Running BBB on a second IP address on one server

[Jörg Maschtaler]

Hi there,

if you have a server with a webserver already running and listening on
port 80 and you want BBB to listen on port 80, too, you have to use a
second IP address for BBB to make it easy to use for Users in
restricted networks.
Restricted networks may allow only ports 80 and 443, for e.g..

Assuming both IPs are up and running you have to do three steps:

a) run bbbconf --setip
# bbbconf --setip your.second.ip.address
With the default port 80 will be used.

b) Edit /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yoursitename
Change the line
listen 80;
to
listen your.second.ip.address:80;

c) Restart nginx

That's it.

If the parameter listen is not set with the second IP nginx won't
start because it will use the first IP address and throws then the
following messages in /var/log/nginx/error.log :
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98:
Address already in use)
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98:
Address already in use)
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98:
Address already in use)
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98:
Address already in use)
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98:
Address already in use)
2011/01/07 16:09:17 [emerg] 27844#0: still could not bind()

If nginx has started properly no message is shown in the error log.


regards,
Jörg

[Rizwan..]

Hello,

Thanks to your input I was able to get the demo page and got rid of
that 'Welcome to nginx' page.. And now when I try to join a meeting
(be it be a demo meeting) from outside network, I get the "The
connection with the server was reset" error. I tried all the API
examples and as soon as I click join button nothing seem to happen and
I get that message after a while, whereas, locally within network
everything is working fine. I went through the logs in /var/log/nginx/
and found nothing as a matter of fact the error.log file is 0 bytes. I
am testing latest BBB VM player version on my Windows 7 right now
before I deploy it to the server.

I would appreciate if you or anyone guide me through this, thanks.

Rizwan

[Jörg Maschtaler]

Hi,

do you use a second IP address for nginx?
And: Do you have configured the host to route the coresponding
requests to that second IP?

regards,
Jörg

Rizwan.. schrieb:

[Rizwan..]

Well, what I did was, first, I tried the IP address which was pre-
assigned to nginx during VM bootup and applied your steps b & c. For
example, if nginx IP addy was 192.168.2.78, I just replaced the line
in step b) to 192.168.2.78:80 and clean rebooted nginx. For me it was
a success as I could access the DEMO page from my friend's place
(outside network). All my ports are open and configured properly to
route to that IP address and just to add I only have IIS running on my
Windows which has a different IP than mentioned. Thus, in short, no, I
didnt use a second IP address.

Due to lack of Linux knowledge Im still unable to figure out the
problem. Any suggestions....

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Rizwan,

If you are looking at enabling external access to BigBlueButton, check out:

http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Can_I_provide_external_access_to_a_BigBlueButton_server_behind_m

The steps in the above FAQ entry have worked for others.

Regards,... Fred

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[Rizwan..]

Hi Fred,

I followed those steps in FAQ to the dot before posting any query here
and I couldn't get pass 'Welcome to Nginx' page. Then I followed Jörg
instructions which atleast took me to the Demo page. But I couldn't
start or join a meeting from outside network, it gives me 'Connection
to the server was reset' error. Locally, everything works A-OK
though.

And just for assurance, Just 10 minutes ago I tried FAQ steps all over
again and I'm back to where I was, that is, 'Welcome to Nginx' page.

There is something missing and I'm not sure what it is!!!!?????

Your insights are much appreciated, thanks..

On Jan 18, 4:48 am, Fred Dixon <ffdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rizwan,
>
> If you are looking at enabling external access to BigBlueButton, check out:
>

>    http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Can_I_provide_externa...

>
> The steps in the above FAQ entry have worked for others.
>
> Regards,... Fred
>

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Rizwan,

When you get the 'Welcome to Nginx' it means that incoming connections
to BigBlueButton are not being recognized. To double-check, can you
type

sudo bbb-conf --setip hostname

We're assuming for the moment you are using the external hostname
(port-forwarded from your firewall). Next, we're going to check to
see what's actually happening with the incoming requests.

In three separate shell windows, can you type the commands (one for each window)

tail -f /var/log/nginx/access.log
tail -f /var/log/nginx/bigbluebutton.access.log
tail -f /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log

Now try and access your server again using

http://hostname/

and let us know which log the incoming request appears on your
BigBlueButton server.

Regards,... Fred

[Rizwan..]

Hi Fred,
Incoming requests are appearing only on bigbluebutton.access.log.

Rizwan

On Jan 18, 7:04 pm, Fred Dixon <ffdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rizwan,
>

> When you get the 'Welcome to Nginx' it means that incoming connections
> to BigBlueButton are not being recognized.  To double-check, can you
> type
>
>   sudo bbb-conf --setip hostname
>
> We're assuming for the moment you are using the external hostname
> (port-forwarded from your firewall).  Next, we're going to check to
> see what's actually happening with the incoming requests.
>
> In three separate shell windows, can you type the commands (one for each window)
>
> tail -f /var/log/nginx/access.log
> tail -f /var/log/nginx/bigbluebutton.access.log
> tail -f /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log
>
> Now try and access your server again using
>
>    http://hostname/
>
> and let us know which log the incoming request appears on your
> BigBlueButton server.
>
> Regards,... Fred
>

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Rizwan,

Would it be possible to give us (temporary) remote access to your
server? It would help us greatly to figure out why your particular
setup isn't working.

Regards,... Fred

[Don]

Hello: Thank you for sharing this great information. I have a
similar issue, but not quite identical, so i wanted to ask before i
try anything. I have an Airpot Extreme Base Station that is the
gateway to my network. Within my network, i have several servers
running on virtual machines using Parallels. Each of the virtual
servers has their own internal IP address as assigned by Airport.
The main server that handles DNS also handles a web service that uses
Port 80. I have BBB running on an Ubuntu server. Airport will only
let me forward Port 80 to one server so i forward it to the main one
that handles DNS and the webserver. I created a machine record on
the main server for bigblue.mydomainname.com and identified the Ubuntu
IP address. I also created a CNAME on the main server pointing to the
Ubuntu server. I use Godaddy and so i also created a CNAME for
bigblue.mydomainname.com that points to my static public IP (i.e. to
my Airport). Inside my network, when i type in
bigblue.mydomainname.com, i get the BBB demo and i can start a session
and other computers inside the network can join. So, the service
works fine within my network. However, when i go to
bigblue.mydomainname.com from outside my network, it brings up the
website that is hosted on the main server.

I followed the instructions from the FAQ on how to set the bbb-config
to set ip to the hostname. i used telnet, as recommended, to check it
out and it seemed to work. I know that i could try to have the BBB
listen on a different port, but the people who will access it from the
outside will likely be behind corporate firewalls and will need the
benefits of Port 80.

So, the bottom line question is: can i have two servers (one a web
server and one the Ubuntu running BBB) that both use port 80 inside
the same network and each with their own private IP addresses AND have
them both available from the outside world through the same gateway?
I hope this makes sense.

Thanks!
Don

[Seun Ojedeji]

Hello Don,
I doubt this is possible, dsnat is usually a one to one mapping(port to port) so once the port is being used already, then it may not be reused for another ip. Unless there is a layer(1) system that could identify traffic by domain and forward to the appropriate internal server. I doubt router can do this, well at least not airpot. I stand to be corrected though :)
You may want to consider assigning a different port to your apache based server to save you some headache.

Regards

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Seun Ojedeji,
System Analyst/Network Administrator
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
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