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Installing Jitsi Meet on Debian Buster

Reviewed on 02 July 2021 • Published on 16 March 2020
  • compute
  • mediaserver
  • media
  • video
  • sharing
  • conference
  • call

Jitsi Meet is a free and fully encrypted open source video conferencing service solution providing high quality and audio without subscription or the need to create an account which can be installed easily on a virtual instance, running on Debian 10 Buster.

The tool provides features like:

  • Sharing of desktops, presentations, and more
  • Inviting users to a conference via a simple, custom URL
  • Editing documents together using Etherpad
  • Trading messages and emojis while video conferencing, with integrated chat.
Requirements:
  • You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway Console
  • You have configured your SSH Key
  • You have a Scaleway Instance running Debian Buster (for a better performance, we recommend that you use an instance with at least 4 GB of RAM - DEV1-M or larger)
  • You have a domain or subdomain pointed to your Instance
Note:

This tutorial shows the installation of Jitsi Meet on Debian Buster. If you prefer the installation of Jitsi Meet on Ubuntu Bionic Beaver, follow this tutorial.

Installing Jitsi Meet

  1. Configure the hostname of the server corresponding to your domain / subdomain name:

    hostnamectl set-hostname jitsised -i 's/^127.0.1.1.*$/127.0.1.1 jitsi.mydomain.tld jitsi/g' /etc/hostssed -i 's/^127.0.0.1.*$/127.0.0.1 localhost jitsi.mydomain.tld jitsi/g' /etc/hosts

  2. Update the apt packet cache and upgrade the software installed on the instance to the latest version available on the Debian repositories:

    apt update && apt upgrade

  3. Install a Nginx web server before installing Jitsi Meet. The Jitsi installation tool will take care about the configuration of Nginx, if it is present on the system. Run the following commands to install and enable Nginx:

    apt install -y nginxsystemctl start nginx.servicesystemctl enable nginx.service
    Important:

    If Nginx or Apache are not installed, Jitsi Meet will automatically install Jetty during the installation.

  4. Download the APT key and setup the repositories of Jitsi, to install the software via apt:

    wget -qO - https://download.jitsi.org/jitsi-key.gpg.key | apt-key add -sh -c "echo 'deb https://download.jitsi.org stable/' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi-stable.list"apt update

  5. Launch the installation of Jitsi Meet:

    apt install -y jitsi-meet

    When asked, enter:

    • The FQDN of your instance. For example jitsi.mydomain.tld and press Enter.
    • When asked about the SSL certificate choose the Generate a new self-signed certificate (You will later get a chance to obtain a Let's Encrypt certificate) option and press Enter.

  6. Run the following script to generate a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for your instance:

    /usr/share/jitsi-meet/scripts/install-letsencrypt-cert.sh
    Tip:

    In case the Let’s Encrypt certificate generation fails, run the following command: dpkg-reconfigure jitsi-meet-web-config to reconfigure the package jitsi-meet-web-config before relaunching the certificate request.

    The Jitsi Meet instance is configured and ready for a first conference call.

  7. Open a Web-browser and type the FQDN of your instance, for example: https://jitsi.mydomain.tld. The following screen will appear:

  8. Enter a name for your conference and press Go to enter the conference room. It is now possible to share the link, to set a password, configure the audio and video quality and more for the conference.

  9. Happy conferencing :)