BBB Backup Recordings External

A lightweight, concurrent backup tool for BigBlueButton recordings, backing up from outside the server. Downloads all presentation, video, screenshare, podcast, and notes content from a BigBlueButton instance with zero external dependencies.

• Multi-format support: Backs up presentations, videos, screenshare, podcasts, and notes
• Concurrent downloads: Configurable parallel downloads with built-in rate limiting
• Zero dependencies: Pure Go implementation with no external packages
• URL inspection mode: Export all discovered URLs without downloading
• Robust error handling: Gracefully handles missing files and network errors
• Automatic file discovery: Uses intelligent guessing to locate numbered file sequences

• Go 1.26 or later
• Access to a BigBlueButton instance with API credentials

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/sa-kemper/bbb-backup-recordings-external.git
cd bbb-backup-recordings-external

Build the binary (without debug symbols for a smaller executable):

go build -ldflags="-s -w" -o bbb-backup-recordings-external ./cmd

This creates a binary named bbb-backup-recordings-external in your current directory.

Run the binary with your BigBlueButton credentials:

./bbb-backup-recordings-external \
  -bbb-hostname "bbb.example.com" \
  -bbb-api-key "your-api-key-here" \
  -backup-directory "./backups"

All configuration is done via command-line flags:

export BBB_HOSTNAME="bbb.example.com"
export BBB_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

./bbb-backup-recordings-external -backup-directory "./backups"

Useful for inspecting what will be downloaded:

./bbb-backup-recordings-external \
  -bbb-hostname "bbb.example.com" \
  -bbb-api-key "your-api-key-here" \
  -urldump

This creates a urls.txt file with all discovered URLs.

./bbb-backup-recordings-external \
  -bbb-hostname "bbb.example.com" \
  -bbb-api-key "your-api-key-here" \
  -bbb-timeout "60s" \
  -backup-directory "./backups"

./bbb-backup-recordings-external \
  -bbb-hostname "bbb.example.com" \
  -bbb-port 8080 \
  -bbb-api-key "your-api-key-here" \
  -backup-directory "./backups"

1. Discovery: Connects to the BigBlueButton API and retrieves all available recordings
2. URL Collection: For each recording, discovers all associated files (presentations, videos, etc.) using:
   • Direct file references from metadata
   • Intelligent guessing of numbered file sequences (e.g., slide1.svg, slide2.svg)
   • Multiple directory path checks to handle BigBlueButton's storage quirks
3. Concurrent Download: Downloads all discovered files with configurable concurrency
4. Storage: Saves files to disk maintaining the original directory structure

Backups are organized by recording type and meeting ID:

backups/
├── presentation/
│   └── {internalMeetingID}/
│       ├── shapes.svg
│       ├── metadata.xml
│       └── ...
├── video/
│   └── {internalMeetingID}/
│       ├── video-0.m4v
│       └── ...
├── screenshare/
│   └── {internalMeetingID}/
│       └── screenshare-0.webm
├── podcast/
│   └── {internalMeetingID}/
│       └── audio.ogg
└── notes/
    └── {internalMeetingID}/
        └── notes.pdf

The tool uses concurrent downloads with a default limit. For large backups:

• Increase timeout if experiencing timeouts: -bbb-timeout "60s"
• Use URL dump mode first to preview what will be downloaded: -urldump
• Run during off-peak hours to minimize impact on your BBB instance

MIT License

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.