Accelerator

Free Online Conference and Collaboration Tool with build in WebRTC MCU/SFU running in NodeJS

Available functions

• Online Conferences with up to 6 participants per room (all Audio / Video)
• Online Conferences with up to 250 participants per room (all Audio / only Moderator video)
• Screenshare
• PDF and HTML5 Presentations
• Collaborative Whiteboard (can also be hosted standalone)
• Youtube viewer
• 3D Object viewer
• User interactions with draggable items (like Textboxes, Drawings...)
• Fileshare
• Text Chat
• Etherpad in IFrame (Must be hosted on its own)
• much more...

Installation without Docker

1. install nodeJs
2. run: npm install
3. run: node server.js
4. surf to: http://127.0.0.1:8080

Note:

• To serve it online you need a reverse proxy and deliver with https (look at "Behind a reverse Proxy" below)
• On some linux systems you need to install some extra deps to run puppeteer: here.

Docker Installation

1. build . -t acc
2. run: docker run -d --net=host acc
3. surf to http://yourIp:8080

Note:

• To serve it online you need a reverse proxy and deliver with https (look at "Behind a reverse Proxy" below)
• To have all persistent datas (config, rooms, presentations...) outside of docker, you can run it like this:

docker run -d --name acc --net=host -v /home/acc/config:/app/config -v /home/acc/db:/app/db  -v /home/acc/3dObjs:/app/public/3dObjs -v /home/acc/praesis:/app/public/praesis -v /home/acc/profilePics:/app/public/profilePics -v /home/acc/singlefiles:/app/public/singlefiles acc

Configuration

On the first start a new folder "/config" will be generated. Take a look at "/config/config.json" for all parameters. Change them if you like, and restart the server. If you don't see a config.json inside the /config folder set permitions of to mount:chmod -R 777 /home/acc and restart the container: docker restart acc.

More to come...

ToDos

• Better error feedback
• More, better docs
• SIP Integration
• Recording of Audio/Video (Prototype working)
• Convert WebRTC Streams to RTMP so we can stream to youtube/twitch live (Prototype working)

GoodToKnow

• Audio/Video is not Peer2Peer so it will use some server CPU
• Max users per loadbalancer is about 256.
• Video is disabled in rooms with more than 6 People due to hight load (Only enabled for moderator).
• Firefox sometimes has some issues with the WebRTC audio/video, use chrome to be save
• If you are running without docker, conversion to PDF presentaions (From Powerpoint and other Docs) will not work without installing "unoconv" on your own
• Setup a TURN Server if your clients are behind Firewalls and NATs (See configuration/setup below)
• Self made Audio MCU with AudioApi on Chromium-Stack
• Videostreams are shared SFU Style

Loadbalancer Setup/Configuration

To setup a loadbalancer just start a second Accelerator server on a different server and change this parameters in your /config/config.json

• "loadBalancerAuthKey": "key", //Change to the same loadBalancerAuthKey as the key on the master server
• "isMaster": false,
• "masterURL": "https://myAcceleratorDomain.tl", //Change this to the URL of your main server
• "enableLocalMCU": true

Loadbalancing scheduling atm:

• All users in the same room using the same loadbalancer (Rooms are not balanced over different servers)
• First stream of room decides which loadbalancer is used for this room (loadbalancer with the least amount of streams at this moment)

TURN Setup/Configuration

1. Setup your TURN Container on an extra Server: HowTo
2. Make a new "iceServers" entry in "/config/config.json"

{
	"urls": "turn:IP_TO_TURN:443",
	"turnServerCredential": "authSecret",
	"username": "webrtcuser"
}

• "username" can be anything you like.
• "turnServerCredential" must be the "authSecret" form the TURN Server installation.

Restart the server.

Behind a nginx reverse Proxy

location /accelerator/ {
	resolver 127.0.0.1 valid=30s;
	proxy_set_header HOST $host;
	proxy_http_version 1.1;
	proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
	proxy_set_header Connection upgrade;
	proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/;
}

Behind an Apache reverse Proxy

<VirtualHost example.org:443>
...
# Proxy /accelerator/ to accelerator container
ProxyPass "/accelerator/" "http://127.0.0.1:8080/"
ProxyPassReverse "/accelerator/" "http://127.0.0.1:8080/"
...
</VirtualHost>

---

Version 0 based on students project work

• University: Reutlingen University
• Faculty: Informatik
• Course of study: Human-Centered Computing (Master)
• Lecture: "Kollaborative Systeme" (Collaborative Environments)

Authors

Students

• Raphael Fritsch (raphael.fritsch@reutlingen-university.de) | Backend / WebRTC (and generally further development)
• Simone Liegl (simone.liegl@gmail.com) | Frontend / Design / UX
• Sebastian Hirth | Frontend / Backend / Logo

Professors

• Gabriela Tullius (gabriela.tullius@reutlingen-university.de) | swuxLab
• Peter Hertkorn (peter.hertkorn@reutlingen-university.de) | swuxLab

license: GPLv3.0