Galene is a videoconferencing server that is easy to deploy and requires moderate server resources. It is described at <https://galene.org>. # Installation See the file INSTALL in this directory for installation instructions. # Usage ## Locations There is a landing page at the root of the server. It contains a form for typing the name of a group, and a clickable list of public groups. Groups are available under `/group/groupname`. You may share this URL with others, there is no need to go through the landing page. Recordings can be accessed under `/recordings/groupname`. This is only available to the administrator of the group. Some statistics are available under `/stats.json`, with a human-readable version at `/stats.html`. This is only available to the server administrator. ## Side menu There is a menu on the right of the user interface. This allows choosing the camera and microphone and setting the video throughput. The *Blackboard mode* checkbox increases resolution and sacrifices framerate in favour of image quality. The *Play local file* dialog allows streaming a video from a local file. ## Commands Typing a line starting with a slash `/` in the chat dialogue causes a command to be sent to the server. Type `/help` to get the list of available commands; the output depends on whether you are an operator or not. # The global configuration file The server may be configured in the JSON file `data/config.json`. This file may look as follows: { "canonicalHost": "galene.example.org", "admin":[{"username":"root","password":"secret"}] } The fields are as follows: - `canonicalHost`: the canonical name of the host running the server; - `admin` defines the users allowed to look at the `/stats.html` file; it has the same syntax as user definitions in groups (see below). # Group definitions Groups are defined by files in the `./groups` directory (this may be configured by the `-groups` command-line option, try `./galene -help`). The definition for the group called *groupname* is in the file `groups/groupname.json`; it does not contain the group name, which makes it easy to copy or link group definitions. You may use subdirectories: a file `groups/teaching/networking.json` defines a group called *teaching/networking*. A typical group definition file looks like this: { "op":[{"username":"jch","password":"1234"}], "presenter":[{}] "allow-recording": true, "allow-subgroups": true } This defines a group with the operator (administrator) username *jch* and password *1234*, empty username and password for presenters (ordinary users with the right to enable their camera and microphone). The `allow-recording` entry says that the operator is allowed to record videos to disk, and the `allow-subgroups` entry says that subgroups will be created automatically. More precisely, every group definition file contains a single JSON directory (a list of entries between `{' and `}'). All fields are optional, but unless you specify at least one user definition (`op`, `presenter`, or `other`), nobody will be able to join the group. The following fields are allowed: - `op`, `presenter`, `other`: each of these is an array of user definitions (see below) and specifies the users allowed to connect respectively with operator privileges, with presenter privileges, and as passive listeners; - `public`: if true, then the group is visible on the landing page; - `displayName`: a human-friendly version of the group name; - `description`: a human-readable description of the group; this is displayed on the landing page for public groups; - `contact`: a human-readable contact for this group, such as an e-mail address; - `comment`: a human-readable string; - `max-clients`: the maximum number of clients that may join the group at a time; - `max-history-age`: the time, in seconds, during which chat history is kept (default 14400, i.e. 4 hours); - `allow-recording`: if true, then recording is allowed in this group; - `allow-anonymous`: if true, then users may connect with an empty username; - `allow-subgroups`: if true, then subgroups of the form `group/subgroup` are automatically created when first accessed; - `autolock`: if true, the group will start locked and become locked whenever there are no clients with operator privileges; - `autokick`: if true, all clients will be kicked out whenever there are no clients with operator privileges; this is not recommended, prefer the `autolock` option instead; - `redirect`: if set, then attempts to join the group will be redirected to the given URL; most other fields are ignored in this case; - `codecs`: this is a list of codecs allowed in this group. The default is `["vp8", "opus"]`. Supported video codecs include: - `"vp8"` (compatible with all supported browsers); - `"vp9"` (better video quality, but incompatible with Safari); - `"av1"` (even better video quality, only supported by some browsers, recording is not supported, SVC is not supported); - `"h264"` (incompatible with Debian and with some Android devices, SVC is not supported). Supported audio codecs include `"opus"`, `"g722"`, `"pcmu"` and `"pcma"`. Only Opus can be recorded to disk. There is no good reason to use anything except Opus. A user definition is a dictionary with the following fields: - `username`: the username of the user; if omitted, any username is allowed; - `password`: if omitted, then no password is required. Otherwise, this can either be a string, specifying a plain text password, or a dictionary generated by the `galene-password-generator` utility. For example, {"username": "jch", "password": "1234"} specifies user *jch* with password *1234*, while {"password": "1234"} specifies that any (non-empty) username will do, and {} allows any (non-empty) username with any password. If you don't wish to store cleartext passwords on the server, you may generate hashed password with the `galene-password-generator` utility. A user entry with a hashed password looks like this: { "username": "jch", "password": { "type": "pbkdf2", "hash": "sha-256", "key": "f591c35604e6aef572851d9c3543c812566b032b6dc083c81edd15cc24449913", "salt": "92bff2ace56fe38f", "iterations": 4096 } } # Further information Galène's web page is at <https://galene.org>. Answers to common questions and issues are at <https://galene.org/faq.html>. -- Juliusz Chroboczek <https://www.irif.fr/~jch/>