Jitsi Integration in Nextcloud Talk

What’s the point in having to use docker because it’s 2020? Did I miss something?

If you run a production server and care about security, you will probably not use docker, as it still has to run as root (rootless mode isn’t yet a native and easy to use function in 2020).
Don’t be deceived by the all is easy promises. Docker can even complicate things quite a bit under some circumstances.

2 Likes

I personally found investing a little time to learn docker-compose very worthwhile. I already run NC, mariadb, coturn, redis, and Collabora in Docker. I plan to try adding Jitsi soon, possibly this weekend.

Pre-tested docker-compose files can make setup very easy.

Also, take the concerns surrounding Docker and root with a grain of salt. Even on “rootless” systems there are still many processes running with root privileges, and Nextcloud’s Docker version runs as www-data inside the container.

If the founder of the project even likes the idea, why not? Another option is to integrate an Open Source SFU/MCU into Talk.

founder of nextcloud
 yes. founder of talk? ummm. no. as i have learned that talk/spreedme seems to be an external software which got included to NC as an app. so founder-frank might like the idea but it seems to be out of his reach if talk/spreedme would do so


I played a lot on Jitsi those days and i think :thinking: the Jitsi app « may » be hard to implement.

The way Jitsi implement security about room creation is akward. TL;DR everyone can access room creation and enter a room, but it’s only after that you to input credentials for using the room.
I hope dev can modify this behavior and find something simple to use and share.

I will now look on Big Blue Button to see what the software can produce.

1 Like

Might be worth looking at how the Matrix project handled it. I don’t know if it’s a deep integration, or just sort of tacked on.

2 Likes

Matrix has been asked a while ago without a lot of enthousiasme. But i m sure it can be a solid killer app to use.

well you could use ldap as authentication with jitsi. it’s already built-in
 so this could work pretty easy for nc, i think

I’m not afraid :scream: of the auth/login method, i know that it can be modded to fit the user base of Nextcloud.

I just think of the « how Jitsi work » that is a little awkward if you want secure room creation.

But i’m not a dev so finally i don’t know if those mods are easy to dev or not.

In Matrix the original Jitsi UI is shown in a widget (like a small browser window) and the client sets a random room name. It’s not a deep integration at all (at least not yet).
The newest Riot (Web) Client has a config option to set your own jitsi server. Tried that just yesterday, it’s very simple to set up.
If your Jitsi server is password secured you have to click inside the tiny widget and enter your credentials.

2 Likes

Riot is really nice too

I think other systems only use session-ids and thereby a hidden room name. Perhaps the jitsi-room-name can put from url to post-parameter and do not show in the browser and app. I think the jitsi devs can easy program a second authentication with (hidden) session ids.

Personally, I prefer jitsi.
The vicol example here Nextcloud App for BigBlueButton integration is a very good example.
Jitsi also uses APIs.
Jitsi can be integrated into RocketChat:
https://github.com/jitsi/lib-jitsi-meet/blob/master/doc/tokens.md
https://rocket.chat/docs/administrator-guides/setting-up-video-conferencing/

Maybe take example on rocket chat, and use this token authentication method for nextcloud?

I just wrote a complete streaming Nextcloud Talk API proxy and now pretty advanced Jitsi chatbot with full password/authentication support:


I created a short introduction video to the streaming API/bot framework here:

If you know German, take a look at the following usage example video:

I now use this setup on a 300+ concurrent user Nextcloud instance and have received very positive UX & performance feedback (people are used to Chatbots from Slack and Discord), so this might be a pretty good solution until an actual integration has been created.

10 Likes

@pojntfx
Is it possible to release the talk-bot as an nextcloud app so it is easy to install?
Thanks for your great work!

Looks like it is installed by Docker, etc. currently. See discussion of chatbot support below
 nice idea to install as an app.

1 Like

@jakob1 Theoretically yes, but because of Nextcloud’s IMHO “retro” approach of how they do apps (which is really not compatible with most modern/“cloud native” extension ideas like i.e. Kubernetes does it with APIs/gRPC) it isn’t that simple. If one where up to the task though, it would of course be possible to simply call Docker using an app and then controlling the chatbot with it, although I made an oath to never tough PHP again :wink:

Hello Guys,

i am also not impressed from Talk. If i have more than 3 or 4 Participants it is extrem laggy and the Bandwith needed on each client ist high. And i see only 5 to 6 
 everone else is out of the Window ? So for self hosting it is not usable at all for me.

I played also around jitsi and setup my own Jitsi Server Instance 
 well performed with 10 Participants without any problems and by the way i see all Participants without problem, can choose which one should be in big or spreed all over the Window - great. Video and Sound quality was good.

So i am also interessted in an nextcloud integration as an optional Videosystem to Nextcloud Talk. If jitis is still working in the next days without problems i drop nextcloud talk because it makes no benefit for me.

Best regards Mario

6 Likes

All you need to get Jitsi like performance is to write an open source HPB signaling server, been working on one in my spare time. Basically just a web api and a Janus server put together.

1 Like

great - is there a gthub or gitlab repo? Are yu aware of this ongoing effort to create such an open source HPB alternative?

https://gitlab.com/powerpaul17/nc_talk_backend maybe you can join forces or at least share expriences or code