Proxmox BigBlueButton Installation

[gerrymc]

Proxmox Virtual Environment is an easy to use Open Source
virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual
Machines. Proxmox VE is an open source project, developed and
maintained by Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH.
See http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_Mail_Gateway_on_Proxmox_VE_%28Video%29

I have BigBlueButton running on Debian/Proxmox Virtual Environmnet
server in container (OpenVZ) using Ubuntu 10.04 template. I have used
virtual containers to set up various educational server solutions -
BigBlueButon, Moodle, OpenScholar, Drupal, Wordpress, Tikiwiki, Mahara
ePortfolio among others. I find the Proxmox solution excellent, but I
have not used in a production environment. I am a relative novice in
terms of server set-up so I rely a lot on google!
The following is an outline of the steps I followed to set up the
server with BigBlueButton. It is by no means complete - I provide
links to guides I used. I would welcome any feedback or advice
regarding this set-up.


Server Spec:
Intel® Core™ i7-920 Quadcore
incl. Hyper-Threading Technology
* RAM 12 GB DDR3 RAM
* Hard discs 2 x 1500 GB SATA-II HDD
(Software-RAID 1)
* NIC 1 GBit OnBoard
connected at 100 MBit

Proxmox VE can be installed from ISO image (Bare-metal ISO Installer)
or there is an optional method to install on existing Debian Lenny 64
or 32bit.
Link to Proxmox installation page :
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Installation#Introduction

I used the optional install on an existing clean install of Debian
Lenny 64bit. I used the following guide:
http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/4068-Installguide-proxmox-on-Software-Raid-%28Hetzner-EQ6-server%29

By default Proxmox does not come with a firewall - I followed the
following guide to create a virtual network with firewall protection
using Shorewall, a popular and effective firewall / router software
package:

http://www.myatus.co.uk/ht/2009/08/31/guide-firewall-and-router-with-proxmox/#change_vmbr0

I used the basic rules section in the above linked document to edit /
etc/shorewall/rules forward traffic to each virtual container -
containers to be set up later. I'm not sure if this is the best or
most logical method, but it worked for me. Again any comments or
advice welcome! So my /etc/shorewall/rules file looks like:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#ACTION SOURCE DEST PROTO DEST SOURCE
ORIGINAL RATE

# Permit access to SSH
SSH/ACCEPT net fw - - -
- 6/min:5

# Permit access to Proxmox Manager and Console
ACCEPT net fw tcp 443,5900:5999

# PING Rules
Ping/ACCEPT all all

# Forwarding Incoming internet traffic
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.101 tcp
80,8080,9123,1935
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.102 tcp 8102
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.103 tcp 8103
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.104 tcp 8104
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.105 tcp 8105
DNAT net dmz:10.0.1.106 tcp 8106

# LAST LINE -- DO NOT REMOVE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the logic of the above is to forward ports to internal containers.
I set up container 101 (hostname bbb101) with an ip adderess of
10.0.1.101 and so traffic on port 80 will be forwarded to bbb101
virtual container.
I have set up rules to forward ports to 5 other containers which I
plan to use for moodle, mahara, openscholar etc.

To set up the container:
log into Proxmox console using : https://your.ip.address and create a
virtual machine for bigbluebutton:
To create container (OpenVZ) - see example video tutorial
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_Mail_Gateway_on_Proxmox_VE_%28Video%29
First we need to download Ubuntu 10.04 template to /var/lib/vz/
template/cache. I used a ubuntu 64bit lamp server template. I tried
various other templates including minimum install i.e. not lamp, but
this is the template I used successfully. Mysql was already installed
in this template, but I was not asked for a password during bbb
install. I will look at this again, but any advice welcome!
cd /var/lib/vz/template/cache
wget http://download.openvz.org/template/precreated/contrib/ubuntu-10.04-lamp_10.04_amd64.tar.gz
*do not extract*!
You should now be able to create a virtual container using this
template.
I used the following settings:
Memory 2048MB, Swap 512MB, CPU'S 8 (Can be easily changed after)

You can log into new container through the proxmox console (virtual
machine configuration - vnc console)
I added the following before bbb install:
sudo apt-get install whiptail (otherwise I get an error when I apt-get
upgrade)
sudo apt-get install gnupg (otherwise I get an error)
apt-get install wget
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

I then followed the BigBlueButton instructions for install:
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/InstallationUbuntu
Note: As per BigBlueButton Instructions:
BigBlueButton uses nginx, which listens on port 80 for http access and
tunneling. As we have apache already running on the server, I needed
to configure apache to listen on a different port. To do this, edit /
etc/apache2/ports.conf and change the entry for 80 to another number,
such as 8081. Avoid using 8080 in apache as BigBlueButton uses tomcat6
which binds to that port.

I had a problem running the bbb server after the install, but my error
was I needed to provide a fully qualified domain name. In my /etc/
hosts, I had specified hostname.domainname
i.e. :

10.0.1.101 bbb101.gerrydomain bbb101

but bbb101.gerrydomain did not resolve anywhere. I should have set up
a domain name using gerrydomain.com so then /etc/hosts should have
read

10.0.1.101 bbb101.gerrydomain.com bbb101

then to get BigBlueButton to process incoming requests from
bbb101.gerrydomain.com use the command:

sudo bbb-conf --setip bbb101.gerrydomain.com


If someone finds a mistake, or can add or improve this post please
reply to this thread and comment on the process. If there's a better
way of doing this, please let me know and I'll correct the
instructions and learn from the advice!
Please remember as noted on the link to proxmox instructions - this
setup is 'not supported by the proxmox team and future updates to the
system may break it! We are not responsible for data loss'!
I have used this set-up to trial various open source software
solutions. I am not using as a production server and so I am aware
that I need to satisfy myself that it is fit for purpose. If you
follow the above guides you should keep this in mind!

Other useful links:
How to create Proxmox VE Cluster with 2 nodes (video)
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_configuration_%28Video%29

Other video tutorials:
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Category:Video_Tutorials
Also see HOWTO :
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Category:HOWTO

Hope the above is useful to some and may save some time!

gerry

[Fred Dixon]

Thanks for sharing this Gerry!

Regards,... Fred

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