32 KiB
Minimal Deployment
Last verified against upstream documentation: 2026-08-21.
This section documents the repository's UDP-only deployment candidate: one Node.js process provides the built Web client, room API, and WebSocket signaling behind Caddy or nginx; application ICE advertises only STUN by default; LiveKit supplies bounded SFU-root capacity. Normal media remains distributed through direct or peer edges whenever those paths work.
A deployment may additionally provide one single-node LiveKit process as the
current controller's automatic final media fallback. This capacity is dormant unless the complete
LIVEKIT_URL/key/secret tuple is configured. It does not replace the P2P path,
the peer-assisted experiment, or required STUN discovery. LiveKit remains
ICE/UDP only. Source no longer contains the rejected participant-wide Peer ICE TURN
candidate; stale PEER_ICE_TURN_* keys fail startup even when blank. The
selected-edge source tuple is enabled in production only for the controller's
single exceptional edge. Production ordinary peer ICE remains STUN-only and the
tracked coturn example remains stun-only; the shared host retains its older
authenticated-relay daemon configuration and firewall range. The application
does not pre-advertise TURN credentials to ordinary peers.
Production currently runs exact 1331fbddb59fc2b0b99ba9e5ee4848768ae907c8
on the existing shared public IP, with local/public health 200 and SQLite v3
integrity. Its immutable source artifact is 606,386 bytes with SHA-256
7defb2c8d813de0576301f011a61cfc45481ce6ff209f14d61d2b9f0096a6a99;
the locally built dist artifact is 355,113 bytes with SHA-256
f20719d415396e6bc1feb6fba883c3a7ef0c619ba70fe1feafff96c93f8c8740.
The 2026-08-21T09:19:09Z UTC cutover held the deployment lock for 848.008 ms;
local health returned 626.778 ms after service stop (560.282 ms after the symlink
switch). Screener, LiveKit, coturn, and nginx are active/running with
observed NRestarts=0. SQLite v3 contains five rooms including room 1, with the
service owner/mode screener:screener/0600 and SHA-256
aef724ae52c4107be8ec8791e72f8dcaa11b0ec849fb432d022e2cfb9cfe0974.
The immutable release is /opt/screener/releases/1331fbddb59f; backup
/opt/screener/backups/1331fbddb59f-precutover-20260821T091908Z preserves the
database, environment, artifact digests, firewall snapshot, and exact previous
target. Exact 261e980c3a9ff2d1a6b54ce18cf3daedb491b777 is the immediate rollback
target; exact 691863e1720ebbee1b5368f29e94f05b3710ccf8 and
6634cb9fca8278b44d57e5fcddcbaf9f0dc9b137 remain secondary and tertiary.
This release keeps one stable SFU subscriber stream, clears unavailable SFU
video state, stays neutral until current media evidence proves P2P or SFU, and
labels TURN plus a protocol only from actual local relay stats. Routing remains
automatic across direct/peer and bounded fallback paths. P2P reapplies the
selected quality profile after each answer on the same sender; the browser still
owns degradation. P2P/browser-relay offers prefer H.264 through standard codec
ordering, and SFU publication requests H.264 with backup codec disabled; the
complete browser list retains negotiated VP8 fallback. The Host preview notice,
shared entry/nickname UI, and two
downstream slots per Web
relay remain deployed; a third child remains rejected. Production
STUN/SFU/selected-edge configuration and the database were unchanged.
Fresh exact-source acceptance passed typecheck, 32 test files/473 tests, both
builds, and repository hygiene. Deployment verified both artifact manifests and
hashes, one bounded production-only install, runtime imports, node:sqlite,
UTF-8 paths, zero cross-release regular-file inodes, and immutable permissions.
The public index and all three referenced hashed assets matched the release
byte-for-byte; the deployment lock was released after the atomic switch.
This cutover triggered no browser, media, SFU, TURN, or performance canary and
remains exact-source, build, configuration, and deployment evidence.
A separate earlier local Screener canary using exact 16f6eab source and the
production LiveKit/coturn tuple later proved active Host-ingress relay function
without using the production application room or database; it is not
broad-rollout or performance acceptance.
Topology and prerequisites
Use two DNS names, for example share.example.com and stun.example.com. They
may resolve to the same public IP: the Web ingress owns TCP 443 while the
self-hosted STUN listener owns UDP 3478.
browser -- HTTPS/WSS --> Caddy or nginx :443 --> Node.js :8787
browser <------------ DTLS-SRTP P2P ------------> browser
browser -- STUN binding/UDP --> coturn :3478 (application advertises STUN only)
browser <---------- DTLS-SRTP/UDP ----------> LiveKit :7882
The minimum runtime is Node.js 24 LTS and coturn 4.17.2 or a newer patched release. Provision a valid TLS certificate for the Web name. Enable operating system time synchronization and keep the Node application port reachable only from its reverse proxy. A single Node process is intentional. Active participants and signaling remain in memory; an optional protected SQLite file can restore room identity after a restart, but it does not restore live WebRTC connections.
Build and validate the exact revision on a build host before starting it:
npm ci
npm run check
npm start
Do not run the repository full check, typecheck, or build on the current 960 MiB
no-swap production host. An inactive-release check before the 261e980c cutover
temporarily starved HTTP and SSH; exact 691863e remained current and all four
services stayed at NRestarts=0. The retained production path uses a locally
verified dist artifact plus one npm ci --omit=dev in a transient unit bounded
to 30% CPU, 160 MiB memory high, 256 MiB memory max, and 120 seconds. It then
runs only runtime imports, node:sqlite, and artifact/inode/permission gates.
Each immutable release must own an independent dependency tree. Never hard-link
node_modules or another file that deployment may chown, chmod, replace, or
remove: metadata changes would also mutate the rollback release. A copy or
copy-on-write reflink is acceptable only after an inode audit confirms that the
old and new regular-file sets have zero shared inodes. Do not recursively change
permissions until that check passes.
Transport archives must preserve UTF-8 entry names. Prefer the POSIX release archive path and verify the extracted manifest before switching. A Windows ZIP used for the 2026-08-20 route-rescue release altered two non-runtime Chinese documentation names on Linux. Runtime artifacts were unaffected and the immutable upload remains evidence, but do not reuse that packaging method.
In a strict-shell deployment, expected service states are data, not command
failures. Do not call systemctl is-active bare under set -e/ERR: an
intentionally stopped service returns a nonzero status and can trigger a false rollback. Read
ActiveState with systemctl show, compare the returned string explicitly, and
keep stop, symlink switch, start, health check, and rollback as separate steps.
Preflight every inspection dependency before taking a backup or changing a
service. If a host lacks the sqlite3 CLI, use the pinned Node runtime's
node:sqlite API or stop before the first write. After a start, poll health for
a short bounded window instead of treating one request during startup as a
failed release; retain the last failure while still enforcing the deadline.
Run npm start under a service supervisor that injects the environment, restarts
on failure, and applies bounded logs. For a simple untracked environment file,
the equivalent direct launch is
node --env-file=.env.production dist/server/server/index.js. Do not expose port
8787 to the Internet. The application default is 0.0.0.0 for LAN development
and container compatibility, while the bare-metal production baseline below
explicitly sets LISTEN_HOST=127.0.0.1 because only the same-host reverse proxy
should connect. A container can instead use 0.0.0.0 and enforce the intended
boundary with port publishing rules or a host firewall.
The optional same-host LiveKit layout needs no additional public hostname:
LIVEKIT_URL=wss://share.example.com and nginx proxies only current /rtc/v1*
requests to LiveKit. Retired /rtc and /rtc/validate endpoints return 404
without request-target logging. LiveKit's HTTP/WebSocket listener on TCP 7880 is
private to nginx, while WebRTC media reaches LiveKit directly on UDP 7882.
Candidate boundary and rollback
The accepted target for share.bonfire.icu remains distributed and automatic:
direct/peer UDP first, then an SFU virtual parent feeding normally one or two
roots, whose peer descendants continue carrying media. Multiple exceptional viewers that cannot attach behind a healthy
root may consume additional server egress only under a separate explicit cap.
The repository requires STUN and ordinary peer connections receive STUN-only
ICE. The accepted ladder is direct/peer UDP, then the revision-bound SFU/UDP
virtual parent, then optional authenticated TURN for one controller-selected
exceptional edge. LiveKit participants receive only revision-bound sfu-config
URL/token messages and negotiate within LiveKit's separate ICE domain. The
selected-edge TURN config/wire is deployed in the current 1331fbdd release with one
UDP URL and a 120-second credential TTL. It was not exercised by a real media
session during this cutover.
PEER_ASSISTED_MEDIA=true is the process-wide topology/SFU switch. Every normal
room gets its own bounded controller state; ordinary peer connections remain
STUN-only and only the selected-edge source path may grant TURN to the
controller's then-current edge. Run candidate releases on an isolated
instance/hostname and keep
the old release unchanged for rollback. If the candidate fails, roll back the
release or instance; do not add a permanent dual-transport branch.
A shared-public-IP instance can test candidate behavior while the old TURN service stays live, but it cannot prove the clean-port boundary or approve broad migration. The room-1 smoke uses this shape: nginx owns 443, LiveKit 1.13.5 owns UDP 7882, Peer ICE TURN is disabled, and LiveKit is fail-closed under a 192 MiB high/256 MiB hard cgroup limit with restart disabled. Prefer a separate VM/IP for the full gate and verify representative external networks and devices.
TURN REST authentication proves only HMAC and expiry to coturn. Coturn cannot verify a room, route, edge, or connection generation, so the application must bind issuance and parent/child rebuild to the current controller state, keep the attempt one-use and short-lived, and revalidate every asynchronous boundary. Never describe coturn itself as cryptographic selected-edge enforcement. HTTPS/WSS always remains TLS/TCP independently.
The 2026-08-20 exact-room canary used source a11a73dfa79d, inactive release
/opt/screener/releases/a11a73dfa79d-r4, artifact SHA-256
C954185869A3A15CCCE642AB72A4CF90770476C117D61182D7728280C30A036F, and
backup /opt/screener/backups/turn-a11-20260820T065933Z. The candidate
switch completed at 14:59:33 +08. Local authenticated coturn allocation and
application/deployment gates passed, but the real direct Host plus Pion Viewer
did not establish its peer connection. The forced-relay test was therefore not
run. Issuance was removed first, then coturn and its firewall rules returned to
the pre-canary authenticated-relay baseline: TCP/UDP 3478 and UDP 49152-49251.
Exact 7fea60ef6f2ad14a9ac1c23a89a523d91bbb97e4 was restored and advertises no
TURN credential. The final lock-free check at 15:12:40 +08 found active
services, zero allocations, and matching health, configuration, firewall, and
SQLite state.
No canary test process, browser profile, or transient firewall rule remained.
The retained release is inactive. This is a canary no-go, not TURN deployment
or media evidence. Two earlier attempts changed no durable state: one stopped
before backup/write because sqlite3 was absent, and one rolled back after a
single health request landed in the normal startup window. The preflight and
bounded-poll rules above are the retained fixes.
Production application environment
Keep the real values in the process secret store or an untracked, access-restricted
environment file. Node.js 24 can load such a file with --env-file; the tracked
.env.example is only a schema. Generate independent secrets with a password
manager or a cross-platform Node command such as:
node -e "console.log(require('node:crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64url'))"
Use this production baseline:
NODE_ENV=production
LISTEN_HOST=127.0.0.1
PORT=8787
PUBLIC_BASE_URL=https://share.example.com
ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://share.example.com
SITE_ACCESS_PASSWORD=<INDEPENDENT_8_TO_128_BYTE_ACCESS_KEY>
ROOM_DATABASE_PATH=/var/lib/screener/rooms.sqlite
ROOM_TTL_SECONDS=14400
MAX_ROOMS=1000
MAX_VIEWERS_PER_ROOM=8
STUN_URLS=stun:stun.example.com:3478
To make automatic SFU fallback capacity available, add the complete tuple:
PEER_ASSISTED_MEDIA=true
LIVEKIT_URL=wss://share.example.com
LIVEKIT_API_KEY=<GENERATED_LIVEKIT_API_KEY>
LIVEKIT_API_SECRET=<INDEPENDENT_SECRET_OF_AT_LEAST_32_BYTES>
MAX_SFU_ROOTS_PER_ROOM=2
The rejected PEER_ICE_TURN_* participant-wide tuple is removed; supplying any
stale key, even blank, fails startup. The source candidate uses the complete
SELECTED_EDGE_TURN_URLS, SELECTED_EDGE_TURN_SHARED_SECRET, and
SELECTED_EDGE_TURN_CREDENTIAL_TTL_SECONDS tuple with one explicit TURN/UDP URI,
an independent secret and bounded TTL. The current production tuple uses the
coturn UDP endpoint and a 120-second TTL; only the controller-selected edge may
receive a short-lived grant. Roll back by removing the application tuple before
changing coturn or firewall state. Credentials never enter URLs, logs, browser
persistence, room rows, or SQLite.
Before a media canary, npm run gate:turn-allocation provides the bounded
allocation check. Set CHROME_PATH in the process environment and supply the
complete selected-edge tuple either in that environment or as newline-delimited
KEY=value records on stdin. Values containing = are preserved. The script
uses an isolated Chrome profile and loopback-only in-memory credential response,
then emits only status, relay-candidate count, transport protocol, and coarse ICE
error-code buckets. Do not echo, log, or persist raw production environment
input; never add TURN URLs, usernames, credentials, candidate addresses, or raw
errors to the result.
PEER_ASSISTED_ROOM_IDS is retired. Supplying it, even blank, fails startup so
that a stale room-1 deployment cannot silently retain the old scope. With
PEER_ASSISTED_MEDIA=true, every normal room receives peer-assisted routing,
optional LiveKit fallback, and the same per-room root/fanout/failure guards.
Every ordinary peer connection remains STUN-only; selected-edge TURN is still
issued only to a current controller-selected edge. There is no browser control,
percentage rollout, or second router.
ALLOWED_ORIGINS must list exact http or https origins, never *.
SITE_ACCESS_PASSWORD is required in production and must contain 8 through
128 visible ASCII bytes (0x21 through 0x7e). It must not be reused for
LiveKit, TLS, TURN, or another service. It authorizes room creation, Host role,
and code-only Viewer attempts; it does not replace a private room grant or
password. Local development and tests may omit it. Supplying a removed access
key, even blank, fails startup.
ROOM_DATABASE_PATH is optional but requires SITE_ACCESS_PASSWORD.
Omit the database path to keep random temporary rooms; ROOM_TTL_SECONDS
applies only to those rooms.
MAX_VIEWERS_PER_ROOM defaults to 8 and accepts 1 through 16. It is an admission
limit, not evidence that the publisher can sustain that many streams.
The three LIVEKIT_* values must either all be absent or all be present, and a
complete tuple requires PEER_ASSISTED_MEDIA=true. An empty tuple keeps the
optional SDK and server path dormant. LIVEKIT_URL must be a plain ws: or
wss: origin with no /rtc suffix; production requires wss:.
LIVEKIT_API_SECRET must contain at least 32 bytes and must not reuse
SITE_ACCESS_PASSWORD. MAX_SFU_ROOTS_PER_ROOM defaults to
2 and accepts only 1 or 2; it is ignored when LiveKit is not configured. These
credentials authorize short-lived LiveKit room tokens and do not provide E2EE:
the LiveKit operator can access ordinary SFU media.
For the first candidate canary, use an isolated instance and a protected
persistent room whose ID is stable across restarts. Restart the application and
verify that both that room and a second normal room contain
mediaMode: "peer-assisted", with independent route revisions and no shared
room state. Exercise join, offer and answer, stop, reconnect, and room deletion
in both rooms. Ordinary Web and
Native-shaped clients remain STUN-only. With the selected-edge tuple, only
the current controller-selected edge may receive a one-use grant; all other
sessions and connections remain STUN-only. Roll back by disabling application
issuance before restoring the exact recorded pre-canary coturn/firewall baseline, or direct
traffic to the unchanged old release. Do not treat disabling
PEER_ASSISTED_MEDIA alone as TURN rollback: disable the selected-edge tuple
independently, and no removed old
TURN wire is restored. During migration, remove the retired room-ID variable in
the same coherent change; the process flag explicitly enables the all-room
controller.
Only POST /api/site-access accepts the site access secret in an
Authorization: Bearer header from an exact allowed Origin. Success returns a
12-hour stateless HMAC-SHA256 cookie with HttpOnly, SameSite=Strict,
Path=/, bounded Max-Age, and, under production HTTPS, Secure plus an
__Host- name. The cookie contains no account or server-side session ID. There
is no account database, JWT, session map, or logout endpoint.
Before an access-boundary release, set CHROME_PATH to a local Chrome or
Chromium executable and run npm run gate:access-privacy. The gate creates only
a loopback room and temporary SQLite/profile state, navigates the fragment
through CDP rather than a process argument, disposes its ephemeral browser
context, and emits only fixed booleans and counts. It also checks the tracked
nginx logging shape and runs the complete signaling suite containing the strong
rotate/revoke teardown case. The room password enters only at the RoomStore
boundary, so this run proves its raw SQLite non-persistence, not its WebSocket or
log ingress. It never connects to production or accepts a production credential;
exact production request/nginx/journal/database inspection remains separate.
nginx limits this exact endpoint per source at 5r/m with burst=5 nodelay and
returns 429 when exhausted. The limiter uses nginx shared memory; do not add the
secret, Authorization header, request body, or a new source-address field to
logs. POST /api/rooms accepts only the site-access cookie and strict JSON
with an explicit Viewer policy; a Bearer header is not an alternate creation
path. /signal still admits a cookie-free browser after Origin and capacity
checks and records the cookie state at upgrade. Host requires it with the room
Host token. A Viewer may omit it only when presenting a valid, unexpired grant
for that exact room; otherwise the server rejects before evaluating public-watch
or a room password.
Private rooms are the default. Their invitation is
/r/{code}#v={room-scoped-grant}; the fragment does not enter HTTP or WebSocket
request targets. The page validates it, writes it only to that room's
sessionStorage, and immediately replaces the visible URL with /r/{code}.
An independent tab without the fragment must first pass site access. A private
room then requires its room password, while explicit public-watch accepts the
numeric room code. Neither policy
lets a Viewer create a room or authenticate as Host.
Room allocation has two deliberately small policies:
- With
ROOM_DATABASE_PATH, SQLite allocates positive decimal IDs starting at1. These rooms do not expire, while each private Viewer invitation expires after seven days unless rotated earlier. An explicit stop or capture track ending stops the current publication and leaves viewers waiting; it does not delete the room. A brief signaling disconnect does not stop otherwise healthy P2P media. - Without
ROOM_DATABASE_PATH, rooms use random numeric IDs and expire according toROOM_TTL_SECONDS; a private grant cannot outlive its room. Stopping sharing does not immediately delete it. Public-watch remains available but explicit.
The built-in node:sqlite schema v3 stores each room ID, a SHA-256 Host token
digest, one nullable SHA-256 Viewer-grant digest, and optional validated Viewer
password material in the same STRICT row. NULL means public-watch or no
password; checked BLOBs mean private-link/password state. It must not contain
plaintext tokens or grants, passwords, cookies, names, participants, SDP, ICE
candidates, IP addresses, TURN credentials, or media.
Protect and back up the file as service state. The tracked
systemd unit creates /var/lib/screener with StateDirectory=screener and mode
0700; the production path above is writable despite ProtectSystem=strict.
The database is designed for one application process, not shared storage across
multiple instances.
For a simple consistent backup, stop screener.service before copying the
SQLite file, then start it again. Restore while the service is stopped, restore
ownership to the service account and mode 0600, run SQLite
PRAGMA integrity_check, and only then start the service. An online backup must
use SQLite's backup API or VACUUM INTO;
do not copy only the live main file while it may have an active journal.
The access release changes schema v1 to v2 and has no dual-schema runtime. For
an existing deployment, stop the service and take a named, immutable v1 copy
before installing or starting the new binary. Confirm the stopped source reports
PRAGMA user_version = 1, retain the backup outside the release directory, and
record its checksum. On first v2 startup, one BEGIN IMMEDIATE transaction adds
the checked nullable Viewer digest, writes a different fresh locked-private
digest to every old room, and advances user_version to 2. Old code-only
Viewer links intentionally stop working; each existing Host must use rotate once
to produce a private invitation.
After startup, verify PRAGMA integrity_check, user_version = 2, service
health, Host reclaim, rotation, and a new Viewer join before removing the
maintenance boundary. If rollback is required, stop the v2 service, preserve the
v2 database separately for diagnosis, restore the exact v1 backup with service
ownership and mode 0600, verify integrity and user_version = 1, and only then
start the old binary. Never point the old binary at the migrated v2 file.
Enabling persistence does not migrate rooms that existed only in memory. The
deployment restart invalidates those temporary links; the first subsequently
created persistent room receives ID 1.
Production startup requires one to eight syntactically valid stun: URLs
before the server listens. This validates shape only; it does not prove DNS,
firewall, NAT mappings, or external STUN reachability. The current application
rejects TURN_URLS, TURN_SHARED_SECRET, or TURN_CREDENTIAL_TTL_SECONDS when
any key is present, including with an empty value. Remove those obsolete keys
from the candidate environment; startup fails instead of pretending they enable
compatibility.
The rejected candidate names PEER_ICE_TURN_URLS,
PEER_ICE_TURN_SHARED_SECRET, and
PEER_ICE_TURN_CREDENTIAL_TTL_SECONDS must remain absent from production and
now fail startup even when blank. They are not aliases for the selected-edge
tuple; ordinary peer edges remain STUN-only while only the current controller
edge may use the configured selected-edge transport.
HTTPS and WSS ingress
Terminate public TLS at Caddy or nginx and proxy every application path to the
single Node process. /signal must preserve the WebSocket upgrade, Host, and
Origin, and its idle/read timeout must be longer than a normal sharing session.
Do not cache /api/* responses. Caddy's minimal same-host form is:
share.example.com {
reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8787
}
An equivalent nginx location is:
location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8787;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_read_timeout 1h;
}
The tracked
share.bonfire.icu.conf.example
follows this simple model and listens directly on public TCP 443. It does not
need an SNI transport router. Exact /rtc and pinned-v0 /rtc/validate requests
return 404 with access and request-line error logging disabled; only /rtc/v1*
is proxied. Current versioned requests carry a short-lived LiveKit JWT in the
query string, so no /rtc* target may fall through to the site's ordinary logs.
When Certbot manages the Web certificate, install the tracked
reload-nginx.sh as an executable under
/etc/letsencrypt/renewal-hooks/deploy/. Run certbot renew --dry-run after
the first certificate is installed. This hook reloads only the Web ingress.
Keep the proxy's access-log retention bounded and access controlled. Requests to
/r/{code} put the room code in the path, so access logs can contain room codes
as well as network metadata. They must not be treated as public artifacts. For
a private room, the grant remains in the fragment and is not part of that
request target. A public-watch code still requires prior site access.
For a process-level liveness probe, send GET /healthz. A running process
returns HTTP 200 with {"status":"ok"} and Cache-Control: no-store; other
methods return 405 with Allow: GET. The endpoint does not inspect room state,
STUN/SFU reachability, or any external dependency, so use it only to decide whether
the Node process can accept HTTP requests. It is not a deployment-readiness or
end-to-end media check.
Optional single-node LiveKit fallback
Use the tracked
livekit.yaml.example and
livekit.service.example as the
minimal single-node baseline. Install a reviewed, pinned LiveKit Server release
from its official release assets, generate an independent key pair with
livekit-server generate-keys, and place only the YAML key mapping in
/etc/livekit/keys.yaml. Keep that file owned by the livekit service account
with mode 0600; put the same values in Screener's untracked process secrets.
The example deliberately omits Redis and every recording, ingress, egress,
webhook, external-TURN, and embedded-TURN service. It explicitly sets
tcp_port: 0 and allow_tcp_fallback: false, and points stun_servers at the
deployment's self-hosted STUN listener so pinned LiveKit cannot inherit its
default public Google STUN servers. Do not add Redis for this one-node workload.
The service journal is the diagnostic log; keep its retention finite and access
restricted. Never enable debug/Pion packet logging continuously or persist JWTs,
SDP, ICE candidates, API secrets, or full /rtc and /rtc/* request targets.
Configure both the host firewall and the provider firewall independently:
| Destination | Protocol | Exposure | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
127.0.0.1:7880 |
TCP | Private | nginx to LiveKit signaling/API |
public host :7882 |
UDP | Public | WebRTC ICE/UDP mux |
LiveKit may listen beyond loopback while it discovers and advertises public
media addresses, so the public-firewall denial of TCP 7880 is mandatory; nginx
must be its only ingress. UDP 7882 is a direct media listener and must not be
placed behind the HTTP reverse proxy. If the host is behind NAT, forward it
without port translation and verify the advertised candidate from an external
network. UDP-blocked networks are expected to fail clearly in this candidate;
do not set rtc.tcp_port above zero, enable TCP fallback, or add TURN to make a
canary pass silently.
Self-hosted STUN
This subsection describes the temporary STUN-only deployment template, not the
enabled selected-edge production environment or the current shared-host coturn
state. That host retains an older authenticated-relay configuration and TCP/UDP
3478 plus UDP 49152-49251 firewall range. In this template Screener advertises
no TURN credential and the canary audit found zero allocations; production
selected-edge issuance remains limited to the controller's one configured edge
and has one active Host-ingress forced-relay functional acceptance. Initial
Host ingress and peer-selected last mile remain open.
Copy deploy/coturn/turnserver.conf.example
to an untracked service-owned location and use the tracked
coturn.service.example. The config
uses coturn's documented stun-only mode, ignores every TURN allocation request,
and disables TCP and TLS client listeners. It has no auth secret, user database,
relay port range, certificate, quota, or TURN REST credential. Pinned coturn
4.17.2 deprecates no-dtls, so the tracked config does not use that obsolete
switch or claim a separate DTLS listener gate.
On a single-homed public host, automatic listener selection is sufficient. On a
multi-homed host, set listening-ip to the intended public interface. Open only
UDP 3478 and keep TCP 3478/5349 plus every old relay range closed. The same public
IP may serve HTTPS/WSS on TCP 443 and LiveKit media on UDP 7882.
The example writes informational logs to stdout. Apply finite supervisor
retention and restrict access because STUN sees client IP addresses. Do not
enable verbose or log-binding continuously. stun-only is a hard candidate
boundary, not a hidden unauthenticated TURN service.
Open only these public listeners:
| Destination | Protocol | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
share.example.com:443 |
TCP | HTTPS and WSS |
stun.example.com:3478 |
UDP | STUN binding only |
host public address :7882 |
UDP | LiveKit WebRTC ICE/UDP mux |
Verification
Run these checks from real external networks before calling the deployment usable:
- Open the official Trickle ICE sample
and test the configured STUN URL. It must produce an
srflxcandidate over UDP and norelaycandidate. Confirm TCP 3478/5349 and the old relay range are closed externally. - Create a normal Screener room on two different networks. Confirm media flows and the selected-pair stats report a non-relay path when direct ICE succeeds.
- On a normal room, exhaust a peer route and verify the host plus at most two necessary roots select LiveKit UDP 7882. Peer descendants stay on ordinary direct UDP and host/relay downstream caps remain two/two.
- Force one controller-eligible edge past SFU/UDP and verify only that edge gets the short-lived TURN server plus relay policy and selects TURN/UDP. Ordinary peer PCs must stay STUN-only. Then block all UDP and verify bounded recovery ends clearly without ICE/TCP, TURN/TCP, or a long pseudo-connected path.
- Exercise root departure, reconnect, SFU unavailable, route prepare rollback, stop, and source/profile changes. Unaffected subtrees must not migrate.
- Repeat at 1, 3, 5, and 8 viewers across representative consumer networks. Record selected protocol, RTT, bitrate, frame rate, packet loss, publisher upload/encode load, LiveKit ingress/egress, and final decoded quality. A real 1:8 session remains unverified until this matrix passes.
References: coturn 4.17.2 release, pinned turnserver documentation, the pinned example configuration, RFC6265bis, LiveKit firewall guidance, and the pinned LiveKit configuration sample.