Server configuration¶
Secret key¶
The Camus server is based on Quart, which requires a secret key for signing
cookies and keeping sessions with clients secure. You can provide a secret
key by setting the SECRET_KEY environment variable. If no secret key is
provided, a new random 32 byte key is automatically generated each time the
Camus server starts.
Database¶
Camus stores room and client information using a database, either SQLite or
Postgresql. By default, SQLite is used and stores the database in a local
file on disk. For larger deployments, it is recommended to use Postgresql due
to its higher performance and support for replication. You can specify which
database to use by setting the DATABASE_URL environment variable. For
example, to use Postgresql:
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://username:password@hostname"
STUN and TURN servers¶
A STUN server is necessary in order for clients to be able to determine their public IP address so that they can establish direct peer-to-peer WebRTC connections with other clients. In a majority of cases, a TURN server is not needed to establish a WebRTC connection, but sometimes restrictive firewalls or network topologies can make establishing a connection impossible without TURN. Therefore, it is recommended that at least one TURN server be configured.
The Camus server can provide clients with a list of default STUN and TURN
servers, along with any necessary credentials. If no configuration is provided
to the Camus server, only a Google STUN server at stun.l.google.com:19302
is used. When running the Camus server, you can set a number of environment
variables to provide clients with available STUN and TURN servers.
If you wish to run your own TURN server, Coturn is recommended. Alternatively (or additionally), you can use Twilio.
Configuring a STUN server¶
Set the following environment variables on the server:
STUN_HOST # the hostname or IP address for the STUN server
STUN_PORT # the port of the STUN server
Configuring a TURN server¶
Set the following environment variables on the server:
TURN_HOST # the hostname or IP address for the TURN server
TURN_PORT # the port of the TURN server
TURN_STATIC_AUTH_SECRET # the static secret for your TURN server
Camus uses TURN_STATIC_AUTH_SECRET to generate unique temporary credentials
for each client. See the Coturn documentation for more information.
Using Twilio for STUN and TURN servers¶
Twilio is a third-party service that can provide STUN and TURN servers. To use the service, you must create a (free) Twilio account.
Set the following environment variables on the server:
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID # your Twilio account SID
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN # your Twilio account auth token, or if using an API key, the API key secret
TWILIO_KEY_SID # (optional) if using an API key, the API key SID
Snap configuration¶
If using the Snap package, you can view and modify the server settings using
snap get and snap set. See Managing snap configuration for details
on how to use these commands.
View the current settings:
$ sudo snap get camus
Key Value
database-url sqlite:////var/snap/camus/96/sqlite/camus.db
secret-key ySWCYfc79GurPmTxmwYQ16bIPaRbLNoPt0bIDkiztpb85NrVO6N8tZhTj4C010sn
stun {...}
turn {...}
twilio {...}
For example, set the SECRET_KEY:
$ sudo snap set camus secret-key=mySecretKey
The Snap package also provides the camus.sqlite-client command for
administering the database with LiteCLI when using SQLite (which is the
default database option):
$ sudo camus.sqlite-client
Version: 1.6.0
Mail: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/litecli-users
GitHub: https://github.com/dbcli/litecli
/var/snap/camus/96/sqlite/camus.db> .tables
+---------+
| name |
+---------+
| clients |
| rooms |
+---------+
Time: 0.007s
/var/snap/camus/96/sqlite/camus.db> select * from rooms
+----+-----------+-----------+---------------+-------------+-----------+----------------------------+----------------------------+
| id | name | slug | password_hash | guest_limit | is_public | created | active |
+----+-----------+-----------+---------------+-------------+-----------+----------------------------+----------------------------+
| 1 | test-room | test-room | <null> | 0 | 0 | 2021-04-02 17:09:30.511584 | 2021-04-02 17:09:30.981780 |
+----+-----------+-----------+---------------+-------------+-----------+----------------------------+----------------------------+
1 row in set
Time: 0.004s
