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https://github.com/hmt/tinyscale

A tiny BigBlueButton load balancer
https://github.com/hmt/tinyscale

bigbluebutton bigbluebutton-api greenlight load-balancer moodle nextcloud scalelite

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A tiny BigBlueButton load balancer

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README 

        
# Tinyscale



TLDR: tinyscale is a single file load balancing solution for BigBlueButton that

runs on deno.



Depending on your requirements for BigBlueButton and your server capabilities

you may need to host more than one instance of BigBlueButton to host meetings

for your users. But as soon as you run more than one server you either need to

split up servers for different endpoints, let's say one BBB server for

Greenlight and another one for moodle, or you install a load balancer that

decides for you where new meetings are set up and where users are routed to. If

you only use one endpoint for all your meetings you will have to use a load

balancer such as scalelite to run more than one BBB instance.



While scalelite is a very good load balancer it also uses a lot of resources and

is somewhat complicated to set up (ymmv). tinyscale aims to fill the niche for a

lightweight load balancing option that uses very little resources and keeps

things as simple as possible.



## So, how does it work?



tinyscale offers a unified gateway to your set of BBB servers. Just like BBB you

have to give your endpoint your tinyscale address and a secret and on the server

side you have to give tinyscale a JSON file with your servers in it. tinyscale

then checks to see if it can connect to your BBB servers and wait for incoming

calls from your endpoint(s).



If you send a request to tinyscale it checks basically for two things: is there

a BBB instance running that has the requested `meetingID` or `recordingID` and

then redirects your request to that instance. You will from then on communicate

directly with that instance.



In case the request is a `create` call and the `meetingID` doesn't yet exist

tinyscale will pick the next instance from the list of your BBB instances and

will create a new room on that instance. The response is then returned to your

endpoint.



Apart from that all incoming requests are checked for a valid checksum according

to BBB's own API. If an invalid checksum is found you will get an error

response.



The load balancing feature is basically a cycle through the available servers

with every room creation request where no room could be found on any of the

available instances.



## Getting started



To get this load balancer to work you need a server that runs Deno. In most

cases you should be ok to just run the installer script:

https://deno.land/manual/getting_started/installation



Then create a `servers.json` file like this here:



```json

[

  {

    "host": "http://bbb1.schule.de/bigbluebutton/api",

    "secret": "secret_string"

  },

  {

    "host": "http://bbb2.schule.de/bigbluebutton/api",

    "secret": "secret_string"

  }

]

```



Now you are ready to start the script. Make sure to have an environment variable

called `TINYSCALE_SECRET`:



    TINYSCALE_SECRET=some_secret_string deno run --allow-net --allow-env https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/main.ts



tinyscale will then run on port 8000 and you will have to set up your reverse

proxy so that it can pick up requests. If you prefer a different port you can

set one with another env var: `PORT 3005`



When started, tinyscale will connect to each server and make a single call to

check if your configuration is correct. If there is a problem tinyscale will

abort. If your configuration works you can start using it in your environment by

replacing your existing BBB settings with the new tinyscale url in your

endpoints. Make sure to also replace the BBB secrets with your new

`TINYSCALE_SECRET`.



tinyscale has been battle tested to work with NextCloud, Moodle and Mattermost.



## Caveats



- tinyscale does not combine requests like `getMeetings`. It will return the

  list of meetings from the current server (i.e. the last one used for creating

  a room).



MIT Licensed



---



**This project uses BigBlueButton and is not endorsed or certified by

BigBlueButton Inc. BigBlueButton and the BigBlueButton Logo are trademarks of

BigBlueButton Inc.**