Our goal since the beginning of this release has been to integrate record and playback into BigBlueButton's core. This release is the culmination of months of effort (our last release was January 14, 2010). With this release, you can now record and playback slides, audio, and chat within BigBlueButton. This enables BigBlueButton to address a much wider set of use cases for distance education.

For a detailed list of changes, see 0.8-RC2 release notes.

If you have any problems not answered by this document, or you have questions/feedback, please post to bigbluebutton-setup.

If you encounter a bug when using BigBlueButton, please report it so we can continue to improve BigBlueButton for the benefit of all.

Before you install

These instructions require you install BigBlueButton 0.8 on a Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit or 64-bit server (or desktop). We've not tested the installation on earlier or later versions of Ubuntu.

We recommend installing BigBlueButton on a dedicated (non-virtual) server for optimal performance. To install BigBlueButton, you'll need root access to a Ubuntu 10.04 server with

2 GB of memory (4 GB is better)
Dual-core 2.6 GHZ CPU (quad core is better)
Ports 80, 1935, 9123 accessible
Port 80 is available and not used by another application
400G of free disk space (or more) for recordings

Currently, as of BigBlueButton 0.8-RC2, locale of the server must be en_US.UTF-8. You can verify this by

$ cat /etc/default/locale
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Upgrading from BigBlueButton 0.71a

If you are upgrading from BigBlueButton 0.71a, start here.

Upgrading from an earlier BigBlueButton 0.8 beta

If you are upgrading from an earlier BigBlueButton 0.8 beta, do the following

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you've made custom changes to BigBlueButton, such as

applied custom branding
modified /var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml
modified /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/index.html
modified API demos
modified settings to FreeSWITCH configurations
etc ...

then you'll need to backup your changes before doing the following upgrade, after which you can reapply the changes.

At some point in the process you may be asked to update configuration files, as in

  Configuration file `/etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton' 
   ==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation. 
   ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version. 
     What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are: 
      Y or I  : install the package maintainer's version 
      N or O  : keep your currently-installed version 
        D     : show the differences between the versions 
        Z     : background this process to examine the situation 
   The default action is to keep your current version. 
  *** bigbluebutton (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ?

Enter 'Y' each time continue the upgrade. After BigBlueButton updates, restart all the processes

After the install finishes, restart your BigBlueButton server with

   sudo bbb-conf --clean 
   sudo bbb-conf --check

Installation of BigBlueButton 0.8

Install Video

To make it easy for you to setup your own BigBlueButton 0.8 server, we've put together the following overview video.

We recommend you following the video with these step-by-step instructions below.

1. Update your server

You first need to give your server access to the BigBlueButton package repository for 0.8.

In a terminal window, copy and paste the following commands.

# Add the BigBlueButton key
wget http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/bigbluebutton.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

# Add the BigBlueButton repository URL and ensure the multiverse is enabled
echo "deb http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/lucid_dev_08/ bigbluebutton-lucid main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bigbluebutton.list
echo "deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

After you've made the above changes, do a dist-upgrade to ensure your running the latest packages and your server is up-to-date before installing BigBlueButton.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you've not updated in a while, apt-get may recommend you reboot your server after dist-upgrade finishes. Do the reboot before proceeding to the next step.

2. Install Ruby

The record and playback infrastructure uses Ruby for the processing of recorded sessions.

First, you'll need to install the following dependencies to compile ruby.

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libreadline5-dev libyaml-dev build-essential bison checkinstall libffi5 gcc checkinstall libreadline5 libyaml-0-2

Next, create a file called install-ruby.sh and copy and paste in the following script.

#!/bin/bash
cd /tmp
wget http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.2-p290.tar.gz
tar xvzf ruby-1.9.2-p290.tar.gz
cd ruby-1.9.2-p290
./configure --prefix=/usr\
            --program-suffix=1.9.2\
            --with-ruby-version=1.9.2\
            --disable-install-doc
make
sudo checkinstall -D -y\
                  --fstrans=no\
                  --nodoc\
                  --pkgname='ruby1.9.2'\
                  --pkgversion='1.9.2-p290'\
                  --provides='ruby'\
                  --requires='libc6,libffi5,libgdbm3,libncurses5,libreadline5,openssl,libyaml-0-2,zlib1g'\
                  --maintainer=brendan.ribera@gmail.com
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/ruby ruby /usr/bin/ruby1.9.2 500 \
                         --slave /usr/bin/ri ri /usr/bin/ri1.9.2 \
                         --slave /usr/bin/irb irb /usr/bin/irb1.9.2 \
                         --slave /usr/bin/erb erb /usr/bin/erb1.9.2 \
                         --slave /usr/bin/rdoc rdoc /usr/bin/rdoc1.9.2
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gem gem /usr/bin/gem1.9.2 500

Next, run the script

chmod +x install-ruby.sh
./install-ruby.sh

After the install finishes, type ruby -v. You should see the ruby interpreter output 1.9.2p290 (or later).

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.9.2p290 (2011-07-09 revision 32553)

Next type gem -v.

$ gem -v
1.3.7

Finally, to make sure you can install gems, type sudo gem install hello (BigBlueButton does not need the gem hello; rather, we're just testing to makes sure gem is working properly).

$ sudo gem install hello
Successfully installed hello-0.0.1
1 gem installed
Installing ri documentation for hello-0.0.1...
Installing RDoc documentation for hello-0.0.1...

Make sure you can execute the above three commands without errors before continuing with these instructions. If you do encounter errors, please post to bigbluebutton-setup and we'll help you resolve the errors.

You might be wondering why not use the default Ruby packages for Ubumtu 10.04? Unfortunately, they are out of date. Thanks to Brendan Ribera for the above script for installing the latest ruby on Ubuntu 10.04 as a package.

3. Install BigBlueButton

We're now ready to install BigblueButton. Type

   sudo apt-get install bigbluebutton

This single command is where all the magic happens. This command installs all of BigBlueButton components with their dependencies. Here's a screen shot of the packages it will install.

Type 'y' and press Enter. The packaging will do all the work for you to install and configure your BigBlueButton server.

If you are behind a HTTP Proxy, you will get an error from the package bbb-record-core. You an resolve this by manually installing the gems.

4. Install API Demos

To interactively test your BigBlueButton server, you can install a set of API demos.

   sudo apt-get install bbb-demo

You'll need the bbb-demo package installed if you want to join the Demo Meeting from your BigBlueButton server's welcome page. This is the same welcome page you see at our demo server.

Later on, if you wish to remove the API demos, you can enter the command

   sudo apt-get purge bbb-demo

5. Do a Clean Restart

To ensure BigBlueButton has started cleanly, enter the following commands:

   sudo bbb-conf --clean
   sudo bbb-conf --check

The output from sudo bbb-conf --check will display your current settings and, after the text, " Potential problems described below ", print any potential configuration or startup problems it has detected.

Got to Trying out your sever.

Upgrading a BigBlueButton 0.71a Server

The following steps will upgrade a standard installation of BigBlueButton 0.71a to 0.8.

A 'standard installation' is an installation of BigBlueButton 0.71a that has been configured using the standard commands

   sudo bbb-conf --setip <ip/hostname>
   sudo bbb-conf --setsalt <salt>

If you've made custom changes to BigBlueButton 0.71a, such as

applied custom branding
modified /var/www/bigbluebutton/client/conf/config.xml
modified /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/index.html
modified API demos
etc ...

then you'll need to backup your changes before doing the following upgrade, after which you can reapply the changes.

1. Update your server

First, let's update all the current packages on your server (including the kernel) to ensure your starting with an up-to-date system.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you've not updated in a while, apt-get may recommend you reboot your server after dist-upgrade finishes. Do the reboot before proceeding to the next step.

2. Install Ruby

Follow the instructions here.

3. Remove FreeSWITCH 1.0.6

This step will uninstall FreeSWITCH 1.0.6.

BigBlueButton 0.8 requires FreeSWITCH 1.0.7 for recording of sessions. In later steps, the BigBlueButton 0.8 will install and configure FreeSWITCH 1.0.7.

Before upgrading, first remove the older FreeSWITCH packages.

sudo apt-get purge freeswitch freeswitch-sounds-en-us-callie-16000 freeswitch-sounds-en-us-callie-8000 freeswitch-sounds-music-16000

Check to ensure that there are no remaining FreeSWITCH packages.

   dpkg -l | grep freesw

If there are any remaining packages, such as freeswitch-lang-en, then purge those as well

   sudo apt-get purge freeswitch-lang-en

4. Upgrade BigBlueButton

First, update the BigBlueButton repository URL to the beta repository.

echo "deb http://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/lucid_dev_08/ bigbluebutton-lucid main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bigbluebutton.list

Next, update the local packages. This will make apt-get aware of the newer packages for BigBlueButton 0.8.

sudo apt-get update

The following command will upgrade your packages to the latest beta.

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

After a few moments you'll be prompted whether you want to overwrite /etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton.

Configuration file `/etc/nginx/sites-available/bigbluebutton'
 ==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
 ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
   What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are:
    Y or I  : install the package maintainer's version
    N or O  : keep your currently-installed version
      D     : show the differences between the versions
      Z     : background this process to examine the situation
 The default action is to keep your current version.
*** bigbluebutton (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ?

Type 'y' and hit Enter.

5. Install FreeSWITCH Configuration and API demos

Now let's install and configure FreeSWITCH 1.0.7.

sudo apt-get install bbb-freeswitch-config

Install the API demos to interactively try BigBlueButton.

sudo apt-get install bbb-demo

6. Remove unneeded packages

We no longer need activmq, so let's remove it. The command sudo apt-get autoremove will remove all remaining packages that have no reference.

sudo apt-get purge activemq
sudo apt-get autoremove

7. Do a clean restart

Let's do the standard clean restart and then check the system for any potential problems.

sudo bbb-conf --clean
sudo bbb-conf --check

Trying out your server (24:42 minutes later)

You've got a full BigBlueButton server up and running (don't you just love the power of Ubuntu/Debian packages). Open a web browser to the URL of your server. You should see the BigBlueButton welcome screen.

To start using your BigBlueButton server, enter your name and click the 'Join' button. You'll join the Demo Meeting.

If this is your first time using BigBlueButton, take a moment and watch these overview videos.

To record a session, click 'API Demos' on the welcome page and choose 'Record'. Start a meeting and upload slides. When you are done, click 'Logout' and return to the 'API Demos' and the record demo. Wait a few moments and refresh your browser, you should see your recording appear.

Click 'Slides' to playback the slides, audio, and chat of the recording.

The following YouTube Video will walk you through using record and playback.

URL and salt for 3rd party integrations

If you want to use BigBlueButton with a 3rd party integration, you can get the URL and security salt from your server using the command bbb-conf --salt.

$ bbb-conf --salt

       URL: http://192.168.0.36/bigbluebutton/
      Salt: b22e37979cf3587dd616fa0a4e6228

We hope you enjoy using BigBlueButton and welcome your feedback!

Troubleshooting

If you don't find an answer to your questions below, check out our Frequently Asked Questions. A common question is How do I setup multiple virtual classrooms?

Run sudo bbb-conf --check

We've built in a BigBlueButton configuration utility, called bbb-conf, to help you configure your BigBlueButton server and trouble shoot your setup if something doesn't work right.

If you think something isn't working correctly, the first step is enter the following command.

   sudo bbb-conf --check

This will check your setup to ensure the correct processes are running, the BigBlueButton components have correctly started, and look for common configuration problems that might prevent BigBlueButton from working properly. For example, here's the output on one of our internal servers:

If you see text after the line ** Potential problems described below **, then bbb-conf detected something wrong with your setup.

Dependencies are not met

For some VPS installations of Ubuntu 10.04, the hosting provider does not give a full /etc/apt/source.list. If you are finding your are unable to install a package, try replacing your /etc/apt/sources.list with the following

#
#
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 10.04 LTS _Lucid Lynx_ - Release amd64 (20100427)]/ lucid main restricted

# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 10.04 LTS _Lucid Lynx_ - Release amd64 (20100427)]/ lucid main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu lucid partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu lucid partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security multiverse

then do

   sudo apt-get update

and try installing BigBlueButton again.

Change the BigBlueButton Server's IP

A common problem is the default install scripts in for BigBlueButton configure it to list for an IP address, but if you are accessing your server via a DNS hostname, you'll see the 'Welcome to Nginx' message.

To change all of BigBlueButton's configuration files to use a different IP address or hostname, enter

   sudo bbb-conf --setip <ip_address_or_hostname>

For more information see bbb-conf options.

Address already in use

If you have apache2 already running on the server, you'll likely see the following error messages from nginx when it starts.

Restarting nginx: [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address
already in use)

If you see these errors, it means that nginx is unable to bind to port 80 on the local server. To find out what's binding to port 80, do the following

   sudo apt-get install lsof
   lsof -i :80

If you see apache2 listed, then stop apache2 and start nginx

   sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
   sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start

Unable to install gems

The install script for bbb-record-core needs to install a number of ruby gems. However, if you are behind a HTTP_PROXY, then the install script for bbb-record-core will likely exit with an error. This occurs because the bash environment for bbb-record-core will not have a value for HTTP_PROXY.

You can resolve this by manually installing the gems using the following script.

#!/bin/bash

export HTTP_PROXY="<your_http_proxy>"

gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY builder -v 2.1.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY diff-lcs -v 1.1.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY json -v 1.4.6
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY term-ansicolor -v 1.0.5
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY gherkin -v 2.2.9
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY cucumber -v 0.9.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY cucumb -v 0.9.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY curb -v 0.7.15
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY mime-types -v 1.16
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY nokogiri -v 1.4.4
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rack -v 1.2.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY redis -v 2.1.1
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY redis-namespace -v 0.10.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY tilt -v 1.2.2
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY sinatra -v 1.2.1
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY vegas -v 0.1.8
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY resque -v 1.15.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rspec-core -v 2.0.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rspec-expectations -v 2.0.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rspec-mocks -v 2.0.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rspec -v 2.0.0
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY rubyzip -v 0.9.4
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY streamio-ffmpeg -v 0.7.8
gem install --http-proxy $HTTP_PROXY trollop -v 1.16.2

Once all the gems are installed, you can restart the installation process with the command

sudo apt-get install -f