docker-dev

How to use Docker to setup a development environment for BigBlueButton

Environment

We're considering you are using a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS but other versions/distributions can work too.

An internet connection is required. It can be a shared network ( no need to forward ports in your router ).

SSL certificate

Running a BigBlueButton server requires a SSL certificate. For this setup we're going to configure our own CA and emit our own certificate.

Create root CA

The following commands will create a root certificate authority with a random private key passphrase.

mkdir ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/
cd ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/

openssl rand -base64 48 > bbb-dev-ca.pass ;
chmod 600 bbb-dev-ca.pass ;
openssl genrsa -des3 -out bbb-dev-ca.key -passout file:bbb-dev-ca.pass 2048 ;

openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key bbb-dev-ca.key -sha256 -days 1460 -passin file:bbb-dev-ca.pass -out bbb-dev-ca.crt -subj "/C=CA/ST=BBB/L=BBB/O=BBB/OU=BBB/CN=BBB-DEV" ;

Copy the CA to your trusted certificates ( so your browser will accept this certificate ):

sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/bbb-dev/
sudo cp ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/bbb-dev-ca.crt /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/bbb-dev/
sudo chmod 644 /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/bbb-dev/bbb-dev-ca.crt
sudo update-ca-certificates

Generate a certificate for your first local BBB server

Here we're going to generate a certificate for domain bbb-dev-01.test.

cd ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/
# change here if you want a different name
NAME="bbb-dev-01"
HOSTNAME="${NAME}.test"
openssl genrsa -out ${HOSTNAME}.key 2048
rm ${HOSTNAME}.csr ${HOSTNAME}.crt ${HOSTNAME}.key
cat > ${HOSTNAME}.ext << EOF
authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid,issuer
basicConstraints=CA:FALSE
keyUsage = digitalSignature, nonRepudiation, keyEncipherment, dataEncipherment
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = ${HOSTNAME}
EOF

openssl req -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout ${HOSTNAME}.key -out ${HOSTNAME}.csr -subj "/C=CA/ST=BBB/L=BBB/O=BBB/OU=BBB/CN=${HOSTNAME}" -addext "subjectAltName = DNS:${HOSTNAME}" 

openssl x509 -req -in ${HOSTNAME}.csr -CA bbb-dev-ca.crt -CAkey bbb-dev-ca.key -CAcreateserial -out ${HOSTNAME}.crt -days 825 -sha256 -passin file:bbb-dev-ca.pass -extfile ${HOSTNAME}.ext
cd

Docker setup

The next script depends on having docker available to your user, so before proceeding, run the following command:

sudo usermod -aG docker `whoami`
sudo reboot

Container setup

This docker image is running a single container with BBB packages built from develop branch.

Create a script in your home directory named create_bbb.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
NAME="bbb-dev-01"  # change here if you want a different name
HOSTNAME="${NAME}.test"
IMAGE=imdt/bigbluebutton:2.3.x-develop

# retag the commit to force a lookup but keep in cache
docker image inspect $IMAGE &>/dev/null && ( docker image tag $IMAGE $IMAGE-previous ; docker image rm $IMAGE )

# kill/remove existing container
docker inspect $NAME &> /dev/null && (
    echo "Container with name $NAME already exists, removing."
    docker kill $NAME ;
    docker rm $NAME ;
)

if [ -d $HOME/$NAME ] ; then
        echo "Directory $HOME/$NAME already exists, not initializing."
        sleep 2;
else
        mkdir $HOME/$NAME/
        cd $HOME/$NAME/
        git clone https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton.git
fi

cd $HOME/$NAME/
mkdir $HOME/$NAME/certs/ -p
cp ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/bbb-dev-ca.crt certs/
cat ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/$HOSTNAME.crt > certs/fullchain.pem
cat ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/bbb-dev-ca.crt >> certs/fullchain.pem
cat ~/bbb-docker-dev-setup/$HOSTNAME.key > certs/privkey.pem

cd
BBB_SRC_FOLDER=$HOME/$NAME/bigbluebutton

docker run -d --name=$NAME --hostname=$HOSTNAME --env="NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/usr/local/share/ca-certificates/bbb-dev/bbb-dev-ca.crt" --env="container=docker" --env="PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin" --env="DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive" --volume="/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:rw" --cap-add="NET_ADMIN" --privileged --volume="$HOME/$NAME/certs/:/local/certs:rw" --volume="/sys/fs/cgroup:/sys/fs/cgroup:ro" --volume="$BBB_SRC_FOLDER:/home/bigbluebutton/src:rw" --volume=docker_in_docker$NAME:/var/lib/docker -t $IMAGE

mkdir $HOME/.bbb/ &> /dev/null
echo "docker exec -u bigbluebutton -w /home/bigbluebutton/ -it $NAME /bin/bash  -l" > $HOME/.bbb/$NAME.sh
chmod 755 $HOME/.bbb/$NAME.sh

echo "docker exec -u bigbluebutton -w /home/bigbluebutton/ $NAME /bin/hostname --ip-address" > $HOME/.bbb/ip-$NAME.sh
chmod 755 $HOME/.bbb/ip-$NAME.sh

Add permissions to the script:

chmod 755 create_bbb.sh

Run the script ( it will remove previously created dockers and create a new one):

 ./create_bbb.sh

Shell session within the container

You can open a shell session with the following command:

~/.bbb/bbb-dev-01.sh

Configure your local machine DNS

Your computer /etc/hosts file must be configured in order to resolve the name of your container. You can do it by running the following command:

echo `~/.bbb/ip-bbb-dev-01.sh | xargs -n 1 echo -n`" bbb-dev-01.test." | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Running HTML5 from source code

To execute HTML5 component from source code, you need to open a shell session within your container ( see previous section ) and execute:

# Restart all BBB services
sudo bbb-conf --restart

## Stop MongoDB and bbb-html5 services that are running from packages
sudo systemctl stop bbb-html5 mongod

## Start meteor in development mode ( it starts a bundled mongo too )
cd ~/src/bigbluebutton-html5/
npm install
npm start

That's all, open https://bbb-dev-01.test in your browser and enjoy.

PS: if you see certificate error in your browser, you need to add the CA certificate in it's trusted certificates. Instructions for Chrome and Firefox can be found here