BigBlueButton 2.5.0-alpha.5

This alpha iteration of BigBlueButton 2.5 includes some major changes to the environment BigBlueButton runs in. We have upgraded to use Ubuntu 20.04 (instead of 18.04), Java 11 (instead of Java 8), Tomcat 9 (instead of Tomcat 8)...

We do not support upgrading an existing server (or dev environment) from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04, only clean install of 20.04. The actual Ubuntu upgrade is the easy part. But Tomcat, yq, nginx conf, etc would make it too messy to do reliably.
This means that even upgarding from BBB 2.5-alpha-4 to (upcoming) BBB 2.5-alpha-5 will not be supported due to the above changes.

Note that it runs on Ubuntu Focal (20.04).

Other important changes included are:

• Big refactor of recording presentation publishing scripts with optimizations
• expanded use of the create parameter disabledFeatures for proper feature disabling
• new bridge (experimental) for audio
• new lock setting lockSettingsHideViewersCursor
• additional features disabling via disabledFeatures=
• moving all default nginx configuration from packages from /etc/bigbluebutton/nginx to /usr/share/bigbluebutton/nginx

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BigBlueButton 2.5-dev is under active development. While we don’t recommend setting it up in a production environment, we do encourage administrators to try out the build with others and give us feedback on our bigbluebutton-dev mailing list.

Link to installation command / instructions/ schedule / planned features : https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/2.5/new.html (note that these changed significantly for alpha.5)

Big THANK YOU to all comminuty members who helped for this release - both through sending pull requests and through reporting bugs or requesting enhancements! 🎊

HTML5 client

feat

• feat(fullaudio): implement echo test, device change and audio filters (new bridge) #14211
• feat: Add Lock Viewer Cursors Setting UI #14653

fixes

• fix: external video is not displayed to new users - smart layout #14620
• fix(audio): clean up sfu broker, guarantee peer exists in getLocalStream #14621
• style: Add loading skeleton in userlist #14610
• fix: chat notification bug on promotion/demotion #14654

test

• test: Fixes and updates in automated tests to v2.5 #14548
• test: Update dependencies #14657

chore/docs

• chore: Pulled the latest 2.5 HTML5 locales from Transifex #14649
• chore: upgrade eslint-plugin-import version #14652

build (packaging scripts) and bbb-conf (configuration)

• !build and conf: Upgrade Ubunto to 20.04 #14600
• !build and conf: moving all default nginx configuration from packages from /etc/bigbluebutton/nginx to /usr/share/bigbluebutton/nginx #14600
• !build: Java 11 support (re-send) #14611
• build: do not remove /usr/share/bigbluebutton/nginx/web on upgrade #14608
• build(etherpad): forbid userName argument #14607
• build: set repo.artima.com/releases to https #14612
• build: handle bbb-web pres-checker #14613
• build: bump bbb-webrtc-sfu to v2.8.0-alpha.1 #14646
• build: do not delete .nginx file, it is removed on upgrade too #14629
• build: recover building bbb-demo #14632
• refactor(config): Replace use of net-tools utilities with those from iproute2 #14647 Thanks @danimo
• refactor: swap netstat with ss #14660 Thanks @danimo

Core

• feat: Support to disable shared notes and captions via disabledFeatures #14570
• feat: Support to disable breakout rooms via disabledFeatures #14599
• feat: Support to disable layouts via disabledFeatures #14609
• feat: Support to disable Virtual backgrounds via disabledFeatures #14650
• feat: Implements param lockSettingsHideViewersCursor (Backend only) #14642
• fix: Keep support for deprecated API param learningDashboardEnabled #14572
• fix: Adds 'current' as optional parameter of the internal upload endpoint #14603
• fix: bbb-web exclude micronaut-aop-3.0.3.jar #14614
• refactor(user): do not timeout registered users #14526

Recording

• feat(recording): Improve moderator's emphasizing chat messages. #14360
• refactor(recording): Presentation publishing script improvements #13836

Release name

In case an administrator does not want to update to the latest focal-250 version. Use as substitute to the -v argument in bbb-install.sh command
focal-250-2.5.0-alpha.5
We still recommend using -v focal-250.

Client build: 19