NETWAYS Blog

New feature breakout rooms

Now that the new breakout rooms feature of Jitsi has finally been released, we can integrate it into our own Jitsi. If you would like to know more about the new breakout feature check out our new blogpost!
There are two ways to get the new feature. One way is to build a new Jitsi and use the latest version of Jitsi. However, not everyone wants to build a new Jitsi setup, they just want to enable the feature. The other option is you are already using a Jitsi and now you want to update and enable the new feature.
Today we will look at how to do the update and enable the new feature.

First check which Prosody version you have installed:

dpkg -l | grep prosody

It is important that you have a current Prosody version, preferably 0.11.10.
If your Prosody is still under version 11.7 you should update it.

Update Prosody

Add the repo to your sources.list:

echo deb http://packages.prosody.im/debian $(lsb_release -sc) main | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Get the packages key:

wget https://prosody.im/files/prosody-debian-packages.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update repositories:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install prosody

If there was a conflict with your “cfg” while updating, you would have seen it during the install. You may have a backup file named prosody.cfg.lua.dpkg-old. If you had something special in there, you could move it back in place with:

sudo mv /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua.new && sudo mv /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua.dpkg-old /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua

Make sure the last line in your prosody.cfg.lua is Include “conf.d/*.cfg.lua”

sudo vim /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua
systemctl restart prosody.service jicofo.service

If you get Errors like this: OperationFailedException: Failed to join the room and Exception while trying to start the conference
You have to Edit your prosody config and change storage from “none” to “memory”:

vim /etc/prosody/conf.avail/meet.domain.com.cfg.lua

Replace: storage = “none” with storage = “memory”

Enable breakout rooms

If you now have a current version we can start with the update, if you have certain configs that are important, you should save them before the update.
When you are ready you can start:

Update repositories:

apt update

Install:

apt upgrade

After that you can check if the latest jicofo version is installed:

dpkg -l | grep jicofo

You should now get these versions displayed:

ii jicofo 1.0-830-1 all Jitsi Meet COnference FOcus

Same for the Jitsi Versions:

dpkg -l | grep jitsi

ii Jitsi-meet                 2.0.6689-1     all WebRTC JavaScript video conferences
ii Jitsi-meet-prosody         1.0.5638-1     all Prosody configuration for Jitsi Meet
ii Jitsi-meet-turnserver      1.0.5638-1     all Configures coturn to be used with Jitsi Meet
ii Jitsi-meet-web             1.0.5638-1     all WebRTC JavaScript video conferences
ii Jitsi-meet-web-config      1.0.5638-1     all Configuration for web serving of Jitsi Meet
ii Jitsi-videobridge2         2.1-592-g1e2879e0-1     all WebRTC compatible Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU)

If all versions match the versions shown above, you can proceed and activate the feature:

vim /etc/prosody/conf.avail/jitmeet.example.com.cfg.lua

Now add “muc_breakout_rooms”; to the modules_enabled section under your main virtual host:

VirtualHost "jitmeet.example.com"
    modules_enabled = {
        "muc_breakout_rooms";
    }

Below the modules_enabled block, insert these two lines:

breakout_rooms_muc = "breakout.jitmeet.example.com"
main_muc = "muc.jitmeet.example.com"

Next add another component block, this one should be after the first component block and should be located above —- internal muc component

Component "breakout.jitmeet.example.com" "muc"
    restrict_room_creation = true
    storage = "memory"
    admins = { "focusUser@auth.jitmeet.example.com" }
    muc_room_locking = false
    muc_room_default_public_jids = true

Example file:

Component "conference.jitmeet.example.com" "muc"
    restrict_room_creation = true
    storage = "memory"
    modules_enabled = {
        "muc_meeting_id";
        "muc_domain_mapper";
        "polls";
        --"token_verification";
}
admins = { "focus@auth.jitmeet.example.com" }
muc_room_locking = false
muc_room_default_public_jids = true

Component "breakout.jitmeet.example.com" "muc"
    restrict_room_creation = true
    storage = "memory"
    modules_enabled = {
        "muc_meeting_id";
        "muc_domain_mapper";
        --"token_verification";
        "muc_rate_limit";
}
admins = { "focus@auth.jitmeet.example.com" }
muc_room_locking = false
muc_room_default_public_jids = true

-- internal muc component

Restart the services once again and then you should be able to use the new feature directly

systemctl restart prosody.service jicofo.service

I hope this documentation helped you and you can now enjoy the new breakout room feature!

Joshua Hartmann

Junior Systems Engineer

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Joshua startete im Sommer 2020 seine Ausbildung zum Fachinformatiker für Systemintegration im Bereich der NETWAYS Web Services. Zusammen mit seinen Kollegen kümmert er sich hier derzeit um die Kundenbetreuung sowie die Weiterentwicklung der SaaS Apps. Joshua ist musikalisch und spielt gerne Klavier, entdeckte vor einiger Zeit aber auch seine Liebe zum Wintersport. Außerdem hat Joshua eine Karriere in der Amateur Liga eines PC Spiels als professioneller Spieler hinter sich, verbringt heute seine Zeit aber lieber mit seiner Freundin und betrachtet Gaming nur noch als Hobby.

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