- BigBlueButton
- Guide for Staff
8 - Downloading your BigBlueButton Recording
An example of the BigBlueButton Recording
This guide will show you how to download your recorded session on the BigBlueButton platform.
What to know:
The BigBlueButton tool not only affords the user the ability to host online conferences but now these sessions can be saved in a video format for future reference
Table of Contents
Step 1: finding your recording, step 2: downloading your recording, step 3: saving your recording .
Go to your BigBlueButton recordings on your module and press the capture button.
If you can't find the "Capture" button, please click the "Eye" icon to show it. Then the button will appear.
'Right click' on your recording to bring up the 'Pop-up Menu' then click on 'Save video as'
You can now save your recording to a specified location of your choosing.
Once you have saved your recording you now have the ability to edit it in any way you see fit using editing software packages.
If you can't put it into any editing software, you can simply change the file name "XXX.m4v" to "XXX.mp4", so that the software can accept it.
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3 - Upload Presentation
5 - share your computer screen to students, 0 - bigbluebutton preparation before an online session, 4 - how to record bigbluebutton sessions, 7 - polling an instant question, 6 - using interactive whiteboard, 1 - adding and starting a bigbluebutton activity.
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Presenter / Moderator - How to upload a presentation to BigBlueButton
You can upload your slides or documents to edit them live in a meeting with attendees or students, and allow the attendees or students to download the files to their desktop for later.
To upload documents and enable them for download, you'll need to have the presenter role .
When you enter a new meeting session, if you have the role of moderator, you will be assigned presenter capabilities. If you're not a presenter, but are just watching the meeting, you will need to request that you be promoted to a presenter. If the moderator doesn't know that they have promote you to presenter you can ask them to do so via private or public chat.
When a user is assigned the presenter role, an icon appears over their avatar in the list of users.
BigBlueButton has a size restrictions on the size of uploads as well as a limited number of formats which are supported. BigBlueButton will accept many major document formats such as .doc .docx .pptx and .pdf; the PDF format is the best for uploading documents.
The maximum size is 30 MB or 150 pages per document; you can upload multiple documents into the BigBlueButton as long as they are under the size restrictions. If your document is too large, use an online PDF tool to split the document into smaller number of pages which will reduce the size.
Select the Actions menu in the lower left hand corner of the presentation window, then choose Upload a Presentation.
The BigBlueButton presentation uploader will appear. The uploader allows you to drag and drop files into the uploader or browse for files on your OS.
When uploading multiple files, click the document you want to appear by default and check the green circle to the right of it.
Once you've selected the file(s) to upload, press "Start" button to convert and upload them.
Please note that it may take a few seconds to minutes for a document to be converted and uploaded to the meeting.
Enabling for Download
A presenter can enable any uploaded document for download by the audience of the live conference.
To enable, select the Enable Download icon located to the right of the document.
The icon will change to green to indicate the document selected can be downloaded by viewers.
How do I download documents?
What Viewers See
At the bottom left of your screen viewers will see a download icon that can allow them to download the enabled documents.
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How can i download a recording.
My mom was a participant of a course whose recordings are on Bigbluebutton. I'm able to download the individual deskshare.webm, webcams.webm and the png files of the presentation but would prefer a single download. I've searched and googled to no end but I've not been able to find out a workable way to get all 3 elements of the recording in a single video. My mom is not very tech-savvy and needs to refer to the course recordings.
Any help or suggestions on how can I get a single (say mp4 format) video of all 3 elements - webcam, deskshare and the presentation?
Download Recordings ( audio, video, presentation, chat, and desktop sharing) separately
Gauresh Hegde
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Comprehensive BigBlueButton Guide: How to Use BigBlueButton for Online Classes
As we navigate through the changing landscapes of education and remote work, virtual communication tools have taken center stage.
One such tool, BigBlueButton, has risen in popularity due to its rich set of features specifically tailored for online teaching and learning. From interactive whiteboards to breakout rooms, BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system that educators around the world are adopting to engage students in a virtual environment.
But how do we use it effectively? In this blog post, we’ll provide a comprehensive guide to help you make the most out of BigBlueButton.
Whether you’re an educator trying to figure out how to conduct your first online lecture or a student trying to actively participate in an online class, this guide has got you covered!
And what if you could have all these BigBlueButton capabilities plus more?
HigherEdLab.com offers BigBlueButton hosting with features that go beyond the standard offering. This includes crystal-clear HD video learning, interactive tools such as chat, polls, and presentations, advanced user management, and powerful integration and analytics.
Moreover, you can enjoy AI-powered features like ChatGPT for quizzes and transcription. Personalize your online classroom with a custom domain, logo, and colors to reflect your institution’s brand and identity.
1. How to record a session
Whether to record a session in BigBlueButton is handled by 3rd party software.
- If you are using BigBlueButton API: When you create a BigBlueButton session you pass ‘record=true’ as a parameter in the “create” API call, which will enable recording of the meeting session.
- If you are using BigBlueButton with Moodle: When setting up the BigBlueButtonBN activity, ensure the Session can be recorded is checked on the activity settings and the Instance type is Room/Activity with recordings.
- If you are using BigBlueButton with Canvas: Select “Enable recording for this conference” while creating a Conference in Canvas.
The record button will then be available when the BigBlueButton session is started. Remember you need to click this button to record the session.
2. How to screen share
Once you log into your BigBlueButton class as a moderator, you can share your screen by clicking on the “Share your screen” icon and granting access when prompted by your browser.
A couple of things to keep in mind:
- In Chrome and Firefox, Screen-sharing allows you to share either Your Entire Screen, Application Window or Browser Tab, whereas in Safari you don’t get a choice and your entire screen will be shared.
- Sharing screens take lots of bandwidth on the server and, more importantly, users’ side. Your users on a slower network may have difficulties in seeing your screen properly. Hence, use screen-sharing only if necessary. Rather, upload your presentations in advance for the online class.
3. How to enable BigBlueButton on my mobile phone
BigBlueButton uses a HTML5 client. To join a BigBlueButton class, you don’t need to download any software or install any apps. You can open the link to join the BigBlueButton class in a Chrome browser on your Android phone or Safari browser on your iPhone.
4. How to be presenter
5. How to enter a BigBlueButton session
Entering a BigBlueButton session depends on the front-end that your organization (or host of the BigBlueButton session) is using.
For example, if your organization is using Moodle, login to your Moodle account and visit the page for the class that you want to join. On that page you’ll find a button “Join Session”, by clicking on which you can enter the live BigBlueButton session.
If your organization is using Canvas, login to your Canvas account, open Course Navigation and click the Conferences link. Next to the conference you want to join, click the Join button. You cannot join a conference until the conference host has started the conference.
If your organization is using Greenlight as the front-end, your host will share a link to join the online session. You can open the link in Chrome or Firefox browser.
In any case – Moodle, Canvas, Greenlight or anything else – BigBlueButton client would be launched in the browser. Follow the on-screen instruction, give permission to access the microphone when prompted by the browser, and you will enter the session.
6. How to get conference URL for BigBlueButton
You need to check with your conference host for the URL. Depending on the front-end that your organization (or your conference host) is using, you would have different ways of joining a conference. Refer to How to enter a BigBlueButton session .
7. How to turn on your webcam for BigBlueButton
After you enter the BigBlueButton live session, click on the camera icon to turn on your webcam. A pop-up from your browser will let you select the camera, in case you have multiple cameras, and quality of the video. A higher quality video will consume more bandwidth. So if you are on a slower network, you may select lower video quality.
8. How to be a moderator
9. How to upload slides
10. How to Poll students
After you enter the BigBlueButton live session as a moderator, click on the blue plus sign “actions” button in the lower left of the online class screen, then select Start a poll from the menu that appears. You will find different poll options that will help you ask different types of questions during the poll. The poll will appear at the button of their windows for students to answer. After attendees answer, you can publish the poll result for everyone to view.
11. How to make a student presenter
12. How to share videos
13. How to disable camera from BigBlueButton when joined as a student
When you join a BigBlueButton virtual classroom and have shared your webcam, it’s quite easy to stop sharing your webcam.
Click on the webcam icon again to stop sharing your webcam.
14. How to ban someone from BigBlueButton
In case any student’s online behaviour is not appropriate during the class, you can easily drop him during a BigBlueButton online class.
Click on the name of the student whom you want to drop, and select the “Remove user” option to ban the user.
You need to have an appropriate front-end, such as Class++, to ensure that only legitimate students can attend your classes.
15. How to do small groups
BigBlueButton allows you to create small groups of students for discussion, group work and closer collaboration.
As a moderator, you can create and manage breakout rooms during a live BigBlueButton session and assign students to the different rooms.
As shown in the screenshot, click on the setting icon and select “Create breakout rooms”. Then follow the instructions online.
You can create breakout rooms for a specific duration and assign individual students to different break-out rooms.
At the end of the duration, or when you end breakout rooms, all students will come back to the main room.
16. How do I access BigBlueButton
If you want to access BigBlueButton as a student (or as an attendees), please refer to How to enter a BigBlueButton session . If you want to access BigBlueButton as a teacher, you may reach out to your IT support team to provide you appropriate access. If you want to access BigBlueButton as a system administrator, well, you need to install BigBlueButton first. Please refer to the answer of this question: How to install BigBlueButton .
17. How to kick a user from a BigBlueButton meeting
As a moderator, you can easily kick a user out of a BigBlueButton meeting, if needed. Just click on the name of the user and select the “Remove user” option to kick-out the user.
18. Can I attend BigBlueButton conference on iPhone
Yes. You can easily join a BigBlueButton conference from your iPhone by opening the conference url in Safari or Google Chrome browser.
19. How can I get my slide animation to work in a PPT uploaded to BigBlueButton
You can’t. BigBlueButton converts your uploaded PPT into a PDF document, which makes your presentation lose out on all the animations. This helps BigBlueButton in efficiently displaying your slides, even on a slower network.
20. How do I mute myself
21. Can you play a YouTube video
When you join a BigBlueButton virtual classroom as a moderator, click on the “+” icon as shown and select the option “Share an external video”. In the pop-up that opens-up, enter the URL of the YouTube video that you want to share.
22. How to include Latex in BigBlueButton
You can use Latex in your PowerPoint presentation and upload that to BigBlueButton. During the class, you can show your presentation. Refer to How to upload slides .
23. How to invite guest in BigBlueButton conference
If you are using Class++ as the front-end, you can create a conference and invite guests. Each guest gets a unique URL that ensures only that user is able to join the conference.
If you are using Greenlight, you would find the link to the meeting in the public chat area that you can share with anyone for him/her to join the meeting.
25. Give me examples of BigBlueButton APIs
BigBlueButton’s simple application programming interface (API) makes it easy to integrate with your own products.
For developers, this API enables you to
- create meetings
- join meetings
- end meetings
- get recordings for past meetings (and delete them)
To make an API call to your BigBlueButton server, your application makes HTTPS requests to the BigBlueButton server API endpoint (usually the server’s hostname followed by /bigbluebutton/api). The BigBlueButton server returns an XML response to all API calls.
Click here to check the documentation for BigBlueButton API .
26. How to show internet site in BigBlueButton
You can share your desktop. Then anything you were doing on your computer screen, including browning some site, would be visible to students. Click here to learn how to share your screen.
27. How to activate closed captioning
Closed captioning enables students with audio accessibility barriers the opportunity to actively participate in their BigBlueButton sessions. To activate closed captioning, you need to be a moderator in a BigBlueButton online meeting. You should assign a second moderator to act as a stenographer in the live session as Closed Captioning is not an auto capture function and requires manual input. The closed captioning function is located in the moderator menu in the users list of the BigBlueButton interface. Live Closed Captions are also processed into the recording playback for later viewing.
28. How to get a call in number for BigBlueButton
To enable your users to dial into the conference bridge using a telephone number, you would need to take a phone number and configure FreeSWITCH accordingly. To get a phone number, click here to find the list of service providers. To configure FreeSWITCH with the phone number you obtained, click here .
29. How to access BigBlueButton recording
Recordings of BigBlueButton meetings are stored in the following folder:
Internal meeting id assigned by BigBlueButton. If you know the external meeting id, which is assigned by your UI – Class++, Moodle, Canvas or your custom UI to access BigBlueButton – you can find the internal meeting id by executing this command:
30. How to publish recording in BigBlueButton
If you have enabled recording in a BigBlueButton online class, you can publish the recording after the session. Click here to check how to record an online class. Click here to learn how to watch published recordings.
We hope that our comprehensive guide has provided you with actionable insights into using BigBlueButton effectively. Whether you’re teaching a class, running a meeting, or simply participating in a session, understanding how to use these tools can greatly enhance the experience for everyone involved.
Remember, the key to successful online interaction is clear communication and familiarity with the platform you’re using.
The world of online education holds unlimited potential, and platforms like BigBlueButton make it easier for us to tap into that potential.
Now, with HigherEdLab.com’s enhanced BigBlueButton hosting services , you can push the boundaries of what’s possible in a virtual classroom even further.
Dive in and start exploring what BigBlueButton and HigherEdLab.com have to offer! Remember, every tool and feature is designed to make your online teaching and learning experience as interactive and engaging as possible.
Happy teaching and learning!
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How do I download the video recording of a BigBlueButton session?
This tutorial only applies if you have subscribed to our BigBlueButton service. It should be noted that this option is not available for users or installations outside of our hosting
Table of Contents
Did you know that you can download all your recordings with our BBB plugin? That’s right, we have developed a new recording format called “Video” that allows you to export your BigBlueButton recordings in MP4 format. The only requirement is that you record the videoconference in advance. Once the session is finished, you will be able to see the new format in the recording management panel. Please note that the creation of this format is correlated with the duration of the BBB session, so the preview may take several minutes or even hours.
Steps to download a BigBlueButton recording
Below are the steps you should follow to download the recordings to your computer.
In the recording panel, click on the “video” format.
A new window with the session recording will open. To download the session in MP4 format, including audio and interactions, click the three vertical dots in the lower right corner.
Later, in your computer’s file explorer, choose the folder in which you wish to store the recording and click “Save.”
*We reiterate that this option only applies to our customers. If you have your BBB service with another provider, this option is most likely not available.
Who can download the session video?
Any user with access to the BigBlueButton activity can download the recording by following the steps outlined above. However, in the case of Moodle, we have developed a parameter that allows both administrators and teachers to hide the downloadable format at any time.
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Install BigBlueButton
We have tools to make it easy for you, a system administrator, to install BigBlueButton on a dedicated linux server. This document shows you how to install.
Before you install
We recommend installing BigBlueButton with a 'clean' and dedicated Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit server with no prior software installed. If you want to upgrade from an earlier version of BigBlueButton like 2.4, we recommend setting up a clean server for BigBlueButton 2.7 on Ubuntu 20.04 and, after setup, migrate over your existing recordings . We support upgrading a BigBlueButton 2.5 or 2.6 server to 2.7.
A 'clean' server does not have any previous web servers installed (such as apache) or web applications (such as plesk or webadmin) that are binding to port 80/443 . By 'dedicated' we mean that this server won't be used for anything else besides BigBlueButton (and possibly BigBlueButton-related applications such as Greenlight ).
Minimum server requirements
For production, we recommend the following minimum requirements
- Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit OS running Linux kernel 5.x
- Latest version of docker installed
- 16 GB of memory with swap enabled
- 8 CPU cores, with high single-thread performance
- 500 GB of free disk space (or more) for recordings, or 50GB if session recording is disabled on the server.
- TCP ports 80 and 443 are accessible
- UDP ports 16384 - 32768 are accessible
- 250 Mbits/sec bandwidth (symmetrical) or more
- TCP port 80 and 443 are not in use by another web server or reverse proxy
- A hostname (such as bbb.example.com) for setup of a SSL certificate
- IPV4 and IPV6 address
If you install BigBlueButton on a virtual machine in the cloud, we recommend you choose an instance type that has dedicated CPU. These are usually called "compute-intensive" instances. On Digital Ocean we recommend the c-8 compute intensive instances (or larger). On AWS we recommend c5a.2xlarge (or larger). On Hetzner we recommend the AX51 servers or CCX32 instances.
If you are setting up BigBlueButton for local development on your workstation, you can relax some of the above requirements as there will only be few users on the server. Starting with the above requirements, you can reduce them as follows
- 4 CPU cores/8 GB of memory
- Installation on a local VM container
- 50G of disk space
- IPV4 address only
Regardless of your environment, the setup steps will include configuring a SSL certificate on the nginx server. Why? All browsers now require a valid SSL certificate from the web server when a page requests access to the user's webcam or microphone via web real-time communications (WebRTC). If you try to access a BigBlueButton server with an IP address only, the browsers will block BigBlueButton client from accessing your webcam or microphone.
Pre-installation checks
Got a Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit server ready for installation? Great! But, before jumping into the installation section below, let's do a few quick configuration checks to make sure your server meets the minimum requirements.
Doing these checks will significantly reduce the chances you'll hit a problem during installation.
First, check that the locale of the server is en_US.UTF-8 .
If you don't see LANG="en_US.UTF-8" , enter the following commands to set the local to en_US.UTF-8 .
and then log out and log in again to your SSH session -- this will reload the locale configuration for your session. Run the above command cat /etc/default/locale again. Verify you see only the single line LANG="en_US.UTF-8" .
Note: If you see an additional line LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 , then remove the entry for LC_ALL from /etc/default/locale and logout and then log back in once more.
Next, do sudo systemctl show-environment and ensure you see LANG=en_US.UTF-8 in the output.
If you don't see this, do sudo systemctl set-environment LANG=en_US.UTF-8 and run the above sudo systemctl show-environment again and confirm you see LANG=en_US.UTF-8 in the output.
Next, check that your server has (at lest) 16G of memory using the command free -h . Here's the output from one of our test servers.
Here it shows 15G of memory (that's close enough as the server has 16 gigabytes of memory).
If you see a value for Mem: in the total column less than 15G, then your server has insufficient memory to run BigBlueButton in production. You need to increase the server's memory to (at least) 16G. (As stated above, if your running this in a development environment, 8G is fine.)
Next, check that the server has Ubuntu is 20.04 as its operating system.
Next, check that your server is running the 64-bit version of Ubuntu 20.04.
Next, check that your server supports IPV6.
If you do not see the line inet6 ::1/128 scope host then after you install BigBlueButton you will need to modify the configuration for FreeSWITCH to disable support for IPV6 .
Next, check that your server is running Linux kernel 5.x.
Next, check that your server has (at least) 8 CPU cores
Next check that your server has the port 80 and 443 open
If you don't see these lines, you need to open them by
Sometimes we get asked "Why are you only supporting Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit?". The answer is based on choosing quality over quantity. Long ago we concluded that its better for the project to have solid, well-tested, well-documented installation for a specific version of Linux that works really, really well than to try and support may variants of Linux and have none of them work well.
At the moment, the requirement for docker may preclude running 2.7 within some virtualized environments; however, it ensures libreoffice runs within a restricted sandbox for document conversion. We are exploring if we can run libreoffice within systemd (such as systemd-nspawn).
To install BigBlueButton, use bbb-install.sh script. Notice that this command is slightly different than what we recommended in previous versions of BigBlueButton. The script now resides on a branch specifying the version of BigBlueButton, but otherwise the name of the script is identical accross different branches. This makes it more maintainable as patches done to the script in one branch can be easily applied to other branches.
The above link gives detailed information on using the script. As an example, passing several arguments to the script you can easily have both BigBlueButton and Greenlight or LTI installed on the same server. You could specify if you would like a new certificate to be generated. A firewall could be enabled. For the most up-to-date information, please refer to the instructions in the script. Notice that as of BigBlueButton 2.6 we have retired the API demos. We recommend using Greenlight or API MATE instead.
Note: You can uninstall Greenlight if you do not intend on using it on production.
After the bbb-install.sh script finishes, you can check the status of your server with bbb-conf --check . When you run this command, you should see output similar to the following:
Any output that followed Potential problems may indicate configuration errors or installation errors. In many cases, the messages will give you recommendations on how to resolve the issue.
You can also use sudo bbb-conf --status to check that all the BigBlueButton processes have started and are running.
You can also use dpkg -l | grep bbb- to list all the core BigBlueButton packages (your version numbers may be slightly different).
With Greenlight installed (that was the -g option), you can open https://<hostname>/b in a browser (where <hostname> is the hostname you specified in the bbb-install.sh command), create a local account, create a room and join it.
You can integrate BigBlueButton with one of the 3rd party integrations by providing the integration of the server's address and shared secret. You can use bbb-conf to display this information using bbb-conf --secret .
The link to API-Mate will open a page at https://mconf.github.io/api-mate/ and let you send valid API calls to your server. This makes it easy for testing wihthout any frontend like Greenlight.
Configure the firewall (if required)
Do you have a firewall between you and your users? If so, see configuring your firewall .
Upgrading BigBlueButton 2.7
You can upgrade by re-running the bbb-install.sh script again -- it will download and install the latest release of BigBlueButton 2.7.
Upgrading from BigBlueButton 2.5 or 2.6
You can upgrade in a few steps:
Make sure you don't have bbb-demo installed sudo apt purge bbb-demo
Then run the bbb-install.sh script -- it will download and install the latest release of BigBlueButton 2.7 on top of your old 2.5 version.
Make sure you read through the "what's new in 2.7" document and specifically the section covering notable changes
Upgrading from BigBlueButton 2.4
If you are upgrading BigBlueButton 2.4 or 2.3 we recommend you set up a new Ubuntu 20.04 server with BigBlueButton 2.7 and then copy over your existing recordings from the old server .
Restart your server
You can restart and check your BigBlueButton server at any time using the commands
The bbb-conf --check scans some of the log files for error messages. Again, any output that followed Potential problems may indicate configuration errors or installation errors. In many cases, the messages will give you recommendations on how to resolve the issue.
If you see other warning messages check out the troubleshooting installation .
Post installation steps
If this server is intended for production, you should also
- Secure your system -- restrict access to specific ports
- Configure the server to work behind a firewall (if you have installed behind a firewall or on a server that has a public/private IP address)
- remove Greenlight (if you had it installed and is no longer needed)
- Set up a TURN server (if your server is on the Internet and you have users accessing it from behind restrictive firewalls)
- Test your HTTPS configuration. A well-respected site that can do a series of automated tests is https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ - simply enter your server's hostname, optionally check the "Do not show results" check box if you would like to keep it private, then Submit. At time of writing, the configuration shown on this page should achieve an "A" ranking in the SSL Labs test page.
We provide publically accessible servers that you can use for testing:
- https://demo.bigbluebutton.org - a pool of BigBlueButton servers with the Greenlight front-end (sometimes the pool is a mix of different BigBlueButton releases)
- https://test27.bigbluebutton.org - Runs the general build of BigBlueButton 2.7 - usually a few days behind the repository branch v2.7.x-release
To learn more about integrating BigBlueButton with your application, check out the BigBlueButton API documentation . To see videos of BigBlueButton HTML5 client, see https://bigbluebutton.org/html5 .
Other installation options
There are members of the community that provide other installation options for BigBlueButton.
If you're looking to deploy a large-scale installation of BBB using Scalelite then your servers are best managed using tools like Ansible. A few reasons you might go with this setup are:
- easily customizable: your custom configurations will get replaced every time you upgrade automatically
- parity across machines: ensure that you deploy the exact same version of BBB on every server
- eliminate human error in setup: using bbb-install.sh or step-by-step methods are highly prone to human error as you can easily forget if you enabled a setting, chose to do X over Y, etc
- automate to the fullest: by automating the process, you inherently save time on nasty troubleshooting and hours lost in manual configuration
- easily scale at large: spin up an identical replica of your BBB server in less than 15 mins with no user input -- preconfigured and ready to go
Choose this method if you are already comfortable with a lot of the technical knowledge behind BigBlueButton, Scalelite and Greenlight/other front-ends. Refer to the following examples to create your installation.
Note: These examples are not maintained or developed by the official BigBlueButton developers. These are entirely community-sourced, use at your own discretion.
The first install BigBlueButton on your server in a consistent fashion. You can specify variables, such as what ports to use for TURN, and others. Functionally quite similar to bbb-install.sh but highly automated.
- General Ansible role for BigBlueButton
Large scale deployments must include several other components in addition to the core BigBlueButton packages. These include Scalelite, Greenlight, a database, backups, nginx configurations, and more.
- Full HA setup with PeerTube, Conferences Streaming, EFK, Prometheus, backups
Customizations
See the Server customization page for things you can do to adapt BigBlueButton to your environment or enable optional features after installation. For example
- Install additional recording processing formats
- Enable generating mp4 (H.264) video output
Troubleshooting
Package locales-all is not available .
The package bbb-libreoffice needs to build a docker image for libreoffice. If you receive the following error when installing on a network behind a firewall
Ubuntu 20.04 uses systemd-resolved, which presents a local caching resolver and registers this at /etc/resolv.conf . If you get they above error and have a local name server, such as 10.11.12.13 , then try adding it with the hosts resolv.conf .
For more details see this issue .
Feedback and reporting bugs
If you found a reproducible bug, please report it in the GitHub Issues section with steps to reproduce (this will make it easier for the developers to fix the bug). Indicate in the body of the bug report that this applies to BigBlueButton 2.7 and give us the client build number, which you can find either with dpkg -l | grep bbb-html5 or within the client in the Settings -> About menu..
- Minimum server requirements
- Pre-installation checks
- Configure the firewall (if required)
- Upgrading BigBlueButton 2.7
- Upgrading from BigBlueButton 2.5 or 2.6
- Upgrading from BigBlueButton 2.4
- Restart your server
- Post installation steps
- Customizations
- Package locales-all is not available
- Feedback and reporting bugs
What's new in 2.6
- February 22, 2023 14:26
What's new in BigBlueButton 2.6:
Propagate layout to all participants, improved layout manager selection, upload a presentation directly from nextcloud, new whiteboard (tldraw), downloading presentation with whiteboard annotations included, exporting shared notes to the whiteboard, exporting breakout rooms’ shared notes to the main room, exporting breakout rooms’ whiteboard annotations to the main room, pin shared notes to the whiteboard, easier setup of polling, easier moving of users between breakout rooms, live automatic closed captions, recording in mp4 format, improved echo test dialog, improved notification of recording start, enable/disable dark mode, pinning webcams, upload custom webcam background, set webcam image brightness, modify screen layout, management .
Moderators can propagate their layout to all participants. To do this select the actions menu by pressing the (+) button and then select Propagate layout.
To change the layout of the screen, select the actions menu by pressing the (+) button and then select Layout Settings Modal.
You will be presented with 4 options, Custom, Smart layout, Focus on presentation, and Focus on video.
The custom layout will allow you to drag the webcams to the top, bottom, and either side of the screen.
The smart layout will select will display the webcams at the top of the screen with the presentation area being directly below them.
Focus on presentation will use the entire main screen for presentations and display webcams at the bottom of the Public Chat window.
Focus on video will use the entire main screen for webcams and display the presentation at the bottom of the Public Chat window.
Two newly created parameters: presentationUploadExternalDescription and presentationUploadExternalUrl have been introduced.
When both of these parameters have been populated a message in the presentation upload modal will appear.
The whiteboard has been updated with tldraw, a small application that supports improved drawing features.
For a list of shortcuts click on the three dots in the top right corner select Keyboard shortcuts, then select the Whiteboard option on the left-hand side.
There are two toolbars on the whiteboard. A Styles toolbar and a Tools toolbar.
Styles toolbar:
| 1 | Select the color for your annotations to display in | |
| Fill | If selected objects will be filled | |
| Dash | Select the dash pattern of your object | |
| Size | Select your font size (S)mall, (M)edium or (L)arge | |
| Keep Open | Keeps the Styles toolbar open |
| Fullscreen Presentation | Make the presentation space fullscreen |
| Snapshot of current slide | Creates and downloads an image of the current slide with annotations |
Tools toolbar:
|
|
| 1 |
Selection - select annotations Pen - freehand line drawing Eraser - swipe across objects to erase them Select a shape to use rectangle, ellipse, triangle or line - drop and drag to size Arrow - draw an arrow Text - type text Sticky Notes - place a sticky note to type on Delete the selected annotation Teachers can now export their slide decks with the annotations included during a lesson. Selecting “Send to chat” in the presentation upload modal sends a link to the public chat from which meeting participants can use to download the file. Instructors can move the shared notes to the whiteboard presentation area for further collaborative work among students. To do this select the three dots in the top right corner of the Shared Notes window and select Convert notes to presentation. The Shared Notes will then be converted and displayed in the presentation area. The Shared Notes will then be available as a presentation. Which can then be marked up on the whiteboard. To capture a breakout room's shared notes, select the option “Capture shared notes when breakout rooms end” while setting up the breakout rooms. When the breakout rooms end the shared notes will be converted to a pdf and be available as a presentation from the action menu. To capture the breakout rooms' shared notes, select the option “Capture whiteboard when breakout rooms end” while setting up the breakout rooms. When the breakout rooms end the whiteboard will be converted to a pdf and be available as a presentation from the action menu. Instructors can pin the shared notes to the whiteboard presentation area for further collaborative work among students. To do this select the three dots in the top right corner of the Shared Notes window and select Pin notes onto whiteboard. To unpin the shared notes, press the X button on the top right-hand side of the whiteboard area. Polling has been updated to allow for polls to be prepared in advance using the custom input option. There is a new option for the breakout room controls called Manage users. This dialog lets you drag and drop users between different breakout rooms. AccessibilityBy default, the automatic transcription language selector is disabled. To have your voice transcribed you must enable it by selecting the desired language from the drop-down selector from the join audio dialog. When a user selects a language for automatic transcription, a CC icon will display next to their name in the “who is talking” indicator. You don’t need to have selected transcription of your audio to view the transcriptions for others. When one or more users have enabled transcription, a CC button will appear. To view the transcriptions for those with ‘CC’ in their “who is talking” icon, press the CC button. The placement of the ‘CC’ button depends on your device. For mobile devices, the ‘CC’ button is in the three dots at the top right corner. For desktop, the ‘CC’ button is in the bottom left. Desktop users can also select the language that the captioning will display in by pressing the up arrow on the CC button. Note: The automatic transcription is only available for browsers that support SpeechRecognition (Google Chrome, MS Edge, and Safari). If you join with non-supported browsers, you will see a warning at the bottom of the join audio dialog. To enable automatic translations for users of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Safari, edit the /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-html5.yml and add the following to the public: section then restart BigBlueButton. This release will introduce a new recording format that creates a single video file that includes audio, video, screen share, presentation, and whiteboard marks recorded during the session. The file format will be .vp8 (with configuration options to alternatively create a .mp4 file as well). The echo test dialog has been updated, adding an audio stream volume indicator. The recording indicator has been made bigger. PersonalizationTo enable/disable dark mode click on the 3 vertical dots [1] in the upper right-hand corner and select Settings. Under the Application panel [1], you will find the Dark mode setting [2]. Use the slider next to Dark mode to toggle between on/off. Click the Save button [3] to apply the setting. You can pin one or more webcam(s), so they always stay visible. This is useful if one of the webcams is showing sign language, for example, and you always want it to be visible. You can upload a custom background image from the Webcam settings page. Click on the camera icon, then the plus button. You will then be able to select a background image to upload from your computer. The selected image will show up in the first position on the left in the list of available backgrounds to use. To delete a custom background, click the X in the upper right-hand corner of the image and it will be removed from your background selections. You can adjust the brightness of your image or the entire image as a whole using the Brightness slider bar at the bottom of the Webcam settings window. If the Whole image radio button is selected it will adjust the brightness of the whole image, if it isn’t selected only your image will be adjusted. You can customize the webcam location by clicking and dragging to a new position (top, bottom, left, right or to the bottom of the shared notes). Related articles
Navigation MenuSearch code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests..., provide feedback. We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously. Saved searchesUse saved searches to filter your results more quickly. To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation .
Releases: bigbluebutton/bigbluebuttonV3.0.0-alpha.7.  In this iteration we have continued to improve the new GraphQL related core components to improve performance. Multiple fixes are also included. We have ported the support for Gladia captions, included a new endpoint "/sendChatMessage", ported the newly added create parameter "allowPromoteGuestToModerator", revamped the polling results annotation and the webcam share modal, and also support for cluster proxy has been recovered(Thanks @schrd )! Transifex now has a BBB 3.0 project. bbb-playback-video and bbb-presentation-video have been created too. Below is a list of the pull requests in this iteration, grouped by component. Note that BigBlueButton 3.0-dev runs on Ubuntu Jammy (22.04). BigBlueButton 3.0-dev is under active development. While we don’t recommend setting it up in a production environment, we do encourage administrators to try out the build with others and give us feedback on our bigbluebutton-dev mailing list . Link to installation command / instructions/ schedule / planned features : https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/3.0/new-features All fixes from BigBlueButton 2.7.x are here up to and including v2.7.9 (.2 onwards have been manually ported as we no longer merge the 2.7 branch directly into the 3.0 branch) Big THANK YOU to all comminuty members who helped for this release - both through sending pull requests and through reporting bugs or requesting enhancements! 🎊 HTML5 clientnewly added:
Contributors
This iteration of BigBlueButton 2.7 contains a new meeting parameter allowPromoteGuestToModerator - thanks Dennis and Timo from University of Osnabrück! Several core fixes and dependency updates were also included. We welcome any feedback about this release on our bigbluebutton-dev mailing list Note that BigBlueButton 2.7 runs on Ubuntu Focal (20.04). Link to installation command / instructions / features : https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.7/new-features
record-and-playback
learning analytics dashboard
Full Changelog : v2.7.8...v2.7.9 Release namePassing -v focal-270 to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bigbluebutton/bbb-install/v2.7.x-release/bbb-install.sh will always install the latest released BigBlueButton 2.7 version. If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-270-2.7.9 . We still recommend using -v focal-270 as this repository is continually updated with each BigBlueButton 2.7 release. Client build: 297
This iteration of BigBlueButton 2.7 contains a couple of security patches. Several client fixes and dependency updates were also included. Important : We removed support for POST requests on join endpoint and also Content-Type headers are now required In BigBlueButton 2.6.18/2.7.8 POST requests are no longer allowed for the join endpoint. To ensure they are validated properly, a Content-Type header must also be provided for POST requests that contain data in the request body. Endpoints now support a limited set of content types that includes text/xml , application/xml , application/x-www-form-url-encoded , and multipart/form-data . By default each endpoint only supports application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data , but individual endpoints can override this and define their own set of supported content types. The create endpoint supports all of the four previously listed content types while insertDocument supports only text/xml and application/xml . Any requests with a content type that differs from the set supported by the target endpoint will be rejected with a new unsupportedContentType error.
Full Changelog : v2.7.7...v2.7.8 If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-270-2.7.8 . Client build: 284
This 2.6 iteration includes a couple of security patches. The latest locale changes have also been included. We also updated a couple dependencies tagged as containing vulnerabilities. Link to installation command / instructions / features : https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.6/new Big THANK YOU to all community members who helped for this release - both through sending pull requests and through reporting bugs or requesting enhancements! 🎊
Record and playback
Full Changelog : v2.6.17...v2.6.18 Passing -v focal-260 to bbb-install-2.6.sh will always install the latest released BigBlueButton 2.6 version. If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-260-2.6.18 . We still recommend using -v focal-260 as this repository is continually updated with each BigBlueButton 2.6 release. Client build: 719V3.0.0-alpha.6. In this iteration we have continued to improve the new GraphQL related core components to improve performance. Various fixes are also included. Below is a list of the pull requests in this iteration, grouped by component. Also the updates for bbb-export-annotations to support tldraw v2, a new Away mode, a new loginURL create parameter were all added. Most fixes from BigBlueButton 2.7.x are here up to and including v2.7.7 (.2 onwards have been manually ported as we no longer merge the 2.7 branch directly into the 3.0 branch) Remaining work: see #19489
This iteration of BigBlueButton 2.7 contains multiple improvements on the client side, a patch for breakout rooms creation specifically affecting MacOS Chrome users, added support for extra locales for transcription and other improvements.
localization
export-annotations
New Contributors
Full Changelog : v2.7.6...v2.7.7 If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-270-2.7.7 . Client build: 281
v3.0.0-alpha.5In this iteration we have continued to improve the new GraphQL related core components. Various fixes are also included. Below is a list of the pull requests in this iteration, grouped by component. Most fixes from BigBlueButton 2.7.x are here up to and including v2.7.5 (.2 onwards have been manually ported as we no longer merge the 2.7 branch directly into the 3.0 branch) Remaining work: see #19489
plugin related
Core -- newly introduced components bbb-graphql-server, bbb-graphql-middleware, bbb-graphql-actions-adapter-server, ...
build (packaging scripts) / configuration
This iteration of BigBlueButton 2.7 contains several localization updates and newer versions of bbb-webrtc-sfu and -recorder.
build and configuration
Full Changelog : v2.7.5...v2.7.6 If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-270-2.7.6 . Client build: 249
This iteration of BigBlueButton 2.7 contains fixes to several components.
Recording processing
Export annotations
Learning Analytics Dashboard
Full Changelog : v2.7.4...v2.7.5
If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-270-2.7.5 . Client build: 243
This 2.6 iteration introduces a bbb-apps-akka property needed for certain configuration where the checksum algorithm is overriden. With this property breakout rooms can be used again. The latest locale changes have also been included. We also updated a couple dependencies tagged as containing vulnerabilities.
Full Changelog : v2.6.16...v2.6.17 If for some reason you would like to install this specific release, pass -v focal-260-2.6.17 . Client build: 715 |
COMMENTS
To Upload. Select the Actions menu [1] in the lower left hand corner of the presentation window, then choose Manage presentations [2]. The BigBlueButton presentation uploader will appear. The uploader allows you to drag and drop [3] files into the uploader or browse for files [4] on your OS. When uploading multiple files at once, be sure to set ...
If you have the Premium Tier hosting for BigBlueButton from Blindside Networks, you can download a recording as a single video file. To download a recording, right-click within the playback area and choose "Save Video As...". The video will have a resolution of 720p with a file extension of .mv4 (MPEG-4 video file). The size will be ...
In the terminal of your server you can execute bbb-record, which will show you each option with its description: BigBlueButton Recording Diagnostic Utility (BigBlueButton Version 2.5.N) bbb-record [options] Reporting: --list List all recordings. --list-recent List recent recordings.
This is also my first program coded with go language. If you want to see the downloaded pictures, and created videos before deleted, comment two lines near the end of the code. os.RemoveAll(presentationId+"/") // delete temporary dir. err = os.Remove("video_list.txt") // delete video-list file. I didn't try the code on Linux or Mac-OS systems ...
presentation. People would expect a button "Download" which they can click in order to download a video of the recorded. presentation, which then can be uploaded to Y ouTube, FB, etc. There is ...
An example of the BigBlueButton Recording Overview: This guide will show you how to download your recorded session on the BigBlueButton platform. ... 3 - Upload Presentation. Viewed 13666 times since Mon, Aug 17, 2020 1 - Adding and starting a BigBlueButton activity. Viewed 83572 times since Thu, Aug 6, 2020 ...
The BigBlueButton presentation uploader will appear. The uploader allows you to drag and drop files into the uploader or browse for files on your OS. ... To enable, select the Enable Download icon located to the right of the document. The icon will change to green to indicate the document selected can be downloaded by viewers. How do I download ...
My mom was a participant of a course whose recordings are on Bigbluebutton. I'm able to download the individual deskshare.webm, webcams.webm and the png files of the presentation but would prefer a single download. I've searched and googled to no end but I've not been able to find out a workable way to get all 3 elements of the recording in a ...
The following features and functions in BigBlueButton are associated with the Presenter Role - this role is tied directly to the Moderator. Use the presentation controls. Upload a presentation & enable for download. Share an External Audio/Video Link. Share my screen. Use polling. The following features and functions in BigBlueButton are ...
I would like to download all recordings (i.e chat, audio etc.) separately. My intention is to download and store them in separate server. Additionally -- Suppose the presenter uploads a PDF document, can I download the document as-it-is (meaning download the PDF itself in addition to above mentioned recordings for a session/meeting). Rgds.
To Upload. Select the Actions menu [1] in the lower left hand corner of the presentation window, then choose Manage presentations [2]. The BigBlueButton presentation uploader will appear. The uploader allows you to drag and drop [3] files into the uploader or browse for files [4] on your OS. When uploading multiple files at once, be sure to set ...
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9. How to upload slides. After you enter the BigBlueButton live session as a moderator, click on the blue plus sign "actions" button in the lower left of the main Conference screen, then select upload a presentation in the menu that appears.
A presenter in BigBlueButton has the ability to control and annotate content uploaded into the presentation area or the whiteboard. The presenter role enables the user assigned the ability to: Enable the multiuser whiteboard for use by attendees. By default, the first Moderator to enter the BigBlueButton session is allocated the presenter role ...
Download BigBlueButton recordings as videos. BigBlueButton is a great platform for online teaching. It has many features like built-in drawing tools (even supports multi-user drawing), breakout rooms, chat, shared notes, polling, screen sharing, session recording etc. But, the recorded sessions are no actual videos.
People would expect a button "Download" which they can click in order to download a video of the recorded presentation, which then can be uploaded to YouTube, FB, etc. There is even a quite old ...
Steps to download a BigBlueButton recording. Below are the steps you should follow to download the recordings to your computer. In the recording panel, click on the "video" format. A new window with the session recording will open. To download the session in MP4 format, including audio and interactions, click the three vertical dots in the ...
In BigBlueButton 2.4 and 2.5 we supported optional downloading of the entire presentation. In BigBlueButton 2.6 we replaced this option with the capability to download the presentation with all the annotations embedded in it. As of BigBlueButton 2.7 you are be able to do both! In fact, you could select between the presentation with the current ...
ii bbb-playback-presentation 1:2.7-3 amd64 BigBluebutton playback of presentation ii bbb-record-core 1:2.7-4 amd64 BigBlueButton record and playback ... Then run the bbb-install.sh script -- it will download and install the latest release of BigBlueButton 2.7 on top of your old 2.5 version.
What's new in BigBlueButton 2.6: Management. Propagate layout to all participants. Improved layout manager selection. Upload a presentation directly from NextCloud. Engagement. New whiteboard (tldraw) Downloading presentation with whiteboard annotations included. Exporting shared notes to the whiteboard.
The Multi-user Whiteboard allows students to simultaneously draw and write, just like in the real classroom. For more tutorial videos, visit our BigBlueButton channel on YouTube! Visit ou r Knowledge Base for a searchable database of articles on mastering BigBlueButton. BigBlueButton Tutorials will educate you on the virtual learning platform's ...
As a result, BigBlueButton has been deeply embedded into major learning management systems used worldwide. It has been adopted by Canvas, Moodle Cloud, Sakai, Jenzabar, D2L, and Schoology as their default virtual classroom. Together, these vendors comprise more than 75% of the worldwide market for LMS systems. Every day, millions of educators ...
fix: Download presentation popup window is broken by @ramonlsouza in #19734; fix(bbb-html5): Use CDN for resource of layouts by @antobinary in #19755; fix: Avoid presentation conversion causing a crash by @antobinary in #19600; Fix: Modal of the inactivity inspection does not show up by @Scroody in #19609; test