# Initial setup
# Control panel access settings
By default TrueConf Server can be administered from any computer in the same local network where it was installed. In other words, by default access is limited to the following ranges of IP addresses: 10.*, 192.168.*, 172.16-172.31, 127.*.
Access settings are discussed more closely in the description of the Web → Security section.
To get remote access to the TrueConf Server control panel, you need to sign in with an admin account. The admin is a member of one of the following groups:
TrueConf Server Admin for Windows (tcadmins for Linux) to manage TrueConf Server
TrueConf Server Security Admin for Windows (tcsecadmins for Linux) to view logs and conference recordings.
When the server is installed on Windows, the current user account is added to the first group. On Linux, users who are manually specified during the installation process are added to the tcadmins group. To grant another user access to the control panel, the administrator has to add this user’s account to one of the groups.
Please note that there is no other way to add an account for administering TrueConf Server. Similarly, you cannot change another administrator's password or perform similar actions in the control panel; all access is managed through the OS user account.
You can learn how to create a new user account on different operating systems and add it to the desired group on the example of TrueConf Server Security Admin in our documentation.
TrueConf Server does not impose any restrictions on the number of administrators of each type.
If an administrator wants to manage TrueConf Server from a remote computer, they need to make sure that the firewall allows incoming connections over the control panel access port (80 by default) and that this option has been enabled in the Security section of the TrueConf Server control panel.
Learn how to administer TrueConf Server outside your local network in our article.
After access configuration, we recommend setting up HTTPS as soon as possible because it will be needed for frequently used features: application scheduler, real-time meeting management, and access to users' personal area. When HTTPS is configured, the port 80 (or any other port used to access the control panel) will no longer be needed for the work of TrueConf Server and can be disabled on the firewall for enhanced security.
# How to add administrators
You can configure access rights for existing accounts or create new ones. Below, we will show how to create a user and immediately add this account to the appropriate group on Windows and Linux.
# For Windows
To create a new local account on Windows and add it to the TrueConf Server Admin group:
Go to the Local Users and Groups section. To do this, press the Win+R key combination and execute the
lusrmgr.msccommand in the appeared window.Right-click on the Users list and select New User....
Fill in the required fields and configure the password change settings.
Go to the Users list.
To grant a user access to the server control panel, right-click the created account and go to Properties.
Click Add... on the Member Of tab.
Enter TrueConf Server Admin as the name of the selected object and click OK.
The user accounts imported from Active Directory/LDAP can also be added to the local <сonst name="security-server-group"/> group.
# For Linux
The commands listed below need to be executed with superuser privileges or using sudo (e.g., sudo command). Please note that sudo may be unavailable by default in your operating system. You can check its availability using the sudo -V command.
For Debian
- Run the following command:
sudo adduser --ingroup tcadmins [new_admin]
where [new_admin] is the username of the admin.
2. Enter your password in the corresponding field and confirm it.
3. Optionally, provide additional information for the admin (full name, phone number, etc.).
For CentOS
- Run the following command:
sudo adduser -G tcadmins [new_admin]
where [new_admin] is the username of the admin.
2. Set the password for the new user [new_admin] with the following command:
sudo passwd [new_admin]
# Server status
Server status is shown in the Server status field in green (if the server is working) or in red (if it has stopped) in top right corner of the control panel:
What to do if server is not running?
Stopped status is displayed in the Server status string.
There are three possible reasons for this:
Invalid license: contact your system supplier to get a license.
Some server files are missing or have been damaged: reinstall TrueConf Server (see Installation)
Server hardware key is broken: please refer to the instructions for resolving the problem with the key.
# Server log
If you encounter any issues with TrueConf Server, TrueConf support team will be able to help you troubleshoot them more efficiently if you provide your server log files. To access the main log, go to System → Server log located in the top right corner of the control panel.
Check Enable detailed logging in Dashboard → Settings section of the control panel to collect more detailed information in your server logs. Our technical support managers may ask you to do it to ease the troubleshooting process.
Do not enable detailed logging without a reason because it can unnecessarily occupy space with detailed log files.
A range of additional log files is saved in the TrueConf Server working directory. Learn more about additional log files in our article.
# Configuring preferences
Some settings can be set up personally for each TrueConf Server administrator. e.g., control panel interface language, time zone, and reports export parameters.
Proceed to System → Preferences... in the upper right corner of the control panel.
Select your language and time zone. Please note that the time zone will be applied to your meetings in all server logs and during the scheduling process. You can use the time zone of the computer where your TrueConf Server is installed by checking the corresponding box.
You can set report export parameters (encoding and field delimiter to convert the table string to text format) in the Export to CSV section.
After making any changes make sure to click Apply button.
If you are using TrueConf Server on Linux and change the time zone by checking the box Use device time zone, you will need to restart all server services.
# Adding users
# Where can I find client applications
Send out the link to the guest page to your users to allow them to connect to your video conferencing system. They will be able to download client applications for any supported platform on the guest page.
The guest page is available at http[s]://<server>[:<port>] where:
<server>- address of the PC with TrueConf Server installed<port>- port used to access the control panel (if you are using default80port, you don't need to specify it)
For example:
https://videoserver.company.comhttp://100.120.12.12:7777
You can configure the guest page URL in the Web → Settings section of the control panel.
# How to connect client application to the video conferencing server
You need to specify the server address in the network settings of your client application so that your client application can connect to your TrueConf Server instance and your users can authorize. You can either do it manually or let your client application find the server automatically via DNS.
Once connected to the server user will be prompted to authenticate on this TrueConf Server instance with username and password.
# Client application manual setting
Users can configure connection to TrueConf Server manually. In order to do it, you need to specify the TrueConf Server address and connection port manually in the application network settings menu (or upon the first application launch). You can find detailed instructions on how to connect an application to the server on the guest page.
# Client application automatic settings
Desktop client applications can automatically search for local TrueConf Server instance. To make this possible administrator needs to specify the address of the server in primary DNS suffix by creating a new SRV record for vcs2 service.
The following example shows how to do this using DNS utility in Microsoft Windows 2012 Server:
Choose Other New Records… in a right-click menu
Choose type «Service Location (SRV)»
Set the following parameters.
In this example the TrueConf Server instance has videoserver.your.domain.com address and port 4307. Please make sure that protocol name (tcp) does not contain underscores.
# Configuration of automatic connection to the server by corporate email
To authenticate on TrueConf Server, you can use not only your login (TrueConf ID) but also your corporate email. This option can be useful if SSO is not used and the email server address does not match the address of the video conferencing server, for example, mail.example.com and video.example.com. In this case, instead of remembering the login, the user only needs to remember his/her email address and enter it in the login field when signing in to the application. The application will then find the video conferencing server address by the mail server address and try to connect to the video conferencing server.
This feature is not dependent on the server version but requires client applications of a specific version:
TrueConf for desktops (Windows, Linux, macOS) version 8.5+
TrueConf Room version 5.0+
TrueConf for Android version 3.1+
TrueConf for iOS/iPadOS version 3.9+
However, this feature does not work out of the box; preliminary configuration is required: an SRV record of a specific type has to be added on the DNS server accessible to client applications:
vcs2.tcp.[mail-server]. 3600 IN SRV 10 0 4307 [video-server].
where:
[mail-server]— address of the corporate mail server[video-server]— address of TrueConf Server.
For example:
vcs2.tcp.mail.example.com. 3600 IN SRV 10 0 4307 video.example.com.
For more information about the configuration of this feature and about SRV records, refer to the Basic Administration Course in the TrueConf certification center.