Video Chat and Screen Sharing

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This page describes the Hipchat Server video chat implementation. 

We replaced AddLive with Hipchat Video as our video solution as of 17th January, 2017. To continue using video chat you must switch to Hipchat Video.

See Video chat with your team to find out about the great new features available in Hipchat video including group chat and screen sharing!

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How Hipchat Video works

When you enable video chat on your Hipchat Server deployment, the server makes a one-time connection to video.hipchatserver.com  to register with the video service and establish a trust keypair. The video service also checks that your Hipchat Server license is valid before saving the keypair. These keys are used to generate tokens that the clients use when joining in a video chat session.

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Good to know

 Hipchat Server only connects to video.hipchatserver.com when you turn Hipchat Video on or off. Once video chat is set up on the server, the server doesn't need to keep connecting to video.hipchatserver.com and you can remove this access if necessary.

When a Hipchat client starts or joins a video chat, the Hipchat Server distributes a token that allows the participants to connect to the video chat session. Once the session is established, the clients connect to the hipchat.me bridge host with this token and a conference ID number, and begin a peer-to-peer call. Audio and video streams over UDP port 10000. TCP 443 is used as a fallback port for streaming, and to load user interface content and components.

Because this service uses dynamically allocated IP addresses, we cannot guarantee specific IP ranges that the clients will connect to. If your organization cannot or does not want to use this external service, you can disable video chat for all users. 

Enable Hipchat Video 

When you enable video chat on your Hipchat Server deployment, the server makes a one-time connection to video.hipchatserver.com  to register with the video service and establish a trust keypair. Make sure that your Hipchat Server can access this address before you begin, and you can remove this access as soon as the keypair is saved.

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If you're not sure if your server can access the key server, you can run a CLI command to check: 

hipchat video --checkkeyserver 

You can validate that the key server has a key for your Hipchat Server by running another CLI command: 

hipchat video --checkpublickey


To turn on and enable Hipchat Video, go to  Server admin  >  Video  and choose  Hipchat Video

To enable video for Hipchat Server 2.0.7 or earlier:

or using the CLI:

hipchat video --provider=jitsi

To enable video for Hipchat Server 2.2.2:

or using the CLI:

hipchat video --enable

Disable all video chat 

If you don't want to use video chat or screen sharing, you can disable it for all users.

Log in to Hipchat Server and go to Server admin > Video, then select Disable video chat.

You can also disable video by running the hipchat video --disable CLI command. For example:

admin@hipchat:~$ hipchat video --disable
Disabled video
Triggering chef run and service restarts, waiting for completion...
Completed chef and service restart

Server requirements

The server must be able to access video.hipchatserver.com over TCP 443 for one-time registration with the video service.  

Client requirements

To use Hipchat Video, all participants must be running version 4.26 or later of the Hipchat client. Video chat is not available in mobile clients.

Network and ports

The clients must have ports UDP 10000 and TCP 443 open. Additionally, the clients must be able to access to hipchat.me and cdn.jitsi.net in order to function correctly. Because the streaming service uses dynamically allocated IPs, we cannot provide a full list of video chat endpoints.

Good to know

When you start a video chat, the clients first contact hipchat.me, then use WebRTC to stream audio and video over UDP port 10000. TCP port 443 is used as a fallback for streaming, and is also used to load user interface content and components that may come from cdn.jitsi.net.

Both ports must be open for the service to function correctly.

Network speed

Clients should be on a network with a bare minimum of 500kbps upstream and downstream for poor quality video.

For average quality, we recommend 1Mbps upstream and 5Mbps downstream, and for good quality (HD 720p) we recommend 5Mbps upstream and 10Mbps downstream.

Client-specific details

The Windows and Linux desktop clients require a graphics driver that provides OpenGL 2.1 or higher.

To use Hipchat Video in the web client, browsers must allow popups from your Hipchat site.  

Safari users will also be prompted to download and install the Temasys WebRTC Plugin before they can join a video chat. This plugin is required by Jitsi, the technology that powers Hipchat Video, as Safari does not have native WebRTC support. 

Hipchat Video Security

What is transmitted from Hipchat Server? 

  • No user-provided credentials are transmitted. 
  • The full name of the user, their ID (email address) and their avatar URL are transmitted.
  • The domain name of the Hipchat Server is transmitted. 
  • This data is only stored for the duration of the session only and is deleted as soon as the call finishes. 

How is information encrypted? 

  • All signaling communications are encrypted using cipher suites restricted to AES 128 or 256 bit encryption. 
  • Video and audio data streams are protected using the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP). 
  • AES 128 bit encryption is used for RTP packet encryption. 
  • HMAC SHA1 is used for packet authentication and verification.
  • Encryption keys are generated by the streaming server by session.
  • Media is encrypted between the client and the server (hipchat.me).

Troubleshooting Hipchat Video

If users are reporting that they can't see the video button in their client, or they see an 'unable to join call' error, here's some things to try.

  • Check that Video is enabled. Go to Server admin > Video and check that Hipchat video is enabled. 
  • If you see an error when you try to enable Hipchat Video, make sure that Hipchat Server can reach https://video.hipchatserver.com. You can check this using the hipchat video --checkkeyserver CLI command.
  • Check which version of the Hipchat desktop client the user has installed. They'll need version 4.2.7 or later to use Hipchat video.  Hipchat video is not available on any mobile clients.
  • Ask the user to log out of their Hipchat client completely, then log back in. If they are using the macOS X client, they'll also need to hit Forget this account after they log out.

Additional Troubleshooting Resources

Last modified on Feb 12, 2019

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