By Wayne Hartmann and Sharon Campbell
Introduction
Mumble is a free and open-source Voice Over IP (VoIP) application designed primarily to be used by gamers. Mumble is similar to TeamSpeak and Ventrilo. Mumble uses a client-server architecture which allows users to talk to each other when connected to the same server. It has a simple administration interface, and features low-latency, high-quality codecs. In this tutorial we will learn how to install and configure Murmur, which is the server component of Mumble.
Murmur allows you to run your own private or public voice chat server for the Mumble client.
Prerequisites
Droplet Requirements
- 512 MB Droplet
- Ubuntu 14.04
This tutorial is written for Ubuntu 14.04; however, the process is the same for any recent Ubuntu distributions that have the mumble and mumble-server packages in the repositories. A server with 512 MB of RAM should be plenty to run Murmur with 50 clients in high quality. If you are using the same Droplet for other tasks, more RAM is recommended. Murmur does not consume much CPU.
Root Access
The rest of this tutorial will assume you are connected to your server with the root user account, or a user account with sudo privileges.
To enter the root shell from another account:
sudo su
Step One — Install Updates
Before proceding, it is always a good idea to make sure you have the latest updates installed.
Update the package database:
apt-get update
Install any new packages:
apt-get upgrade
You will be asked to confirm installing any packages. Enter Y and press Enter.
Step Two — Install Murmur
In the Official Ubuntu Repositories, Murmur has the package name mumble-server .
To install the package:
apt-get install mumble-server
You will be asked to confirm installing any packages. Enter Y and press Enter.
Step Three — Basic Configuration Wizard
After the installation is done, we will run the package reconfiguration command to create some basic server and user settings. You can use your arrow keys to select your answer, then press Enter to continue.
Run the Configuration Wizard with:
dpkg-reconfigure mumble-server
Start at Boot
We will accept the default value of Yes because we want Murmur to run when the server boots.
Network Priority
Even if this will be a dedicated Mumble Server, it is a good idea to select Yes since this will ensure the lowest possible latency.
Mumble SuperUser Password
The user named SuperUser is the highest-level administrative account for the server. You’ll need to log in to Mumble with this user when you want to manage the server.
It is highly recommended you change the default password for this account. Leaving the password field blank will not change the password.
Enter a password, press Tab to select Ok, and press Enter to finish the setup wizard.
At this point we now have a working Mumble server with one user account (SuperUser).
Step Four — Advanced Configuration
The server will work now if you’re happy with the defaults.
If you would like to customize your server even further we will need to edit the configuration file located at /etc/mumble-server.ini.
To open the file:
nano /etc/mumble-server.ini
Murmur has several configuration options, and the file is well commented if you have any questions about what a particular setting is for.
There are some commonly changed values listed below as a reference. To enable some of these settings, you will have to remove the preceding # character. This is referred to as un-commenting the line. Lines that start with # are not processed by the server.
- autobanAttempts, autobanTimeframe, autobanTime - These three values are used to prevent bruteforcing attempts, and will ban the IP for the specified amount of time after the other two conditions are met.
- welcometext - This is the welcome message every user receives when connecting to the server. It is useful for informing users of rules, linking to your website, etc. You can use most HTML characters and tags; just make sure the entire entry is encapsulated in quotes.
- port - The default Mumble port is 64738. You can change this value, but make sure to inform your users to enter the correct port when connecting to the server manually.
- host - By default Mumble will bind to any host name automatically. If you want it to use a single host name, you enter that host name here.
- bandwidth - This is the amount of bandwidth each user is allowed to consume. Keep in mind that if you set a higher value, each user will consume more RAM. Values between 60000-72000 are good for hosting 50 users on 512 MB of RAM.
- users - The maximum number of simultaneous users that can connect to the server. For 512 MB of RAM, the recommended setting is 50 users for 60Kbps-72Kbps bandwidth per user.
- textmessagelength - Not enabled by default; will limit the number of characters a user can send per message.
- imagemessagelength - Not enabled by default; will set the maximum file size for images a user is allowed to send.
- allowhtml - Not enabled by default; allows HTML in messages, comments, and channel descriptions.
- registerName, RegisterUrl - If enabled, this will allow your server to be found on the public list available in the Mumble Client. Otherwise the user will need to know the host name or IP address of the server to be able to connect.
When you are happy with your configuration changes, press Ctrl+X, press Y to save, and press Enter to overwrite the existing file. You will need to restart Murmur before your settings will take effect. Any Mumble users on the server will be disconnected.
To restart Murmur:
service mumble-server restart
If you need help configuring other server settings, it is recommend you read the Mumble Wiki.
Step Five — Connect to your Mumble Server
These steps will help you connect to your new Mumble server as the SuperUser. Other users can connect using the same steps. Other users can pick their own usernames, and do not need a password - just the IP address and port number.
Download the Mumble client.
Open the Mumble client on your computer.
Click the Connect button.
Click the Add New button.
Enter the information for your Mumble server. The address can be a host name or the IP address of your server. If you did not use a custom port, it will be the default port of 64738. Click OK to save settings.
The server will be saved to your favorites list. Click on your server then click Connect.
If you did not set up a signed certificate for this server, you will have to accept the certificate.
You should get the message Connected once you are successfully connected.
Now you can chat with any other users on this server.
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About the author(s)
Current fan and former Editorial Manager at DigitalOcean. Hi! Expertise in areas including Ubuntu, Docker, Rails, and more.
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