spACK: Spacial audio conferencing for ACKspace

This project is an attempt to recreate the virtual hackerspace we had during COVID-19 on Gather Town, which was lost during their business plan updates.

Currently it is in early alpha stage; check out the open issues at GitHub.

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
  • Windows
  • MacOS
  • Linux
• Developing
  • Client
• Builds and deployments
  • Release build
  • Other variants
  • Deployment
  • LiveKit server
  • Notes on deployment server

Prerequisites

• You have to have knowledge of command prompt/terminal use and directory navigation

$ commands look like this

The the $ is your shell prompt similar to C:\>.

You will need at least Node.js and Git to fetch and run the project. Visual Studio Code is recommended as an IDE to manage and develop for it.

Windows

Windows needs the Chocolatey Package manager (for ease of installation). This is done by the first powershell command.

$ powershell -c "irm https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1|iex"
$ choco install nodejs --version="24.13.0"
$ choco install git
$ choco install vscode

MacOS

MacOS needs the Homebrew package manager (for ease of installation). This is done by the first bash command.

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash
$ \. "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh"
$ nvm install 24
$ brew install git
$ brew install --cask visual-studio-code

Linux

Assuming Debian based distros, for other, try replacing deb with pacman for Arch, zypper for Suse and dnf for RedHat. Your mileage may vary and packages might have a slightly different name.

$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash
$ \. "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh"
$ nvm install 24
$ sudo apt install git
$ curl -ovscode.deb https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=760868
$ sudo apt install ./vscode.deb

Developing

Provide your local instance with the latest node modules:

$ npm install # or npm i

Copy over the .env.example file to .env:

$ cp .env.example .env

Client

Start local development instance:

$ npm start

Open http://localhost:3000 to view it in the browser. The page will (hot) reload if you make edits.

You will need a local LiveKit server running that handles the conference and WebRTC media.

Builds and deployments

Release build

$ npm run build

Test the production build locally:

$ npm run serve

Other variants

By default, production builds are made, but it's possible to build other types for your needs, i.e. debug features and/or local server connection.

You can build a certain variant using mode, replacing <variant>:

$ npm run build -- --mode <variant>

• test: debug features enabled, connecting to localhost, similar to local development instance
• staging: debug features enabled, connecting to public server

Other variants can be made to suit your needs: they should pair with a dedicated .env.<variant> file containing specific environment variables.

Deployment

TODO

LiveKit server

Run development server.

Check the latest version on https://github.com/livekit/livekit/releases/latest

$ wget https://github.com/livekit/livekit/releases/download/v1.9.11/livekit_1.9.11_linux_amd64.tar.gz
$ tar -xf livekit_1.9.11_linux_amd64.tar.gz
./livekit-server --dev

To run it publicly (not recommended), add --bind 0.0.0.0

# TODO: npm run deploy

Notes on deployment server

In order to use WebRTC, a secure context is needed (TLS/SSL), which means your LiveKit server needs a proxy.

For Apache, a proxy can be used. Make sure the proxy module is enabled:

$ a2enmod proxy

And add the following two lines to your virtualhost config:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    #... current settings

    # SSL websocket proxy
    ProxyPass /livekit ws://127.0.0.1:7880
    ProxyPassReverse /livekit ws://127.0.0.1:7880
</VirtualHost>