Description

This is a simple Flask-based app to serve full recordings list from BigBlueButton server, since Greenlight does not provide this functionality since v2.8.0.

The basic idea is to fetch recording list from the BBB server once in a while and simply render the full list with as a web-page with the same basic features (search, sorting) as in Greenlight.

Installation

Install system dependencies:

sudo apt-get install git curl

Clone the repository with git:

git clone https://github.com/aozalevsky/bbb-recordings.git

Python dependencies can be installed with pip:

cd bbb-recordings
sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Change the username and password in the app.py:

users = {
    "admin": generate_password_hash("SOMERANDOMPASSWORD"),
}

Construct a request using ApiMate link:

sudo bbb-conf  --secret  # to view ApiMate link

type getRecordings in the Custom API calls cell and check the link at the top of the page. It will look like:

https://hostname/bigbluebutton/api/getRecordings?checksum=XXXX

Open the link the browser, depending on the number of records this may take a while (about 1 minute fo 2000 records)

Check that app is working properly:

curl https://hostname/bigbluebutton/api/getRecordings?checksum=XXXX -o /tmp/recordings.xml
flask run

Setup a cron job to fetch recordings every hour:

sudo apt-get install cron crontab
sudo crontab -e

# Fetch recording every hour
1 * * * * curl https://hostname/bigbluebutton/api/getRecordings?checksum=XXXX -o /tmp/recordings.xml

And a systemd service to run the app:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/bbb-recordings.service

with a following content:

[Unit]
Description=Custom BBB records list
After=network.target

[Service]
User=generic
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/bbb-recordings
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/flask run --port 5001
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start bbb-recordings
sudo systemctl enable bbb-recordings

Verify that service works:

sudo journalctl -u bbb-recordings

Ackwnoledgments

The core architecture of the flask app is based on a nice post by Miguel Grinberg.

Contacts

Arthur Zalevsky aozalevsky@gmail.com