[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

Dear all,

Version 0.4 of the Galène videoconferencing server is now available:

    git clone -b galene-0.4 https://github.com/jech/galene

For more information about Galène, please see

    https://galene.org


Version 0.4 has seen some major server-side changes.  The main new features
are simulcast and scalable video coding (SVC), which allow different
clients to receive flows with different resolutions and different image
qualities; we currently reduce framerate when a client is congested, and
reduce quality when a client has reduced their window size.  Resolution
can be controlled manually at the receiver through the side menu,
framerate is decided by the server.

The server should now be more robust, the issues with streams being
silently lost when under load should be gone now.

The code that records videos to disk has been mostly rewritten (we now use
our own depacketiser rather than relying on the one in Pion), and has
learned to deal gracefully with packet loss; you should no longer see
corruption in saved videos.  There is now support for saving H.264.

The signalling protocol has seen some improvements, notably the ability to
signal user states ("hands up", mood, etc.).  This is not currently used
by the user interface.


Please send questions to <galene@lists.galene.org>, and submit bug reports
at https://github.com/jech/galene/issues .

-- Juliusz Chroboczek

[Galene] -udp-range question.

[eric_G]

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Thanks Juliusz for this big update!

I am working on updating the YunoHost install.
I have set in systemd the option `-udp-range 49152:65535`. This led to an error -> `UDP range: input does not match format`
I'm assuming this is due to this range limit mentioned in the changelog:
	* Added an option to limit the range of UDP ports used by the server.
Are those `-udp-range` option range documented somewhere?
Thanks for your help.
Éric

---
Edit. … forgot to send this email to the lists.galene as well.

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[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> I have set in systemd the option `-udp-range 49152:65535`. This led to an error
> -> `UDP range: input does not match format`

You need to use a dash:

    -udp-range 49152-65535

> Are those `-udp-range` option range documented somewhere?

Only in the help output (galene -help).  I'll try to make the help output
more informative in a future version.

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[eric_G]

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Thanks for your help, -udp-range works now!
>    -udp-range 49152-65535


I have some issues while testing Galène:

Video recordings are divided into small chucks of webm video of approx 20-60 seconds, some with different pixel aspect ratios.
In Firefox (78.13), Simulcast refuses to be activated (on) and turns to off. (auto is OK)
In the op/presenter video window the bitrate is now only numbers (without its unit of measurement)

Playing, as op/presenter, video streaming (Play local file) from a mp4  (using MacOS 10.11.6)

Chromium (95.0.4635.0): not working (black screen)
Chrome (93.0.4577.63) OK (the op/presenter gets the sound)
Firefox (78.13.0) working but with no sound for the op/presenter.
Vivaldi (4.1.2369.21): OK (op/presenter gets the sound)
Opera (78.0.4093.184): OK (op/presenter gets the sound)
Safari (11.1.2): `Play local file` option is not available.
Best.
Éric


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[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> * Video recordings are divided into small chucks of webm video of approx 20-60
>   seconds, some with different pixel aspect ratios.

Yes, we start a new video whenever the dimension changes.  On an
uncongested network, there should be a 10 second low-resolution segment,
and then the resolution stabilises at the highest value.  This was already
the case in 0.3, but we were losing the low-resolution segment (the
recording was only started at the second keyframe).

The alternative would be to use a single webm file even though the
resolution changes.  This happens to work fine with mpv and vlc, but is
a violation of the Matroška format.

> * In Firefox (78.13), Simulcast refuses to be activated (on) and turns to off.
>   (auto is OK)

Firefox uses a non-standard protocol for simulcast.  I've tried to
implement it (Sean has recently added support to Pion), but it doesn't
work with the version of Firefox currently in Debian, and I don't see
a good way to distinguish the good versions from the bad ones.

> * In the op/presenter video window the bitrate is now only numbers (without its
>   unit of measurement)

Noted, thanks.

> Playing, as op/presenter, video streaming (Play local file) from a mp4  (using
> MacOS 10.11.6)
> 
> * Chromium (95.0.4635.0): not working (black screen)

Known issue, https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1156408

> * Chrome (93.0.4577.63) OK (the op/presenter gets the sound)

Strange.  Can you please compare the output of about:gpu in the two
versions of Chrome/Chromium?

> * Firefox (78.13.0) working but with no sound for the op/presenter.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

> * Safari (11.1.2): `Play local file` option is not available.

The API is not supported:

  https://caniuse.com/mdn-api_htmlmediaelement_capturestream

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[eric_G]

Thanks for the explanations.

> Strange.  Can you please compare the output of about:gpu in the two
> versions of Chrome/Chromium?

From Chromium
https://paste.yunohost.org/lajayosuso.sql

From Chrome
https://paste.yunohost.org/nuwuzuxopa.sql

Éric

[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

It looks like version 95 is using a hardware video encoder, version 93
isn't.  You can disable hardware video encoding in settings ("Use video
acceleration when available"), which should work around the issue.

A Javascript workaround would be possible, but it would reduce performance
and cause additional delay.  I'd much rather the Chromium guys fixed their
bug.

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Idea for a new feature

[Fabrice Rouillier]

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Hi all ,

First, thanks a lot for this new version 0.4. I have installed it on my raspberry behind a capricious NAT (SFR box) and it works like a charm in most situations.

It is in particular very pleasant to use Galene daily with my family in many different situations (from the train, from home, etc.)

One query would be to have some alert when a visitor join a group. Is it easy to do ? I have some experience in developing (mainly computational libraries …) , is there something I could do to try to help ?

Cheers,

Fabrice.

 
-------------------------
Fabrice Rouillier
fabrice@rouillier.fr

Bureau virtuel : https://www.rouillier <https://www.rouillier/>.fr/visio/fabrice




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[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Michael Ströder]

On 9/5/21 18:46, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
> Version 0.4 of the Galène videoconferencing server is now available:
> 
>     git clone -b galene-0.4 https://github.com/jech/galene

Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:

https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene

Ciao, Michael.

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:
> 
> https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene

Thanks!

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:
> 
> https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene

Michael, could we please work together on getting rid of
galene-html-sendselect-default.patch?  I'm not too keen on vendor patches
to source code, since they tend to cause confusion and make maintenance
more difficult.

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Michael Ströder]

On 9/5/21 20:47, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
>> Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:
>>
>> https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene
> 
> Michael, could we please work together on getting rid of
> galene-html-sendselect-default.patch?  I'm not too keen on vendor patches
> to source code, since they tend to cause confusion and make maintenance
> more difficult.

I would be more than happy to get rid of the patch.

IMO the parameters should ideally be defined in the group JSON file with
same defaults like now in galene.html.

Ciao, Michael.

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:
> 
> https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene

Also, by setting

  -http 0.0.0.0:8443

you're disabling listening on IPv6.  Is that deliberate?

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 0.4

[Michael Ströder]

On 9/5/21 21:00, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
>> Also updates openSUSE/SLE packages:
>>
>> https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:telephony/galene
> 
> Also, by setting
> 
>   -http 0.0.0.0:8443
> 
> you're disabling listening on IPv6.  Is that deliberate?

No, I don't want to disable IPv6. I'll set the default as example.

Note that file /etc/sysconfig/galene is subject to changes by admin anyway.

Ciao, Michael.

[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[eric_G]

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Hello Juliusz,
I am testing Galène in a Raspberry Pi behind a NAT with port 1194 open and `-udp-range 49152-65535` range of UDP ports open

Relay test connection in the logs seems successful but In the chat console, with /relay-test, I get `Relay test failed: Error: timeout`

And then there is this handshake error that I can’t explain…

Sep 10 13:38:55 galene[30729]: 2021/09/10 13:38:55 Starting built-in TURN server on xx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1194
Sep 10 13:38:55 galene[30729]: 2021/09/10 13:38:55 Relay test successful in 139.616567ms, RTT = 1.707406ms
Sep 10 13:50:13 galene[30729]: 2021/09/10 13:50:13 http: TLS handshake error from 127.0.0.1:40672: EOF

The server seems to be functional (but I couldn't try outside NAT network)

Best.
Éric

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[Galene] Re: -udp-range question.

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> I am testing Galène in a Raspberry Pi

Cool.

> behind a NAT with port 1194 open and `-udp-range 49152-65535` range of
> UDP ports open
> 
> Relay test connection in the logs seems successful but In the chat console,
> with /relay-test, I get `Relay test failed: Error: timeout`

It means that the Galene server could reach the TURN server, but the
client could not.  Which is strange, since both of them are behind the
same NAT.

Since the UDP ports are open, your Galene server will be directly
accessible for all clients except the ones behind restrictive firewalls
(those that block UDP traffic to unknown ports).  So I'd suggest not to
worry too much, unless any of your users complain they're not getting any
video.

-- Juliusz