BBB and FreeBSD needs SERIOUS work
unc0nnected
being offensive or meaning any disrespect installing BBB on FreeBSD is
single handedly the worst experience I have ever had in my life of
being a sysadmin. I'm not sure if the dev's have no experience with
BSD or if it was just something thrown in after the fact and never
examined but BBB on BSD is a complete mess and I want to address some
of the issues so that work can be done to improve it and make it
Useable.
1.)Stock installation impossible due to reliance on Open Office
In it's current form openoffice does not install on the latest
version of BSD. It is plagued by errors with vlc and other modules
and refuses to build. The alternative of course is libreoffice which
installs no problem, contains all of the functionality of open office
if not more and should be compatible with anything that requires OO.
The paths are almost identical, the program files(soffice.bin for ex.)
are the same, for all intensive purposes it's all the same. I've
tested a BBB install with libre office by modifying the make file and
an .in file and BBB seems quite happy to work with Libreoffice as it
does Open office. Keep in mind as well that most FreeBSD web servers
will have no display output, it's all accessed via SSH for the most
part with maybe a KVM switch setup. Openoffice is a nightmare to
install on BSD with no display as there are no BSD headless
installation options from what I could tell.
2.)No consideration to production servers
This one is the most baffling but it would seem like the dev's only
intended BBB to be installed on fresh installs of BSD who's single
purpose is to run BBB and that's all. I was absolutely appalled to
find my nginx.conf file overwritten after the install. It was backed
up by the install thank god but I have 200 domains setup on my server
and BBB took them all offline. Why on earth wasn't the BBB data
appended to the file or instructions given instead of just
overwritting the nginx.conf file? If someone's installing this on a
web server you have to assume that some people are going to be using
the server for other purposes already.
During the initial bbb-conf setup the setup script is configured to
access mysql as root without using a password. Who on earth has an
open root account for mysql? This should be an interactive process
where credentials are asked for and then used. Root should never be
used, the admin should create an account and a DB ahead of time as
with any other install(wordpress, drupal, etc etc) and then give those
to the installer. The only way to make this work was to edit the
bbb.conf file and put the root password in there, run the install and
then re-edit it and remove the password.
This lack of common sense also applies to the starting and stopping
of the BBB server, again pointing what looks like the dev's assuming
that there is absolutely nothing else running on the server besides
BBB. When I start the BBB server it starts nginx and mysql at the
same time. Why doesn't it check to see if they're running first?
Worse yet when it shuts down it shuts down nginx and mysql!! Again a
production websites is going to have potentially hundreds of domains
setup and hundreds of databases being used by web and non-web
applications and they all go down with BBB
After a week of wrestling with this I am still not even sure if it is
working properly so chances are there are a lot more things that I'm
going to uncover about getting BBB to work on BSD that will need to be
addressed.
I want to make something clear here and that is how impressed I am
with what BBB represents. I'm a debian user at home and a BSD user in
the Datacenter so getting BBB to work at home isn't 1/2 of what it is
at the DC and I am completely floored with what you guys have produced
here.. Singlehandedly one of the greatest collaboration and
communication platforms that exists today and you guys need to be
applauded by a stadium full of rabid fans for the brilliance you have
created. What I want to see is the BSD community able to use this
unbelievable platform to it's fullest and I'm here to help make that
possible. I'm available for questions or to be a guinea pig and
sounding board to help advance BBB in the BSD arena so let's get this
ball rolling!
Fred Dixon
First, let me give thanks to your feedback. I've read it a few times
before responding and its clear that you (a) care about open source
and (b) really put in an effort to making BigBlueButton work on
FreeBSD.
We've already responded to your first post
http://groups.google.com/group/bigbluebutton-users/msg/337179e43dad12ab
So please read the above first and I'll use it's information when
responding below.
We do recommend that administrators install BigBlueButton on a
dedicated server for performance, configuration, and upgradability.
1. Performance
Most web applications are not real-time, and hence if your web page
returns in 200 milliseconds or 300 milliseconds, it's no biggie.
You'll note that we make no representation on how many users a
BigBlueButton server can support (other than to recommend using it in
groups of 25 users or less); rather, we encourage users to install on
a dedicated server and test. Assuming bandwidth is not an issue, on
dedicated hardware you can get deterministic estimate of the total
number of users a server can support. See
However, if there are multiple web applications running at the same
time, then any CPU expensive operations are going to impact
BigBlueButton. The web users won't see much difference (maybe their
web page returns a bit slower), but our senses are very attuned to
issues with audio and video, so users will note performance problems
with BigBlueButton. In these cases users will be unaware of other
processes running on the server and conclude (rightly so from their
perspective) that BigBlueButton doesn't work well enough for their
needs.
2. Configuration
BigBlueButton is not a simple system to configure. Again, from the
point of view from Ubuntu -- and we know it's more work on other
distributions -- we've built-in a lot of logic into the install
scripts and bbb-conf, the BigBlueButton configuration utility.
In the past, we've responded many times to users posting "My
BigBlueButton setup doesn't work -- please help!". After long back
and forth trying to diagnose the root cause of the BigBlueButton
configuration (i.e., where is the bug in our packaging or install
instructions that is causing the error), we finally determine they are
running software A and it's conflicting with BigBlueButton's ports,
memory, CPU, configuration files (such as nginx), and so on.
Given the support effort involved in both resolving with conflicts
with A, B, C, etc (there are plenty of letters in the alphabet), we
recommend the first step in trying to setup BigBlueButton is to use a
fresh install. That way, any problems encountered by the
administration will be under our control and we can quickly fix.
3. Upgradability
Packaging rocks. With enough effort in development of the packaging
scripts, we can pretty much ensure that an administrator can type two
commands
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
and upgrade BigBlueButton to the latest release. If there are any
serious issues with the upgrade, if debugging the problem will take
more than 1/2 hour of the administrators time, they have the option of
simply doing a clean install of the new release and having their
server running in about 30 minutes, all without affecting their CMS,
LMS, or other components integrated with BigBlueButton and running on
different servers.
For BigBlueButton 0.71a, there is no state maintained in the
BigBlueButton server. The use of mysql is an anachronism and it's not
used by BigBlueButton. For more information see
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Why_do_I_need_to_use_mysql_if_BigBlueButton_does_not_store_state
In BigBlueButton 0.8, the server will have stored recordings, so there
will be the need to transfer the recordings from one server to
another, which can be done by transferring the /var/bigbluebutton
directory to the new server before installing BigBlueButton 0.8.
With the general comments in place, let me specifically address some
of your points.
Please key in mind we don't do any testing on RedHat, CentOS, Gentoo,
FreeBSD, or other Linux distributions which others have ported
BigBlueButton. It's enough for us to make sure that the packages for
Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit and 64-bit are solid and there exists, at least,
one reference platform for BigBlueButton that always works (or if not,
we will figure out why and fix asap).
So read everything below as if it was prefixed with "On Ubuntu 10.04
..." and map our efforts to your distribution.
> This one is the most baffling but it would seem like the dev's only
> intended BBB to be installed on fresh installs of BSD who's single
> purpose is to run BBB and that's all.
That is our goal, and if we can accomplish that, we can provide
straightforward install procedure that works, offers good performance,
and minimal effort for upgrades.
For developers porting BigBlueButton to other distributions, the
Ubuntu install also provides a reference implementation to assist
others in porting.
> I was absolutely appalled to
> find my nginx.conf file overwritten after the install. It was backed
> up by the install thank god but I have 200 domains setup on my server
> and BBB took them all offline.
The BigBlueButton packages don't modify nginx.conf. Looking at the
installations now for FreeBSD, I can see they have you replace
/usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf.
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/InstallingBigBlueButtonFreeBSD#Configure_Webserver
> During the initial bbb-conf setup the setup script is configured to
> access mysql as root without using a password.
The need for mysql is removed from BigBlueButton 0.8, but still needed
for 0.71a. I think the FreeBSD instructions could be modified to
provide better security.
> I've
> tested a BBB install with libre office by modifying the make file and
> an .in file and BBB seems quite happy to work with Libreoffice as it
> does Open office.
Given the complexity of developing and testing BigBlueButton, we focus
on ensuring that BigBlueButton installs and updates on a clean Ubuntu
10.04 32-bit and 64-bit server. If an administrator wants to install
BigBlueButton on a server running other production software, we
recommend against it, citing the above challenges.
It's not that we don't want BigBlueButton running alongside other
systems, it's just that for many installing BigBlueButton, their
system administration skills are basically following instructions to
run a packaging script, and they have no real knowledge of how their
OS works. When there is a problem that conflicts with their
software, they post "The install didn't work" without any specific
information.
> After a week of wrestling with this I am still not even sure if it is
> working properly so chances are there are a lot more things that I'm
> going to uncover about getting BBB to work on BSD that will need to be
> addressed.
...
> What I want to see is the BSD community able to use this
> unbelievable platform to it's fullest and I'm here to help make that
> possible
Do you want to have access to modify the BigBlueButton wiki pages to
update the instructions for installing BigBlueButton 0.71a on FreeBSD
so they work better for others?
We're still working on BigBlueButton 0.8 and making changes to the
architecture and directory structure, so it will be easier to start
with the stable 0.71a release.
We would appreciate your help (and I'm sure Dru would appreciate the
help of others from the FreeBSD community) to get our FreeBSD install
instructions to an appropriate standard.
Regards,... Fred
--
BigBlueButton Developer
http://bigbluebutton.org/
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton
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unc0nnected
all but wanted to send a big thanks for repying to my post and for
your kind words.. The open source movement is infact dear to my heart,
as it should be all of ours as I see it as the future for our
civilization. Anyways, as a sign of just how impressed, amazed more
like it, I am with Big Blue Button and what it can do for my
operations I've actually moved my entire server off FreeBSD and onto a
new Debian box. I have stubborn philisophical reasons to never use
Ubuntu again but I did my research and it seems like getting BBB to
work on Debian isn't that hard and it's close enough that I should be
able to follow the guides.. So I won't need access to the wiki, that
would have been great though as I would love to give back to this
community some more. After 11 years admining BSD I am now a linux
server administrator and we have BBB to blame :)
On Dec 3 2011, 9:23 am, Fred Dixon <ffdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi unc0nnected,
>
> First, let me give thanks to your feedback. I've read it a few times
> before responding and its clear that you (a) care about open source
> and (b) really put in an effort to making BigBlueButton work on
> FreeBSD.
>
> We've already responded to your first post
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/bigbluebutton-users/msg/337179e43dad12ab
>
> So please read the above first and I'll use it's information when
> responding below.
>
> We do recommend that administrators install BigBlueButton on a
> dedicated server for performance, configuration, and upgradability.
>
> 1. Performance
>
> Most web applications are not real-time, and hence if your web page
> returns in 200 milliseconds or 300 milliseconds, it's no biggie.
>
> You'll note that we make no representation on how many users a
> BigBlueButton server can support (other than to recommend using it in
> groups of 25 users or less); rather, we encourage users to install on
> a dedicated server and test. Assuming bandwidth is not an issue, on
> dedicated hardware you can get deterministic estimate of the total
> number of users a server can support. See
>
> In BigBlueButton 0.8, the server will have stored recordings, so there
> will be the need to transfer the recordings from one server to
> another, which can be done by transferring the /var/bigbluebutton
> directory to the new server before installing BigBlueButton 0.8.
>
> With the general comments in place, let me specifically address some
> of your points.
>
> Please key in mind we don't do any testing on RedHat, CentOS, Gentoo,
> FreeBSD, or other Linux distributions which others have ported
> BigBlueButton. It's enough for us to make sure that the packages for
> Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit and 64-bit are solid and there exists, at least,
> one reference platform for BigBlueButton that always works (or if not,
> we will figure out why and fix asap).
>
> So read everything below as if it was prefixed with "On Ubuntu 10.04
> ..." and map our efforts to your distribution.
>
> > This one is the most baffling but it would seem like the dev's only
>
> That is our goal, and if we can accomplish that, we can provide
> straightforward install procedure that works, offers good performance,
> and minimal effort for upgrades.
>
> For developers porting BigBlueButton to other distributions, the
> Ubuntu install also provides a reference implementation to assist
> others in porting.
>
> > I was absolutely appalled to
> > find my nginx.conf file overwritten after the install. It was backed
> > up by the install thank god but I have 200 domains setup on my server
> > and BBB took them all offline.
>
> The BigBlueButton packages don't modify nginx.conf. Looking at the
> installations now for FreeBSD, I can see they have you replace
> /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf.
>
> > During the initial bbb-conf setup the setup script is configured to
> > access mysql as root without using a password.
>
> The need for mysql is removed from BigBlueButton 0.8, but still needed
> for 0.71a. I think the FreeBSD instructions could be modified to
> provide better security.
>
> > I've
> > tested a BBB install with libre office by modifying the make file and
> > an .in file and BBB seems quite happy to work with Libreoffice as it
> > does Open office.
>
> Given the complexity of developing and testing BigBlueButton, we focus
> on ensuring that BigBlueButton installs and updates on a clean Ubuntu
> 10.04 32-bit and 64-bit server. If an administrator wants to install
> BigBlueButton on a server running other production software, we
> recommend against it, citing the above challenges.
>
> It's not that we don't want BigBlueButton running alongside other
> systems, it's just that for many installing BigBlueButton, their
> system administration skills are basically following instructions to
> run a packaging script, and they have no real knowledge of how their
> OS works. When there is a problem that conflicts with their
> software, they post "The install didn't work" without any specific
> information.
>
> > After a week of wrestling with this I am still not even sure if it is
> > working properly so chances are there are a lot more things that I'm
> > addressed.
>
> ...
>
> > What I want to see is theBSDcommunity able to use this
> > possible
>
> Do you want to have access to modify the BigBlueButton wiki pages to
> update the instructions for installing BigBlueButton 0.71a on FreeBSD
> so they work better for others?
>
> We're still working on BigBlueButton 0.8 and making changes to the
> architecture and directory structure, so it will be easier to start
> with the stable 0.71a release.
>
> We would appreciate your help (and I'm sure Dru would appreciate the
> help of others from the FreeBSD community) to get our FreeBSD install
> instructions to an appropriate standard.
>
> Regards,... Fred
> --
> > Alright, I've been aBSDsystem admin for 11 years now and without
> > single handedly the worst experience I have ever had in my life of
> > being a sysadmin. I'm not sure if the dev's have no experience with
> > examined but BBB onBSDis a complete mess and I want to address some
> > Useable.
>
> > 1.)Stock installation impossible due to reliance on Open Office
> > In it's current form openoffice does not install on the latest
> > installs no problem, contains all of the functionality of open office
> > if not more and should be compatible with anything that requires OO.
> > The paths are almost identical, the program files(soffice.bin for ex.)
> > are the same, for all intensive purposes it's all the same. I've
> > tested a BBB install with libre office by modifying the make file and
> > an .in file and BBB seems quite happy to work with Libreoffice as it
> > does Open office. Keep in mind as well that most FreeBSD web servers
> > will have no display output, it's all accessed via SSH for the most
> > part with maybe a KVM switch setup. Openoffice is a nightmare to
>
> > 2.)No consideration to production servers
> > This one is the most baffling but it would seem like the dev's only
>
> > I want to make something clear here and that is how impressed I am
> > at the DC and I am completely floored with what you guys have produced
> > here.. Singlehandedly one of the greatest collaboration and
> > communication platforms that exists today and you guys need to be
> > applauded by a stadium full of rabid fans for the brilliance you have
> > possible. I'm available for questions or to be a guinea pig and