Nextcloud-Talk Signaling with Docker

Instructions on how to use the Nextcloud-Spreed-Signaling Backend with 3 docker containers for Janus, Nats, and Coturn. Note almost all the files are from the Strukturag's "Nextcloud-Spreed-Signaling" Server I just modified a couple of things and added simpler installation instructions.

Create Signalling Server

Building

You will need at least go 1.6 and make to build the signaling server. All other dependencies are fetched automatically while building.

Download The Signalling Server, unzip then cd into the directory cd nextcloud-spreed-signaling and run:

$ make build

Configuration

server.conf:

Change the following in your server.conf to use the included docker-compose.yml for setting up the Signaling server.

Uncomment listen = 127.0.0.1:8080 under [http] this is the port the signaling server will be listening on.

Replace nextcloud.domain.invalid in allowed = nextcloud.domain.invalid with your Nextcloud domain under [backend] so that the signaling server knows which hostnames its allowed to accept connections from.

Uncomment url = nats://localhost:4222 under [nats] the signaling server will use this to connect to the nat server in the docker container.

Add ws://localhost:8188 after url = under [mcu] the signaling server will use this to connect to the Janus server in the docker container.

Create a random string for the apikey which the Signaling server will use for the turn server under [turn] apikey = the-api-key-for-the-rest-service.

Also add a secret under [turn] the Signaling server will use this to connect to the turn server (This needs to be the same as in the docker-compose.yml file for coturn) secret = 6d1c17a7-c736-4e22-b02c-e2955b7ecc64.

And add a list of turnservers after the servers = turn:localhost:3478?transport=udp,turn:localhost:3478?transport=tcp this is used to connect to the Coturn server in the docker container.

docker-compose.yml:

Change the following in your docker-compose.yml from this repo.

Change the REALM: in the docker-compose.yml to the domain name of your nextcloud instance.

And make sure the STATIC_SECRET: in the docker-compose.yml is the same as the secret in the server.conf file.

Docker Compose

Then to deploy the Janus, Nats, and Coturn servers run:

docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d

Running

Once all your docker container are up and running you can start the signaling server

 $ ./bin/signaling

By default, the configuration is loaded from server.conf in the current directory, but a different path can be passed through the --config option.

 $ ./bin/signaling --config /etc/signaling/server.conf

Running as daemon

To run as systemd create a dedicated group:

sudo groupadd signaling

Create a dedicated user:

sudo useradd --system \
    --gid signaling \
    --shell /usr/sbin/nologin \
    --comment "Standalone signaling server for Nextcloud Talk." \
    signaling

Copy server.conf.in to /etc/signaling/server.conf and fix permissions:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/signaling/server.conf
sudo chown signaling: /etc/signaling/server.conf

Copy dist/init/systemd/signaling.service to /etc/systemd/system/signaling.service. Also copy ./bin/signaling to /usr/bin/signaling.

Enable and start service:

systemctl enable signaling.service
systemctl start signaling.service

Apache

To configure the Apache webservice as frontend for the standalone signaling server, the modules mod_proxy_http, mod_redirect, and mod_proxy_wstunnel must be enabled so WebSocket and API backend requests can be proxied:

$ sudo a2enmod proxy
$ sudo a2enmod proxy_http
$ sudo a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
$ sudo a2enmod redirect

Now the Apache VirtualHost configuration can be extended to forward requests to the standalone signaling server (assuming the server is running on the local interface on port 8080 below):

<VirtualHost *:443>

    # ... existing configuration ...

    # Enable proxying Websocket requests to the standalone signaling server.
    ProxyPass "/standalone-signaling/"  "ws://127.0.0.1:8080/"

    RewriteEngine On
    # Websocket connections from the clients.
    RewriteRule ^/standalone-signaling/spreed$ - [L]
    # Backend connections from Nextcloud.
    RewriteRule ^/standalone-signaling/api/(.*) http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/$1 [L,P]

    # ... existing configuration ...

</VirtualHost>

Note you need an ssl certificate for the Virtual Host

Setup of Nextcloud Talk

Login to your Nextcloud as admin and open the additional settings page. Scroll down to the "Talk" section and enter the base URL of your standalone signaling server in the field "External signaling server". Please note that you have to use https if your Nextcloud is also running on https. Usually you should enter https://myhostname.com/standalone-signaling as URL.

The value "Shared secret for external signaling server" must be the same as the property secret in section backend of your server.conf.

If you are using a self-signed certificate for development, you need to uncheck the box Validate SSL certificate so backend requests from Nextcloud to the signaling server can be performed.