BigBlueButton Installer

This script installs an instance of BigBlueButton on beefy server architecture sufficient for 500-1000 concurrent users in a webinar. The background infrastructure is DigitalOcean droplets.

Usage

Copy sample.env to .env and update the values for your environment. RESERVED_IP should be set to your DigitalOcean reserved IP so the droplet is assigned that address after creation. The droplet's public IP is automatically detected when the droplet is created. Use the reserved IP when connecting over SSH.

If you have a DigitalOcean block storage volume, set BLOCK_STORAGE_NAME to the name of that volume and it will be attached and mounted at /opt/bbb-docker/data. The installer waits for the device to become available before formatting and mounting it.

To enable LDAP logins for Greenlight, populate the LDAP variables in .env. If LDAP_SERVER is set, the installer will configure BigBlueButton to use LDAP authentication.

The installer can also spin up a Keycloak instance that authenticates against the same LDAP server. Set KEYCLOAK_ENABLED=true and configure the KEYCLOAK_* variables in .env to enable OAuth2 login via Keycloak.

Run ./create-bbb.sh -h to see available options. Passing --dry-run will skip all apt and docker commands so you can verify what the script would do without performing the installation.

When choosing droplet size, you can now select a custom slug option (choice 4) to specify a custom droplet size not listed in the predefined options. This allows you to use any available droplet size from DigitalOcean.

Persisting SSH Host Keys

Each new droplet generates fresh SSH host keys. To keep a consistent fingerprint across reinstallations:

1. Create a directory on the attached block storage volume such as /opt/bbb-docker/data/ssh_host_keys.
2. Before deleting a droplet, copy /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* into that directory.
3. When you run the installer again, it restores any saved keys from that directory, restarts SSH, and saves newly generated keys when none are found.

This keeps the host key consistent so clients do not see a change on each install.

Persisting the Postgres Password

When a block storage volume is attached, the installer reuses the same POSTGRESQL_SECRET across reinstalls. The first run generates a random password and saves it to /opt/bbb-docker/data/postgres_secret. Subsequent installs read this file to restore the password so the existing database can be mounted without errors.

Recording resolution settings

Recording settings consist of placing the file in the persistent storage after your first run.