Install Jitsi Meet Video Conferencing tool on Ubuntu

In this article I will share how to install and setup jitsi meet on a Ubuntu / Debian server. It will take few minutes to install and setup your own video conferencing server.

Jitsi meet is a free open source tool by which you can host your own video conferencing server.

Prerequisites

• A fresh ubuntu server instance with an IPv4 address xx.xx.xx.xx (eg. 192.16.0.1 )
• A root user with password or ssh keys
• A domain meet.yoursite.com being pointed to the server instance mentioned above.

Pointing Domain To Your Server

• Go to your registrar (eg. Godaddy, Namecheap, etc)
• Find Manage Your DNS records
• Complete the required fields:
  • Host: The host name, or prefix, for the subdomain. For example, enter meet to create a subdomain for meet.yoursite.com.
  • Points to: The IP address you are setting as the destination for the host. This is usually the IP address of a hosting account where the site for your subdomain lives.
  • TTL: How long the server should cache information. The TTL is set to 1 hour by default.
• Save it

Connecting to your server Via SSH:

IF YOU HAVE .pem or .ppk files ( SSH keys ) for logging in to ssh Follow the below Steps Else Skip this

• Open Terminal ( In Apple Machines ) / Open Putty ( Installation Link : https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/w64/putty.exe )


• For Mac :
  Type: ssh -i key.pem root@yourserversip

• For Windows Fill The putty Fields

  • At Host put your servers IP
  • Select SFTP from the dropdown
  • Then choose keyfile option and select the key.ppk file
  • Then Connect Now you will be able to access your server via your machine

If you have the password for ssh login Follow the Below Steps

• For MacOS
  • Enter in terminal – ssh root@yourserverip
  • Then Enter the password
• For windows
  • At Host put your servers IP
  • Select SFTP from the dropdown
  • Then choose username/password option
  • Enter your Username and Password
  • Connect ### If you are loggin with user other than root Then after login enter - sudo su –

Make sure the Following Ports are open For your server if not Add it

• Add HTTP and HTTPS rules from source Anywhere.
• Add custom TCP port 4443 rule from source Anywhere .
• Add custom UDP port 10000 rule from source Anywhere .

Now we are ready to install JITSI MEET

Enter the following in the terminal one by one:
Make sure to replace meet.yoursite.com with yours

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname jitsimeet

sudo sed -i 's/^127.0.1.1.*$/127.0.1.1 meet.yoursite.com jitsimeet/g' /etc/hosts

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y openjdk-8-jre-headless

echo "JAVA_HOME=$(readlink -f /usr/bin/java | sed "s:bin/java::")" | sudo tee -a /etc/profile source /etc/profile

sudo apt install -y nginx

sudo systemctl start nginx.service

sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

cd

wget -qO - https://download.jitsi.org/jitsi-key.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add –

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://download.jitsi.org stable/' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi-stable.list"

sudo apt update -y

sudo apt install -y jitsi-meet

During the installation, when you are asked to provide the hostname of the current installation, type in the meet.yoursite.com you setup earlier and then press ENTER.

When you are asked about the SSL certificate, highlight the Generate a new self-signed certificate (You will later get a chance to obtain a Let's Encrypt certificate) option and then press ENTER.

Once Jitsi Meet successfully installed, use the following script to apply for a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate:
Enter the Following in Terminal
sudo /usr/share/jitsi-meet/scripts/install-letsencrypt-cert.sh

Tada !!! You have successfully installed jitsi meet on your ubuntu server.

Now open your browser with http://meet.yoursite.com

Bonus:

• You can change the Logo in /usr/share/jitsi-meet/images/watermark.png
  Replace watermark.png with yours

• Change Jitsi name and other settings easily at:
  /usr/share/jitsi-meet/interface_config

• Change Background Color and Front Page Texts at:
  /usr/share/jitsi-meet/libs/app.bundle.min.js

• Change Site title and other meta data at:
  /usr/share/jitsi-meet/title.html

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You can also install Jitsi Meet in just 5 minutes.
Check out my video on installing Jitsi Meet on DigitalOcean with One-Click App.

Hope you enjoyed the article. For any queries feel free to leave a comment below.

Thank you.