[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Galene] ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

Hello,

Galene 1.2 is available by doing

    git clone -b galene-1.2 https://github.com/jech/galene

For more information about the Galene videoconferencing system, please see

  https:galene.org

The main user-visible changes in this version are the addition of
a microphone and camera testing thingie on the login page, and the
possibility to use (stateful) tokens to access the administrative
interface.  (The default configuration created by the "galenectl
initial-setup" command still uses password authentication, since this is
easier to bootstrap, but the rest of galenectl works fine with token
authentication.)

I've done some more security hardening, notably by using the "os.Root"
structure (introduced in Go 1.24) whenever suitable.  There is one
user-visible change: if you have symlinks inside the "data/" or "groups/"
directories, they will no longer be followed if they point outside of
the directory.

-- Juliusz Chroboczek

5 September 2026: Galene 1.2

  * Implemented recursive and global tokens.
  * Implemented token authentication for the administrative interface.
  * Implemented "galenectl update-token".
  * Added a microphone and camera test to the login page.
  * Fixed incorrect handling of the "autokick" group option.
  * Implemented "galenectl update-token".
  * Added "-duration" flag to "galenectl create-token".
  * Security hardening.
  * Removed backwards compatibility with Galene 0.8.
  * Improved compatibility with Typescript 6.

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Juliusz Chroboczek <jch@irif.fr> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Galene 1.2 is available by doing
>
>     git clone -b galene-1.2 https://github.com/jech/galene
>
> For more information about the Galene videoconferencing system, please see
>
>   https:galene.org
>
> The main user-visible changes in this version are the addition of
> a microphone and camera testing thingie on the login page,

Very nice! However, the camera test only shows "Camera 1" and
"Microphone 1" on Firefox; in Chromium it seems to work well enough.

I can select a different camera/microphone on Firefox after joining and
turning on the camera; but until I turn on the camera there's only the
same "Microphone 1"/"Camera 1" available in the menu. Perhaps that's
related?

-Toke

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

Hi Toke, I hope you had a nice vacation.

> Very nice!

Thanks.  I think it's overdue, users have been complaining about not being
able to check before joining.  I'm rather pleased with the use of
a disclosure triangle, I think it works better than my initial prototype
that used a popup window.

> However, the camera test only shows "Camera 1" and "Microphone 1" on
> Firefox; in Chromium it seems to work well enough.

Yeah.  This is due to

  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1935371

The API that we use to get the list of devices is called enumerateDevices.
Of course, it's a great source of fingerprinting material, so it is
restricted in various ways by different browsers.  Chromium-based browsers
do not expose device labels before the user has granted the camera
permissions.  Firefox is more radical, it refrains from listing cameras and
microphones unless there is a camera stream already running.  Or something
like that, the exact behaviour is not documented.

> I can select a different camera/microphone on Firefox after joining and
> turning on the camera; but until I turn on the camera there's only the
> same "Microphone 1"/"Camera 1" available in the menu. Perhaps that's
> related?

In Galene proper, I work around the issue by populating the camera menu
a second time after the user has opened a camera stream (I try to
eliminate duplicates, but at least in Brave it doesn't work well, so you
end up with duplicate entries).  Here, it should be enough to reorder the
calls (open the camera stream first, then populate the menus).  Oh well,
another item for my todo list.

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Juliusz Chroboczek <jch@irif.fr> writes:

> Hi Toke, I hope you had a nice vacation.

Thank you - I did! :)

>> Very nice!
>
> Thanks.  I think it's overdue, users have been complaining about not being
> able to check before joining.  I'm rather pleased with the use of
> a disclosure triangle, I think it works better than my initial prototype
> that used a popup window.

Ha, hadn't heard "disclosure triangle" before - I like it :)

But yeah, that UI choice seems reasonable. Maybe an additional
refinement would be to auto-open it if one selects "Microphone" or
"Camera and microphone" in the "Enable at start" selection on the login
page?

>> However, the camera test only shows "Camera 1" and "Microphone 1" on
>> Firefox; in Chromium it seems to work well enough.
>
> Yeah.  This is due to
>
>   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1935371
>
> The API that we use to get the list of devices is called enumerateDevices.
> Of course, it's a great source of fingerprinting material, so it is
> restricted in various ways by different browsers.  Chromium-based browsers
> do not expose device labels before the user has granted the camera
> permissions.  Firefox is more radical, it refrains from listing cameras and
> microphones unless there is a camera stream already running.  Or something
> like that, the exact behaviour is not documented.

Ah, makes sense. I guess this also explains why other video conferencing
software is so aggressive about opening a video preview as soon as you
visit the site...

>> I can select a different camera/microphone on Firefox after joining and
>> turning on the camera; but until I turn on the camera there's only the
>> same "Microphone 1"/"Camera 1" available in the menu. Perhaps that's
>> related?
>
> In Galene proper, I work around the issue by populating the camera
> menu a second time after the user has opened a camera stream (I try to
> eliminate duplicates, but at least in Brave it doesn't work well, so
> you end up with duplicate entries). Here, it should be enough to
> reorder the calls (open the camera stream first, then populate the
> menus). Oh well, another item for my todo list.

While I'm requesting features, on thing that's a bit surprising is that
the settings in the test window don't stick. I.e., if I select a
different camera in the test feed, that camera is not the one being used
when I enable video after joining the conference room; instead I have to
go into the settings and redo the selection. As far as I'm concerned the
main purpose of having a preview before joining is to make sure
everything is setup correctly so it works immediately when I join, so
this seems a bit surprising.

Bonus points if the selection could be made to stick between visits to
the same site (stored in a cookie or something?) :)

-Toke

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> I guess this also explains why other video conferencing software is so
> aggressive about opening a video preview as soon as you visit the
> site...

Yes.  I'm striving to make Galene feel non-intrusive: you're welcome to
come to my lecture and just sit in the back and listen.

(What's next?  Tell one fun thing about yourself before you're allowed to
join?)

> While I'm requesting features, on thing that's a bit surprising is that
> the settings in the test window don't stick.

That would be a bug, they're supposed to stick.  I suspect that it gets
reset when Firefox lies about the label of the camera.  Can you reproduce
the issue in a Chromium-based browser or in Safari?

> Bonus points if the selection could be made to stick between visits to
> the same site (stored in a cookie or something?) :)

The selection is stored in SessionStorage, so it sticks between reloads
but doesn't stick between visits.  Making it stick is a simple matter of
replacing SessionStorage by LocalStorage, but if I do that, I'll have to
add a GDPR-compliant popup.

  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/sessionStorage

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Juliusz Chroboczek <jch@irif.fr> writes:

>> I guess this also explains why other video conferencing software is so
>> aggressive about opening a video preview as soon as you visit the
>> site...
>
> Yes.  I'm striving to make Galene feel non-intrusive: you're welcome to
> come to my lecture and just sit in the back and listen.
>
> (What's next?  Tell one fun thing about yourself before you're allowed to
> join?)
>
>> While I'm requesting features, on thing that's a bit surprising is that
>> the settings in the test window don't stick.
>
> That would be a bug, they're supposed to stick.  I suspect that it gets
> reset when Firefox lies about the label of the camera.  Can you reproduce
> the issue in a Chromium-based browser or in Safari?

Well, seeing as I can't pick any webcameras in the tester in Firefox at
all, I did already do this test in Chromium :)

>> Bonus points if the selection could be made to stick between visits to
>> the same site (stored in a cookie or something?) :)
>
> The selection is stored in SessionStorage, so it sticks between reloads
> but doesn't stick between visits.  Making it stick is a simple matter of
> replacing SessionStorage by LocalStorage, but if I do that, I'll have to
> add a GDPR-compliant popup.

Not if this counts as a "technically necessary" use of cookies? I'd
certainly argue that it does, and the guidance from the Danish data
authority seems to agree with me.

I can certainly see why you wouldn't want to make that call for the
upstream Galene project, though. In which case I'm fine with just
patching my own instance :)

-Toke

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> I can certainly see why you wouldn't want to make that call for the
> upstream Galene project, though. In which case I'm fine with just
> patching my own instance :)

In the file static/settings.js, change the functions "storeSettings" and
"getSettings" to use the "window.localStorage" object instead of
"window.sessionStorage".

-- Juliusz

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Juliusz Chroboczek <jch@irif.fr> writes:

>> I can certainly see why you wouldn't want to make that call for the
>> upstream Galene project, though. In which case I'm fine with just
>> patching my own instance :)
>
> In the file static/settings.js, change the functions "storeSettings" and
> "getSettings" to use the "window.localStorage" object instead of
> "window.sessionStorage".

Cool, that's what I assumed from a quick 'grep' - thank you for
confirming :)

-Toke

[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Kenichiro Matohara]

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Hello,

I have upgraded my Galene to version 1.2.
The microphone and camera test tools appear to be working well.
(The spectrum analyzer is great too!)

I think it would be beneficial if we could test filters on this test 
screen as well.
Currently, it seems that filter changes are not being reflected.


On 2026/09/05 午後11:00, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Galene 1.2 is available by doing
> 
>      git clone -b galene-1.2 https://github.com/jech/galene
> 
> For more information about the Galene videoconferencing system, please see
> 
>    https:galene.org
> 
> The main user-visible changes in this version are the addition of
> a microphone and camera testing thingie on the login page, and the
> possibility to use (stateful) tokens to access the administrative
> interface.  (The default configuration created by the "galenectl
> initial-setup" command still uses password authentication, since this is
> easier to bootstrap, but the rest of galenectl works fine with token
> authentication.)
> 
> I've done some more security hardening, notably by using the "os.Root"
> structure (introduced in Go 1.24) whenever suitable.  There is one
> user-visible change: if you have symlinks inside the "data/" or "groups/"
> directories, they will no longer be followed if they point outside of
> the directory.
> 
> -- Juliusz Chroboczek
> 
> 5 September 2026: Galene 1.2
> 
>    * Implemented recursive and global tokens.
>    * Implemented token authentication for the administrative interface.
>    * Implemented "galenectl update-token".
>    * Added a microphone and camera test to the login page.
>    * Fixed incorrect handling of the "autokick" group option.
>    * Implemented "galenectl update-token".
>    * Added "-duration" flag to "galenectl create-token".
>    * Security hardening.
>    * Removed backwards compatibility with Galene 0.8.
>    * Improved compatibility with Typescript 6.
> _______________________________________________
> Galene mailing list -- galene@lists.galene.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to galene-leave@lists.galene.org

-- 
KenichiroMATOHARA
http://matoken.org/
.O.
..O
OOO


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[Galene] Re: ANNOUNCE: Galene 1.2

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> The microphone and camera test tools appear to be working well.

There's a bug which I've just fixed in Galene master.  I'll make a 1.2.1
release in a few days.

> (The spectrum analyzer is great too!)

I'm glad you like it.  I've had contradictory opinions on it: my computer
scientist colleagues were telling me it's too geeky for normal people, and
that I should replace it with a simple volume indicator.  On the other
hand, the "normal" people are telling me it's fine ("If it moves, it means
it works, right?").

> I think it would be beneficial if we could test filters on this test
> screen as well.

That's an interesting idea.  I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks,

-- Juliusz