How to Install Jitsi Meet on Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04 and 26.04

We used to keep a separate Jitsi Meet install guide for every Ubuntu release: 16.04, 20.04, 22.04, plus one for Debian 11. They were 90% identical, and the 10% that differed is exactly what went stale. This single guide replaces all of them and covers the three Ubuntu releases worth installing on today, with the differences called out where they matter.

The short version: the install commands are the same on 22.04, 24.04 and 26.04, as long as you use the current repository key format from the Jitsi handbook. The old guides break mainly because of how they added those keys.

Jitsi installation on Ubuntu 22.04 vs 24.04 vs 26.04

The Prosody codename is filled in automatically by lsb_release -sc in the commands below, so you never type it. If you are choosing a release for a new server today, 24.04 is the safe pick: fully covered by the handbook and, per Ubuntu's release cycle, supported until 2029. 26.04 has everything Jitsi needs published, but put it through a test install before production.

Jitsi setup checklist before you start

• A fresh Ubuntu server. Jitsi installs nginx, Prosody, Jicofo and the videobridge, and it does not like sharing ports with an existing web server.
• A DNS name such as meet.example.com with an A record pointing at the server's public IP. Browsers only allow camera access on HTTPS, and Let's Encrypt needs that name.
• Sizing. A small test runs on almost anything; real meetings are limited by the videobridge's CPU and bandwidth. What it costs to self-host Jitsi Meet has instance sizes by team size.

Jitsi Meet install, step by step

Step 1: Set the hostname

sudo hostnamectl set-hostname meet.example.com
hostname

Then add the name to /etc/hosts with the server's public IP, so the server resolves itself without depending on external DNS:

127.0.0.1 localhost
203.0.113.10 meet.example.com

Step 2: Open the firewall

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

On AWS, GCP or Azure, open the same ports in the cloud security group too. It is a separate firewall and the most common reason a finished install cannot be reached. What each Jitsi port is for explains which ones you can leave closed.

Step 3: Enable universe and HTTPS repositories

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https curl gnupg
sudo add-apt-repository -y universe
sudo apt update

Step 4: Add the Prosody repository

This is the step that differs from older guides. The key goes into its own keyring file and the repository line points at it with signed-by, which works on every release including 26.04 (Prosody documents the same layout on its package repository page):

sudo curl -sL https://prosody.im/files/prosody-debian-packages.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/prosody-debian-packages.key
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/prosody-debian-packages.key] http://packages.prosody.im/debian $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/prosody-debian-packages.list
sudo apt install -y lua5.2

Step 5: Add the Jitsi repository

curl -sL 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
sudo apt update

Step 6: Install Jitsi Meet

sudo apt install -y jitsi-meet

The installer asks two questions. First the hostname: enter meet.example.com, exactly as in step 1. Then the certificate. Pick Let's Encrypt if DNS already points at the server and port 80 is open; the installer requests and installs the certificate for you and asks for an email address for renewal notices.

If you chose a self-signed certificate to get going, switch to Let's Encrypt later with the bundled script:

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

Open https://meet.example.com, start a room, and join from two devices. Then join from a third. That third participant is the real test, explained next.

Jitsi Videobridge on cloud servers behind NAT

With two participants, Jitsi connects them directly and the videobridge is idle. The third participant moves the call onto the bridge. On AWS and most clouds the server only sees its private IP, so if three-way calls connect with no audio or video, tell the bridge its public address in /etc/jitsi/videobridge/jvb.conf:

ice4j {
  harvest {
    mapping {
      static-mappings = [
        {
          local-address = "10.0.1.25"
          public-address = "203.0.113.10"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

sudo systemctl restart jitsi-videobridge2

If the bridge still misbehaves, Jitsi Meet common errors walks through the logs for each failure.

Fixing a server set up from an old guide

Older guides, including the ones this page replaces, added the Prosody repository with sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list and the key with apt-key. On a server that went through that, check for two things before upgrading Ubuntu:

grep -n prosody /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-key list 2>/dev/null | grep -i prosody

• If sources.list contains a Prosody line, remove it and use the signed-by file from step 4. Running the old command twice appended duplicate lines, which apt warns about on every update.
• If the key is in the legacy apt-key keyring, an upgrade to 26.04 leaves the repository unverifiable. Re-add it the new way before you run do-release-upgrade.
• Old guides also opened 4443/tcp. Nothing listens there on current versions, so close it.

Jitsi configuration after install

A fresh install lets anyone who finds the URL create meetings. Lock that down first: Jitsi Meet security best practices covers room creation, lobby and ports, and Jitsi authentication methods compares JWT, LDAP and SSO. If your users already have directory accounts, Jitsi LDAP authentication is the quickest of those to set up. After that, the usual additions are a TURN server for users behind strict firewalls and Jibri for server-side recording.

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