bbb-video-download

A BigBlueButton recording postscript to provide video download capability.

The assembled video includes:

• shared audio and webcams video
• presented slides with
  • whiteboard actions (text and drawings)
  • cursor movements
  • zooming
• screen sharing
• captions

Seeking for active maintainer

Hi there - as time moves on, I and my company are not using BigBlueButton on a regular basis with own self-hosted instances anymore. Therefor my engagement in this project is stalling. Hence, I'm looking for an active maintainer, who is actively using this project and willing to update it along with new bbb versions. An active handover (joined code review) can be arranged.

Install

Dependencies Since version 1.2 the script was dockerized, i.e. it needs docker and docker-compose installed on the host.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker docker-compose

Installation

# (as root or with sudo)
cd /opt

## fetch source from github
git clone https://github.com/tilmanmoser/bbb-video-download.git
cd bbb-video-download

## build app with docker-compose
docker-compose build app

## create the workdir (as referenced in docker-compose.yml) and make bigbluebutton the owner
mkdir tmp
chown bigbluebutton:bigbluebutton tmp

## add bigbluebutton user to docker group
usermod -aG docker bigbluebutton

If you want to run the script for every new recording automatically, install the post_publish hook like this:

# (as root or with sudo)
cd /opt/bbb-video-download
export BBB_VIDEO_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"
export BBB_UID="$(cat /etc/passwd | grep bigbluebutton | cut -d: -f3)"
export BBB_GID="$(cat /etc/passwd | grep bigbluebutton | cut -d: -f4)"

## bbb v2.2:
envsubst < ./snippets/post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb.template > /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/a0_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb
## bbb v2.3:
envsubst < ./snippets/bbb23_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb.template > /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/a0_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb
## bbb v2.3 with Ruby 2.7
envsubst < ./snippets/bbb23_ruby27_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb.template > /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/a0_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb

Update

If you're updating from an older version to 1.2, please uninstall and reinstall.

cd /opt/bbb-video-download
git pull origin master
docker-compose build app

Uninstall

up to version 1.0.x:

rm /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb
rm -r /opt/bbb-video-download

up to version 1.1.x

rm /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/a0_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb
rm -r /opt/bbb-video-download

from version 1.2.x on

rm /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/post_publish/a0_post_publish_bbb_video_download.rb
rm -r /opt/bbb-video-download
sudo docker rmi --force $(docker images -q 'bbb-video-download_app' | uniq)
sudo docker rmi --force $(docker images -q 'node' | uniq)

Create downloadable videos for existing recordings

Use bbb-record --rebuild <presentation_id> to reprocess a single presentation or bbb-record --rebuildall to reprocess all existing presentations. For this the post_publish script must be installed (see installation).

Alternatively you can run bbb-video-download manually:

cd /opt/bbb-video-download
sudo -u bigbluebutton docker-compose run --rm --user 998:998 app node index.js -h
>usage: index.js [-h] [-v] -i INPUT -o OUTPUT
>
>A BigBlueButton recording postscript to provide video download capability.
>
>optional arguments:
>  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
>  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit
>  -i INPUT, --input INPUT
>                        path to BigBlueButton published presentation
>  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
>                        path to outfile

Example for a published presentation with internal meeting id 9a9b6536a10b10017f7e849d30a026809852d01f-1597816023148:

cd /opt/bbb-video-download
sudo -u bigbluebutton docker-compose run --rm --user 998:998 app node index.js -i /var/bigbluebutton/published/presentation/9a9b6536a10b10017f7e849d30a026809852d01f-1597816023148 -o /var/bigbluebutton/published/presentation/9a9b6536a10b10017f7e849d30a026809852d01f-1597816023148/video.mp4

For BigBlueButton 2.3 you have to find the according user:group (cat /etc/passwd | grep bigbluebutton)

sudo -u bigbluebutton docker-compose run --rm --user 997:996 app node index.js -i /var/bigbluebutton/published/presentation/9a9b6536a10b10017f7e849d30a026809852d01f-1597816023148 -o /var/bigbluebutton/published/presentation/9a9b6536a10b10017f7e849d30a026809852d01f-1597816023148/video.mp4

Please note, that all directories you want to access as input or output must be mounted as volumes in docker-compose.yml. Out of the box only /var/bigbluebutton/published/presentation is mounted.

Forks / projects based on this script

• Add a download button to presentation playback https://github.com/drlight17/bbb-add-download-button
• to activate downloadable recordings https://github.com/lonesomewalker/bbb-dashboard

Version history:

• 1.0.0 initial release
• 1.0.1 - 1.0.6 minor bug fixes
• 1.1.0 major rewrite:
• • script is able to render videos with many(!) whiteboard drawings
• • improved overall quality of images & drawings in presentations
• • cursor rendered as in bbb playback
• • removed chapter marks
• 1.1.1 - 1.1.4 minor bug fixes
• 1.2.0 dockerization of the script due to memory management

Acknowledgement

Special thanks go to @Superjamp, @ichdasich, @deiflou and @christmart for providing enhancements and outstanding support in testing the application.