Setup Jitsi Meet

DNS – Set up the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) 

You will need to register your application via DNS as this is needed to obtain an SSL certificate to access the Jitsi Meet server, you’ll need to configure your DNS to add an ‘A’ record to point your domain name to the public IP address of your Jitsi server.

Note: If you do not use DNS, you will be able to get Jitsi up and running, but you will then have to deal with potential issues with your users having SSL errors in the browser, as well as issues with the webcam and microphone not working

The next first step is to update the localhost file with the domain name you intent to use that users will use to connect to the Jitst Meet server via a URL address. 

To add the FQDN in the /etc/hosts file, open up the localhost file, run the following command:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add the ip address, then localhost followed by the domain name you want to use as below:

Then press Ctrl + O to save, then Ctrl + X to exit the hosts editor

Important: Make sure the domain name you are using resolves to the servers IP address before moving to the next step, otherwise you will experience issues with connectivity and performance using Jitsi as the installation relies on resolving the domain name to setup the certificates. It can take some DNS providers upto 48 hours to propagate DNS changes.

Note: The LetsEncrypt script will do a reverse lookup and expect to resolve the name of this host from the IP. The process also expects this to be an A record. I have not tried to see what happens if you use an Alias or C record.

Before proceeding, make sure that when you do a, nslookup—or whatever your preferred DNS lookup tool might be—that the DNS record you created now resolves to the instance IP address. Do not proceed until this is the case.

Next, there are a couple of configuration steps to get Jitsi up and running. From the command line type the following:

First we make sure the server is upto date:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade -y

Next is to run the install:

sudo apt-get -y install jitsi-meet

During the install enter your domain name you want to use that we added in the hostfile previously:

Next, Select the default to use ‘Self Signed Cert‘, we will update later.

That should now return to the terminal command line. Now we setup the certificate using the following command:

(Note: Make sure the domain name you are using resolves to the servers IP before running the next command to setup the certificates)

sudo /usr/share/jitsi-meet/scripts/install-letsencrypt-cert.sh

You will be asked to enter an email address.  Then press ‘Enter’

Thats it. Completed!

Now if you go to your domain it should now be live:

https://mydomain.com

Be sure to put https://

Jitsi Meet Firewall Ports

If you have a firewall on your network/cloud infrastructure or Network Security Group in Azure/AWS/GCP you will need to make sure the following ports are open:

TCP 80

TCP 443

TCP 22

UDP 10000

To setup AWS firewall rules refer to – AWS Security Groups

To setup Azure firewall rules refer to – Azure Network Security Groups

To setup Google GCP firewall rules refer to – Creating GCP Firewalls

Support / Documentation

Any questions or help regarding the installation of Jitsi leave a comment below or contact us directly.

Jitsi documentatin / user guides can be found on https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet/blob/master/doc/README.md

Disclaimer: This video conference solution is built using Jitsi Meet, an opensource software. This solution is Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 . Jitsi is a registered trademark of its respective owners. No warrantee of any kind, expressed or implied, is included with this software
– Use at your risk, responsibility for damages (if any) to anyone resulting from the use of this software rest entirely with the user
– The author & trademark owners are not responsible for any damage that its use could cause.