Nextcloud Talk via Nextcloud server snap

ā„¹ļø Support šŸ’¬ Talk (spreed)
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A big THANK YOU!

Hi Nextclouders! First of all, I must say that Iā€™m impressed by the sheer amount of added features, quality of setup experience, and general polish in the web/Android/desktop UIs, compared to last time I installed a version of ownCloud/Nextcloud just a couple of years ago. Well done guys and gals! Keep up the great work :smile: .

My problem

I canā€™t find A-to-Z installation instructions for setting up a Nextcloud Talk server using snap packages. I could set up the base Nextcloud server extremely easily, but I canā€™t get Nextcloud Talk to work. My environment is a VPS running Ubuntu 18.04 with a static IP address (a DigitalOcean droplet).

Generally, I was able to find some documentation, but I could not tell if they were written before Spreedme-to-Talk-rebranding (and therefore no longer applicable to NC Talk) or they are indeed up-to-date.

Specific questions

  • Is there a complete guide for setting up Nextcloud Talk on a vanilla GNU/Linux server using snap packages? If yes, Iā€™d be delighted to know about it.

If such guide does not yet exist, let me explain what has made me confused:

  • after installing nexcloud server snap, do I also need to install spreedme snap as well?
    ** if yes, (how) should I connect nextcloud and spreedme using snap interfaces?
  • Is there a TURN server included in Nextcloud snap, spreedme snap, or any other snap packages that I can easily install?
  • I tried to follow instructions to setup coturn, but I was quickly buried in coturn configuration hell! Given that snap packages bundle everything inside, I assume there could be a canonical configuration file that is guaranteed to work with Nextcloud server snap. Is this true?
    ** If yes, does such standard octurn configuration exists? Or even better, a TURN server snap?

Thank you all.

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Well, I found answers to my own questions. I write them here in the hope it helps someone else.

If you install Nextcloud via the snap package, you do not need to separately ā€œsnap installā€ any ā€œspreedā€ snap.

Here are steps to set up a Nextcloud server with Nextcloud Talk support:

  1. You install Nextcloud (sudo snap install nextcloud) ā†’ on my DigitalOcean droplet running Ubuntu 18.04, the installation automatically did ALL the settings for me, to the degree that I could immediately type my url and login to my instance! Well done, @kyrofa :grinning:
    1.1. Optionally (why shouldnā€™t you?) enable HTTPS via Letā€™s Encrypt. Run nextcloud.enable-https and follow its prompts.
  2. Login to your Nextcloudā€™s Apps page, install and enable the Talk app. (Please note that the app is called Talk, but the URLs contains the word spreed. This is a bit confusing. But only look for the word Talk in the app title, and do not care if the web address includes spreed or talk or any other word.)
  3. Install a TURN server for your server OS. Unfortunately, there is no snap package that provides TURN functionality. Therefore you have to install it via traditional debain packages: sudo apt install coturn.
  4. Configure your coturn server using Carsten Riegerā€™s tutorial (broken link updated). Thank you @riegerCLOUD :grinning:
  5. The only difference with Carstenā€™s tutorial is that you will not find your serverā€™s TLS keys in the usual place (/etc/letsencrypt/ā€¦), since you are using the snap package that bundles its own version of apache, certbot, and everything else. Instead, your keys are located at:

/var/snap/nextcloud/current/certs/certbot/config/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
/var/snap/nextcloud/current/certs/certbot/config/live/example.com/privkey.pem

  1. Last (and the most important) step: Enjoy your video-chatting freedom :smile:! Make an account for your partner/spouse/friend/sibling/parent and teach them how it works. Start using Nextcloud Talk instead of whatever proprietary walled-garden you were using before, if any.
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So this worked with the nextcloud box? Would you say the performance is good (for dual users, not more)?

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No, I didnā€™t try it on Nextcloud Box. Mine was a VPS from a remote hosting provider. But since Nextcloud Box works with snaps as well, I guess the software setup process to be identical to what I did.

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I would add four things:

  • remember to copy the random hex 32 bits you added to your configuration file
  • you will probably have to install ufw on your server snap (at least i had to)
  • the snap version doesnā€™t use NGINX so the last command to restart NGINX is redundant and will produce an error
  • finally login as admin on nextcloud web ui and go to the talk settings, where you add your TURN server domain (probably the same as your nextcloud domain) and add your random hex 32 bits.
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