How to install OpenMeetings on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04?

If there is one thing the Internet has completely revolutionized, it is long-distance communications. And with it the business meetings that thanks to many programs are done very quickly and easily through the Internet. But most of these tools are from different companies, and what happens if we want to manage this tool ourselves. That’s why today I will teach you how to install OpenMeetings on Ubuntu 20.04 /18.04.

OpenMeetings is an Apache Foundation project that allows you to deploy a server for Internet conferencing. But it’s not only limited to that, but it also provides chat and file transfer.

Also, OpenMeetings is released as open-source and because it is built in Java it can be run on many different operating systems. With this, quality and security are guaranteed because we can manage everything ourselves.

So let’s go for it.

Install OpenMeetings on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04

One of the advantages of OpenMeetings is that it’s made in Java with all that that implies. That is, robustness, stability, and that Java is cross-platform so it works on almost any system. So the first step is to install Java.

1.- Install some required packages and Java on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04

Before installing Java, it is convenient to install some dependencies first. So open a terminal session or connect to your server and run the following command:

:~$ sudo apt install imagemagick ghostscript libxt6 libxrender1 ffmpeg sox

These packages increase the capabilities of OpenMeetings.

Then we can install Java. The easiest and safest option is to use OpenJDK which is in the Ubuntu repositories. This Open-source implementation of Java is the same but with a more permissive license.

To install it execute the following command:

:~$ sudo apt install openjdk-11-jre
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  at-spi2-core ca-certificates-java fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-dejavu-extra java-common libasound2 libasound2-data libatk-bridge2.0-0
  libatk-wrapper-java libatk-wrapper-java-jni libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-data libatspi2.0-0 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libcups2 libdrm-amdgpu1
  libdrm-common libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libdrm2 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1 libgif7 libgl1 libgl1-mesa-dri libglapi-mesa libglvnd0 libglx-mesa0
  libglx0 libice6 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 liblcms2-2 libllvm9 libnspr4 libnss3 libpciaccess0 libpcsclite1 libsensors4 libsm6 libx11-xcb1 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0
  libxcb-dri3-0 libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-sync1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxpm4 libxrandr2
  libxrender1 libxshmfence1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 openjdk-11-jre-headless x11-common x11-utils
Suggested packages:
  default-jre libasound2-plugins alsa-utils cups-common liblcms2-utils pcscd lm-sensors libnss-mdns fonts-ipafont-gothic fonts-ipafont-mincho fonts-wqy-microhei
  | fonts-wqy-zenhei fonts-indic mesa-utils
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  at-spi2-core ca-certificates-java fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-dejavu-extra java-common libasound2 libasound2-data libatk-bridge2.0-0
  libatk-wrapper-java libatk-wrapper-java-jni libatk1.0-0 libatk1.0-data libatspi2.0-0 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3 libcups2 libdrm-amdgpu1
  libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2 libdrm-radeon1 libfontconfig1 libfontenc1 libgif7 libgl1 libgl1-mesa-dri libglapi-mesa libglvnd0 libglx-mesa0 libglx0 libice6
  libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 liblcms2-2 libllvm9 libnspr4 libnss3 libpciaccess0 libpcsclite1 libsensors4 libsm6 libx11-xcb1 libxaw7 libxcb-dri2-0 libxcb-dri3-0
  libxcb-glx0 libxcb-present0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-sync1 libxcomposite1 libxdamage1 libxfixes3 libxft2 libxi6 libxinerama1 libxmu6 libxpm4 libxrandr2 libxrender1
  libxshmfence1 libxt6 libxtst6 libxv1 libxxf86dga1 libxxf86vm1 openjdk-11-jre openjdk-11-jre-headless x11-common x11-utils
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libdrm-common libdrm2
2 upgraded, 70 newly installed, 0 to remove and 57 not upgraded.
Need to get 68.3 MB of archives.
After this operation, 505 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Finally, you can check the installed version:

:~$ java --version
openjdk 11.0.6 2020-01-14
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.6+10-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu118.04.1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.6+10-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu118.04.1, mixed mode, sharing)

So, you can continue.

2.- Install and configure MariaDB (optional)

This step is optional because Apache OpenMeetings has an integrated database manager. However, it’s a good idea to rely on MariaDB or MySQL.

To install it, use the following command:

:~$ sudo apt install mariadb-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  galera-3 libaio1 libcgi-fast-perl libcgi-pm-perl libconfig-inifiles-perl libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libencode-locale-perl libfcgi-perl libhtml-parser-perl
  libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-template-perl libhttp-date-perl libhttp-message-perl libio-html-perl libjemalloc1 liblwp-mediatypes-perl libmysqlclient20
  libterm-readkey-perl libtimedate-perl liburi-perl mariadb-client-10.1 mariadb-client-core-10.1 mariadb-common mariadb-server-10.1 mariadb-server-core-10.1
  mysql-common socat
Suggested packages:
  libclone-perl libmldbm-perl libnet-daemon-perl libsql-statement-perl libdata-dump-perl libipc-sharedcache-perl libwww-perl mailx mariadb-test tinyca
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  galera-3 libaio1 libcgi-fast-perl libcgi-pm-perl libconfig-inifiles-perl libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libencode-locale-perl libfcgi-perl libhtml-parser-perl
  libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-template-perl libhttp-date-perl libhttp-message-perl libio-html-perl libjemalloc1 liblwp-mediatypes-perl libmysqlclient20
  libterm-readkey-perl libtimedate-perl liburi-perl mariadb-client-10.1 mariadb-client-core-10.1 mariadb-common mariadb-server mariadb-server-10.1
  mariadb-server-core-10.1 mysql-common socat
0 upgraded, 29 newly installed, 0 to remove and 54 not upgraded.
Need to get 24.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 184 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Then use the mysql_secure_installation script to assign a root password.

And finally, it creates the database and the new user dedicated to OpenMeetings.

:~$ sudo mysql -u root -p
>CREATE DATABASE openmeetingsdb;
> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON openmeetingsdb.* TO 'openmeetings'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'userpss';
> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
> exit;

3.- Download OpenMeetings on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04

Now we can start downloading OpenMeetings. To do this I’ll go to the /tmp/ folder and from there with the help of the wget command start the download.

:~$ cd /tmp/
:~$ wget http://www-eu.apache.org/dist/openmeetings/4.0.10/bin/apache-openmeetings-4.0.10.tar.gz

At the time of writing this post, the latest stable version is 4.0.10 so, first, check and modify the command.

Then, after downloading it, we have to create a folder where we will decompress the file. In my case, I’ve named it openmeetings.

:~$ mkdir openmeetings

Now, decompress the file and move the folder to /opt/

:~$ sudo tar xvf apache-openmeetings-4.0.10.tar.gz -C openmeetings/
:~$ sudo mv openmeetings /opt/

Now access the folder where it is installed and start the server. It will take a while depending on the computer:

:~$ cd /opt/openmeetings
:~$ sudo sh red5.sh openmeetings

Then we can complete the installation from the program’s web interface.

4.- Install OpenMeeting on Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04

Now you have to complete the installation from the web interface. To do this, open your favorite web browser and go to the following address:

http://your-server-ip:5080/openmeetings

Of course, it replaces the corresponding value. Or the DNS.

You’ll see the following:

Next, press the “>” button.

Now, you will see the database configuration screen. Select MariaDB /MySQL and type the credentials.

Now, create the admin user and Group. Then press the “>” button.

Then, set up some settings for OpenMeetings.

Now it’s the converters’ turn. To do this, write down the routes for each of them. And then click on the > button.

Keep configuring the software. This time with red5SIP configuration.

The next step is to complete the installation.

If everything went well, you will see the following screen.

So, log in and start to use the application.

So, enjoy it.

Conclusion

Within an organization or educational environment, communication plays an important role. And thanks to OpenMeetings you can deploy a server that allows you to have meetings and chat, manage it and share files. Today you have learned how to install this tool on a Ubuntu 20.04 / 18.04 server.

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