Customization of BigBlueButton 2.2

Published in

Doğuş Technology

3 min readOct 18, 2021

In my previous post, I explained in detail how to install the BigBlueButton. If you are still having problems with the installation, please re-check the steps in this post.

In this article, we’re going to customize both BigBlueButton 2.2 and its user interface “Greenlight”. Let’s review its folder structure.

File/Folder Structure of Greenlight

When you connect the server via SSH, the root path welcomes you.

batuhan $ ssh root@123.123.123.123
root@bbb: root@123.123.123.123's password:
root@bbb: Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
root@bbb: ~#
root@bbb: ~# ls
greenlight

In the folder of “greenlight”, there are 2 important files. One of them is “docker-compose.yml” and the other one is “.env” file.

docker-compose.yml : To run the apps via Docker
.env : Contains some credentials

Convert Greenlight to Customization Mode

If you want to customize Greenlight, you need to take actions below:

root@bbb: ~# mv greenlight greenlight-old
root@bbb: ~# git clone https://github.com/bigbluebutton/greenlight.git
root@bbb: ~# cp greenlight-old/.env greenlight/.env

We moved “greenlight” folder to “greenlight-old” folder. Then, we clone the original repository to our sever and we copy “.env” file from the old to the new “greenlight” folder. Now, we need to update greenlight’s docker-compose file.

root@bbb: ~# cd greenlight
root@bbb: ~/greenlight# nano docker-compose.yml

docker-compose.yml opens like this:

version: '3'services:
   app:
      entrypoint: [bin/start]
      image: bigbluebutton/greenlight:v2
      container_name: greenlight-v2
      env_file: .env
      ...
   ...
...

We need to change “image:” line with:

image: uzem:release-v2

So, the final docker-compose.yml must be like that:

version: '3'services:
   app:
      entrypoint: [bin/start]
      image: uzem:release-v2
      container_name: greenlight-v2
      env_file: .env
      ...
   ...
...

Now, we can build and up Greenlight with this:

root@bbb: ~/greenlight# docker-compose down && ./scripts/image_build.sh uzem release-v2 && docker-compose up -d

If there is no error, everything is okay, we can proceed to customizations 😊

Greenlight Customizations

Let’s customize the user interface application of BigBlueButton.

How to change the logo?
Login to Greenlight with your admin credentials and click to “organization > site settings”. You can paste your logo URL to “Branding Image” field.

How to change colors?
Login to Greenlight with your admin credentials and click to “organization > site settings”. You can choose a new color by clicking to “Primary Color”.

How to “Features” block in the homepage for guests?
Connect to the server via a simple FTP client. Go to “/greenlight/app/views/main/components/” and edit “_features.html.erb” file with any code editor.

How to page title and favicon?
Connect to the server via a simple FTP client. Go to “/greenlight/app/views/layouts/” and edit “application.html.erb” file with any code editor.

How to remove recordings from logged-in users?
Connect to the server via a simple FTP client. Go to “/greenlight/app/views/users/” and edit “recordings.html.erb” file with any code editor.

BigBlueButton Customizations

Let’s edit the BigBlueButton application for editing meeting pages.

How to change the page title of the meeting page?

root@bbb: ~# nano /usr/share/meteor/bundle/programs/server/assets/app/config/settings.yml

How to change the default welcome message?

root@bbb: ~# nano /usr/share/bbb-web/WEB-INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties

How to change some other defaults?

Default favicon: /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/favicon.ico
Default presentation: /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/default.pptx
Default pdf: /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/default.pdf

Bonus 🎉

Restart only BigBlueButton:

root@bbb: ~# bbb-conf — restart

Adding new admin:

root@bbb: ~# docker exec greenlight-v2 bundle exec rake user:create["Batuhan Kök","hello@batuhan.me","123456","admin"]

Recordings: 10 minutes meeting record ~= 10 mb.

Have a great day 👋