contains a link to the login flow?

[jdaviescoates]

@luckow doesn't seem to work very well at all for me

Have tried multiple times now and so far failed to have a successful call.

I've mostly been trying on Firefox on Ubuntu, but have also tried Chromium with very similar results. Shall have to investigate further... (where shall I look for error logs, I wonder...)

[fbartels]

@jdaviescoates said in Meet Kopano (unstable version) - a few questions & problems :

where shall I look for error logs, I wonder..

Yes, that is indeed the drawback with mostly client side applications, server side logs will not really help you. Hints on what could be going wrong can instead be found the the browser console. chrome://webrtc-internals/ can be interesting as well (depending on the concrete error).

What is the exact behaviour you experience? The Cloudron turn is running on port 3478, could that port be blocked for either you or the other user in your call?

[yusf]

I've also performed a realistic test scenario now and it's very spotty. With three people on different networks in different locations (though geographically pretty close) I managed to get video from one other participant but not audio, and neither video nor audio from the other one.

I tried both Firefox (desktop) and Mobile Safari. Calls are pretty flawless with the same setup on the same LAN (though not the exact same peer devices).

[fbartels]

@yusf which version of iOS are you on?

Video but no audio is strange, since both are transmitted in the same connection.

[yusf]

@fbartels Latest stable, 13.3.1.