Installing Jitsi Meet including JVB on Ubuntu 22.04

Introduction

Jitsi Meet is an open-source video conferencing service based on WebRTC for platforms like Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Android. It incorporates voice, high-quality videoconferencing and instant messaging services with end-to-end encryption for secure communications over UDP and TCP when required.

In this tutorial you will learn how to install and configure Jitsi Meet on Ubuntu 22.04. Ubuntu is a high performance, open source operating system that is highly popular and enterprise ready. It is also very easy to set up for even individual users and startups.

Step 1: Ensure that your system is up to date and that all necessary packages are installed. Run the following apt commands in your terminal.

This will obtain the latest package versions from all repositories in order to run other commands without getting errors due to version incompatibilities.

sudo apt update

This will enable support for apt repositories via HTTPS

sudo apt install apt-transport-https

Jitsi requires dependencies from Ubuntu's universe package repository. To ensure this is enabled, run this

sudo apt-add-repository universe

While adding tha package, when you are asked to confirm adding, press [Enter]

Retrieve the latest package versions across all repositories:

sudo apt update

Step 2: Set the hostname to the domain name that you will use for your Jitsi instance (eg: meet.example.org). The following command will set your Jitsi meet application's domain name as your server hostname.

(If your Jitsi meet domain name is meet.example.org then you have to run the command as follows)

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname meet.example.org

Use the following command to verify the given domain. It will return the hostname you set in step 2.

hostname

Step 3: Add the same domain name to the /etc/hosts file with your server's public IP address.

Open the file with any editor (ex: nano) sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add below entry according to your ip address and domain name. And save the file x.x.x.x meet.example.org

Note that x.x.x.x should be your server's public IP address

Step 4 : Add the Prosody package repository

Create a sources.list file with the repository. This adds the Prosody repository, which installs the updated Prosody needed for features, including the lobby feature.

echo deb http://packages.prosody.im/debian $(lsb_release -sc) main | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

wget https://prosody.im/files/prosody-debian-packages.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Step 5: Install lua

sudo apt install lua5.2

Step 6: Add the Jitsi package repository

This will enable the Jitsi Meet packages by adding the jitsi repository to your package sources.

curl https://download.jitsi.org/jitsi-key.gpg.key | sudo sh -c 'gpg --dearmor > /usr/share/keyrings/jitsi-keyring.gpg'

echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jitsi-keyring.gpg] https://download.jitsi.org stable/' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi-stable.list > /dev/null

Step 7: Update all package sources.

sudo apt update

Step 8: Setup and configure your firewall

If you are using the ufw firewall, configure it as follows. To allow traffic to the Jitsi Meet server, the following ports must be open in your firewall:

• 80 / tcp - Need to open for for SSL certificate verification / renewal with Let's Encrypt
• 443 / tcp - Allow users to join a video conference from a web browser
• 10000 / udp - Use for general network video/audio communications
• 22 / tcp - Should be open if you are accessing the server using SSH
• 3478 / udp - To function jitsi meet in restricted firewalls
• 5349 / tcp - For fallback network video/audio communications over TCP (when UDP is blocked for example)

Run the below commands to open those ports:

sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw allow 10000/udp
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 3478/udp
sudo ufw allow 5349/tcp
sudo ufw enable

Press y if you see below message

You can check the status of the firewall with this command:

sudo ufw status verbose

Step 9: Install Jitsi Meet.

sudo apt install jitsi-meet

You may be asked to confirm the installation by pressing y.

You'll be asked to enter the domain name (meet.example.org) for your Jitsi Meet instance during the installation. Make sure to enter the same domain name given in Step 2.

During the Jitsi meet installation,

1. You can obtain and install a trusted Let's Encrypt certificate using "Let's Encrypt certificate".
2. Choose "Generate a new self-signed certificate" option, so you can obtain and install a trusted Let's Encrypt certificate later,
3. If you already have a signed TLS certificate, you can use it by selecting "I want to use my own certificate".

• If you select option 1, you will be asked to enter email address for future renewal of the SSL certificate

• If you select option 2, after the installation run below command

sudo /usr/share/jitsi-meet/scripts/install-letsencrypt-cert.sh

And enter email address when the below lines appear

Now you have completed installing Jitsi meet in your Ubuntu 22.04 server.

Remember to: Route your domain name for the ip address of the jitsi installed server.

Now you can check your jitsi meet application and you will be able to experience high quality voice and video conferencing by going to your Jitsi url. https://'your_jitsi_meet_domain' (eg: https:/meet.example.org)

Next :

Customize the Jitsi meet front end
Setup JWT authentication for Jitsi meet