Huly Self-Hosted

Please use this README if you want to deploy Huly on your server with docker compose. I'm using a Basic Droplet on Digital Ocean with Ubuntu 23.10, but these instructions can be easily adapted for any Linux distribution.

Note

Huly is quite resource-heavy, so I recommend using a Droplet with 2 vCPUs and 4GB of RAM. Droplets with less RAM may stop responding or fail.

If you prefer Kubernetes deployment, there is a sample Kubernetes configuration under kube directory.

Installing nginx and docker

First, let's install nginx and docker using the commands below if you have not already installed them on your machine.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install nginx
$ sudo snap install docker

Clone the huly-selfhost repository and configure nginx

Next, let's clone the huly-selfhost repository and configure the server address. Please replace x.y.z.w with your server's IP address.

$ git clone https://github.com/hcengineering/huly-selfhost.git
$ cd huly-selfhost
$ ./setup.sh x.y.z.w # Replace x.y.z.w with your server's IP address
$ sudo ln -s $(pwd)/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Now we're ready to run Huly

Finally, let's restart nginx and run Huly with docker compose.

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx
$ sudo docker compose up

Now, launch your web browser and enjoy Huly!

Security

When exposing your self-hosted Huly deployment to the internet, it's crucial to implement some security measures to protect your server and data.

1. Do not expose MongoDB, MinIO, and Elastic services to the internet. Huly does not require them to be accessible from the internet.
2. It is highly recommended to change the default credentials. By default the services, mentioned above, require no authentication, or use default well-known credentials.

Generating Public and Private VAPID keys for front-end

You'll need Node.js installed on your machine. Installing npm on Debian based distro:

sudo apt-get install npm

Install web-push using npm

sudo npm install -g web-push

Generate VAPID Keys. Run the following command to generate a VAPID key pair:

web-push generate-vapid-keys 

It will generate both keys that looks like this:

=======================================

Public Key:
sdfgsdgsdfgsdfggsdf

Private Key:
asdfsadfasdfsfd

=======================================

Keep these keys secure, as you will need them to set up your push notification service on the server.

Add these keys into compose.yaml in section services:front:environment:

- PUSH_PUBLIC_KEY=your public key
- PUSH_PRIVATE_KEY=your private key

AWS SES email notifications

1. Setup Amazon Simple Email Service in AWS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/setting-up.html

2. Add email address you'll use to send notifications into "SOURCE", SES access such as ACCESS_KEY, SECRET_KEY, REGION

     ses:
       image: hardcoreeng/ses:v0.6.295
       container_name: ses
       ports:
         - 3335:3335
       environment:
         - SOURCE=<EMAIL_FROM>
         - ACCESS_KEY=<SES_ACCESS_KEY>
         - SECRET_KEY=<SES_SECRET_KEY>
         - REGION=<SES_REGION>
         - PORT=3335
       restart: unless-stopped

3. Add SES container URL into transactor and account containers:

   account:
     ...
     environment:
       - SES_URL=http://ses:3335
     ...
   transactor:
     ...
     environment:
       - SES_URL=http://ses:3335
     ...

4. In Settings -> Notifications setup email notifications for events you need to be notified for. It's a user's setting not a company wide, meaning each user has to setup their own notification rules.

Love Service (Audio & Video calls)

Huly audio and video calls are created on top of LiveKit insfrastructure. In order to use Love service in your self-hosted Huly, perform the following steps:

1. Set up LiveKit Cloud account

2. Add love container to the docker-compose.yaml

     love:
       image: hardcoreeng/love:v0.6.295
       container_name: love
       ports:
         - 8096:8096
       environment:
         - STORAGE_CONFIG=minio|minio?accessKey=minioadmin&secretKey=minioadmin
         - SECRET=secret
         - ACCOUNTS_URL=http://account:3000
         - DB_URL=mongodb://mongodb:27017
         - MONGO_URL=mongodb://mongodb:27017
         - STORAGE_PROVIDER_NAME=minio
         - PORT=8096
         - LIVEKIT_HOST=<LIVEKIT_HOST>
         - LIVEKIT_API_KEY=<LIVEKIT_API_KEY>
         - LIVEKIT_API_SECRET=<LIVEKIT_API_SECRET>
       restart: unless-stopped

3. Configure front service:

     front:
       ...
       environment:
         - LIVEKIT_WS=<LIVEKIT_HOST>
         - LOVE_ENDPOINT=http://love:8096
       ...

Configure OpenId Connect

You can configure a Huly instance to authorize users (sign-in/sign-up) using an OpenID Connect identity provider (IdP).

On the IdP side

• Create a new OpenID application.
  • Use {huly_account_svc}/auth/openid/callback as the sign-in redirect URI. The huly_account_svc is the hostname for the account service of the deployment, which should be accessible externally from the client/browser side. In the provided example setup, the account service runs on port 3000.
• Configure user access to the application as needed.

On the Huly side

Specify the following environment variables (provided by the IdP) for the account service:

• OPENID_CLIENT_ID
• OPENID_CLIENT_SECRET
• OPENID_ISSUER

Ensure you have configured or add the following environment variable to the front service:

• ACCOUNTS_URL (This should contain the URL of the account service, accessible from the client side.)

Note: Once all the required environment variables are configured, you will see an additional button on the sign-in/sign-up pages.

Disable Sign-Up

You can disable public sign-ups for a deployment. When configured, sign-ups will only be permitted through an invite link to a specific workspace.

To implement this, set the following environment variable for both the front and account services:

  account:
    ...
    environment:
      - DISABLE_SIGNUP=true
    ...  
  front:    
    ...
    environment:
      - DISABLE_SIGNUP=true
    ...

Note: When setting up a new deployment, either create the initial account before disabling sign-ups or use the development tool to create the first account.