BigBlueButton wants port 80 - but Apache is there

ludist · 03-22-2020, 03:43 PM

Hello there

As title says, BBB wants port 80, but I have apache there.

To my knowledge, I can have second ip to my ethcard.

Code:

ifconfig
eth0: flags=4419<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.10.40  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.10.255

eth0:0: flags=4419<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.10.141  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.10.255

It is OK for servers to listen on same port but in different (virtual) ip?

And now I have to reverse proxy from apache to BBB?

Like this

Code:

<Location "bbb">
    ProxyPass "http://192.168.10.141"
</Location>

or better like this?

Code:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName bbb.domain.com
    ProxyPass "http://192.168.10.141/"
</VirtualHost>

bathory · 03-23-2020, 08:28 AM

Quote:

It is OK for servers to listen on same port but in different (virtual) ip?

No problem if apache listens on 192.168.10.40:80 and BBB on 192.168.10.141:80

Quote:

Like this
<Location "bbb">
ProxyPass "http://192.168.10.141"
</Location>

or better like this?

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName bbb.domain.com
ProxyPass "http://192.168.10.141/"
</VirtualHost>

I'd use:

Code:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName bbb.domain.com
    ProxyPass / "http://192.168.10.141/"
    ProxyPassReverse / "http://192.168.10.141/"
</VirtualHost>

michaelk · 03-23-2020, 08:33 AM

Quote:

It is OK for servers to listen on same port but in different (virtual) ip?

No, Big Blue Button is a separate application, not just a website. Two separate application can not be bound to the same port.

Installation instructions from their website.

Quote:

To set up for a successful install of BigBlueButton, we recommend starting with a ‘clean’ Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit server dedicated for BigBlueButton.

By ‘clean’ we mean the server does not have any previous web applications installed (such as plesk, webadmin, or apache) that are binding to port 80/443. By ‘dedicated’ we mean that this server won’t be used for anything else besides BigBlueButton (and BigBlueButton-related applications such as Greenlight).

https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.2/i...re-you-install

ludist · 03-23-2020, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

No, Big Blue Button is a separate application, not just a website. Two separate application can not be bound to the same port.

Are you sure? maybe you missed the eth0:0 part?

Just tried with a simple applcation, seems fine

Code:

root@ludist:/etc# netstat -lnp | grep murmur
tcp        0      0 192.168.1.15:64738      0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      16911/murmurd       
tcp        0      0 192.168.1.5:64738       0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1981/murmurd        
udp        0      0 192.168.1.15:64738      0.0.0.0:*                           16911/murmurd       
udp        0      0 192.168.1.5:64738       0.0.0.0:*                           1981/murmurd

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

Installation instructions from their website.

Already read that. They reasoning is for latency and for administration purposes. Absurd to me :-)

Anyway, hope I will manage to build this monster and I will report back.

michaelk · 03-23-2020, 10:02 AM

A networking port is not the same thing as an ethernet port.

One analogy is that your computer is like a big apartment building, its IP address is like a street address and the apartment number the network port number. To access a particular service requires IP address/port. Port numbers are based a 16 bit unsigned number i.e. 0-65535. Different servers run on different ports i.e. web servers like apache run on 80/443, cups runs on port 631, webmin runs on port 10000. These are all web servers that display a web page in a browser.

Sorry, I guess I didn't read the entire web page. It does look like the bbb package installs the nginx server. So naturally you can't run nginx and apache on the same ports. If know enough about apache configuration and virtual servers you probably can move bbb to apache.

serafean · 04-06-2020, 09:13 AM

Hi,

Another option, IMO interesting, could be to start the whole BBB thing in a network namespace. That way BBB could do whatever it wants on network interfaces, and all you need to do on the host is port forwarding between interfaces. You could maybe even configure your Apache to forward a subdomain/location to that interface.

computersavvy · 04-18-2020, 10:49 AM

As has been mentioned, each application can listen to it's own IP/port on the same interface.
The documentation that recommends a "clean" install and "dedicated" machine is for newbies that are unable to handle configurations due to lack of knowledge and likely do not even have the knowledge to do more than have it "just work" out of the box.

AFAIK there is no reason that having one IP on eth0 for apache and another on eth0:0 for BBB would not work as long as each properly bound to the appropriate IP. The port is bound to the IP, not the interface.
Appropriate configuration for each service would be the key.

lleb · 04-20-2020, 04:45 PM

bind BBB to port 8080 that is a standard alternative HTML port when port 80 is in use, or the desire is to hide from script kiddies.

You would then access http://www.BBB.com:8080

or something like that.