How to Install Jitsi Meet on Ubuntu

Jitsi Meet is a very usable and simple WebRTC based open-source multi-platform video conferencing solution. It can be even cloud based solution or you can install it on your premises. In this blog post, I will explain how to install Jitsi server on your Ubuntu based linux platform.

Installing Jitsi Meet is very easy if you want to install it on Ubuntu linux platform. In this guide you can find how to install Jitsi Meet on Ubuntu by using .deb packages.

I assume that you can install Ubuntu linux and I will continue from that point.

First, let’s install base packages like sudo & ssh, so set that up first. Log in from console as root, then install the necessary packets.

apt-get install -y ssh sudo ufw apt-transport-https

Add your non-root user (mine is ferikci) to /etc/sudoers file.

 ferikci  ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL 

Now you can continue with your user by using sudo commands.

(Optional) Enable UFW firewall and open the needed ports:

ufw allow in ssh
ufw allow in http
ufw allow in https
ufw allow in 10000/udp
ufw enable

I have to warn you that if you are connected to your linux machine via SSH, enter “ufw enable” command after entering “ufw allow in ssh” command, otherwise you may lose your current SSH connection.

If you will use your Jitsi server with a hostname, please be sure that /etc/hosts file includes your hostname:

127.0.0.1 localhost jitsi.test.local

Now re-login with your non-root user via SSH for the rest of the setup.

Add the Jitsi GPG key.

wget -qO - https://download.jitsi.org/jitsi-key.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -

On Ubuntu systems, Jitsi requires dependencies from Ubuntu’s “universe” package repository. To do this, add the universe repos with the following command:

apt-add-repository universe

Add the Jitsi repository and update apt

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://download.jitsi.org stable/' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi-stable.list"
sudo apt-get -y update

Install Jitsi-Meet

Now you’re ready for Jitsi server installation. Use the command below to install jitsi-meet with dependencies:

sudo apt-get -y install jitsi-meet

You will be asked your hostname but do not only write your hostname, you MUST write as FQDN, otherwise you will encounter with problems. By the way, be sure that the FQDN can be addressable with your DNS server (Or you can insert the FQDN to your host file.).

After that you will be asked for certificate. In this installation I will use self-signed SSL certificate, so select the first option.

The installation will be completed after a while and it will put you to the command prompt. Reboot your linux machine:

sudo reboot

Now it’s time to connect to your video conference GUI. Use https://FQDN to go to the main page of Jitsi server:

https://jitsi.test.local

You will see a greeting page with a room name input field. Just enter a room name and click Go button.

That’s it! You can add more participants with the same procedure or by using URL https://FQDN/roomname

https://jitsi.test.local/testroom

Running Jitsi Meet Behind a NAT

If you wish to use your Jitsi server behind a NAT, you must configure your router to forward the following ports to your Jitsi Meet server:

• 80/TCP
• 443/TCP
• 10000/UDP

Next you have to add following lines to /etc/jitsi/videobridge/sip-communicator.properties file:

org.ice4j.ice.harvest.NAT_HARVESTER_LOCAL_ADDRESS=[INTERNAL.IP.ADDRESS]
org.ice4j.ice.harvest.NAT_HARVESTER_PUBLIC_ADDRESS=[PUBLIC.IP.ADDRESS]

For example, here is my configuration:

org.ice4j.ice.harvest.NAT_HARVESTER_LOCAL_ADDRESS=192.168.1.20
org.ice4j.ice.harvest.NAT_HARVESTER_PUBLIC_ADDRESS=95.9.74.32