This file is automatically exported from /organizers-notebook/index.org. You might prefer to navigate this as an Org file instead. To do so, clone the wiki repository.

This document is the general organizers' notebook that can be used as a starting point each year. For specific years, see:

Table of Contents

Starting up the conference planning process

Check in with core organizers from the previous year to see who’s in.

Create the private repository

This repository will store submissions, contact information, etc.

  1. Create the repository on front0. Ex:

    export YEAR=2025
sudo su - git
cd repositories
mkdir emacsconf-$YEAR-private.git
cd emacsconf-$YEAR-private.git
git init --bare

  2. In the gitolite-admin repo, edit conf/gitolite-conf. Add lines for the group and the repo. Commit and push. Ex:

    @emacsconf-2024-org = bandali sachac ...
repo emacsconf-2024-private
    RW+ = @admins @emacsconf-2024-org orga
  3. Clone the private repository into the appropriate location. git clone git@git.emacsconf.org:emacsconf-2025-private private

Create the public organizers’ notebook in the wiki

Ex: <../2024/organizers-notebook/index.md>

Phases and lessons learned

Draft CFP

Create linked pages

  • ☐ year index: ex: <../2024.md>
  • ☐ volunteer page: ex: <../volunteer.md>
  • ☐ submit page: ex: <../2024/submit.md>

How to mark pages as drafts

Have a Markdown export block with the following contents. Replace { and } with [ and ].

#+begin_export md {{!template id=pagedraft}} #+end_export md

Wiki template for year index

Replace { and } with [ and ].

{{!meta copyright="Copyright &copy; 2021-2022 Amin Bandali; 2023-2025 Sacha Chua"}}

<p class="center">EmacsConf 2025 | Online Conference<br />
<b>December 6 and 7, 2024 (Sat-Sun)</b></p>

<p class="center">{{!img /i/emacsconf-logo1-256.png
alt="EmacsConf logo"}}</p>

<p class="center">{{<b>Call for Participation</b>|cfp}} | {{Ideas}} |
{{Submit a Proposal|submit}} | {{Volunteer}} | {{Guidelines for Conduct|conduct}}</p>

<p class="center">EmacsConf is the conference about the joy of
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/">GNU Emacs</a> and
Emacs Lisp.</p>

We are busy putting things together for EmacsConf 2025, and we would
love to have *your* help to make EmacsConf 2025 amazing, much like the
previous EmacsConfs.  See our {{**Call for Participation**|cfp}}, get
involved, and help spread the word!

We are holding EmacsConf 2025 as an online conference again this year.
We remain fully committed to freedom, and we will continue using our
infrastructure and streaming setup consisting entirely of {free
software}{freesw}, much like previous EmacsConf conferences.

For general EmacsConf discussions, join the
{emacsconf-discuss}(https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss)
mailing list.  For discussions related to organizing EmacsConf, join
the
{emacsconf-org}(https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-org)
mailing list.  You can email us publicly at
<mailto:emacsconf-org@gnu.org> or privately at
<mailto:emacsconf-org-private@gnu.org>.

Come hang out with us in the `#emacsconf` channel on `irc.libera.chat`
({Libera.Chat}{libera} IRC network).  You can join the chat using
{your favourite IRC client}{libera-emacsconf}, or by visiting
{chat.emacsconf.org}{chat} in your web browser.

{freesw}: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
{libera}: https://libera.chat
{libera-emacsconf}: ircs://irc.libera.chat:6697/emacsconf
{chat}: https://chat.emacsconf.org

Previous years

2023

Update dates

<file:///home/sacha/proj/emacsconf/lisp/emacsconf.el> <file:///home/sacha/proj/emacsconf/lisp/emacsconf-erc.el>

Update the IRC topic

(erc-cmd-OPALL)
(erc-cmd-CONFTOPIC (emacsconf-replace-plist-in-string
                                        `(:year ,emacsconf-year :cfp-deadline ,emacsconf-cfp-deadline)
                                        "Getting ready for EmacsConf ${year}! Call for proposals: https://emacsconf.org/${year}/cfp by ${cfp-deadline}, volunteer: https://emacsconf.org/volunteer/"))
(erc-cmd-DEOPALL)

Lessons learned

  • Maybe incentivize proper timezone specification by saying we can translate times to their local time?
  • Make sure to include cfp.org as an attachment instead of inline
  • bandali likes having the commitment to freedom section in the CFP as a form of activism.
  • Ask for public e-mail or contact information, IRC handle in CFP.
  • Nudge everyone towards 5/10 or 20 minutes, and consider < or > on a case-by-case basis.
    • In previous years, we offered 40 minutes as a regular choice, but that was difficult because we had to figure out how to squeeze lots of talks into the schedule and we didn’t know what could be shortened. In 2022, we asked people to provide quick outlines for 10-, 20-, and 40-minute formats if they wanted a long talk slot, which was helpful in prioritizing. In 2023, we just suggested 5/10 and 20-minute slots knowing that there would probably be plenty of time for Q&A, with some longer talks approved on a case-by-case basis. Because talks are (ideally) prerecorded, 20 minutes seems to be a good length to get into something interesting while leaving time for Q&A so that people could dive deeper into particular things that interested them.
  • Rolling acceptances were very nice. We gave people a week to respond, which felt a little quick sometimes, but gave people enough time to speak up to see if they had any red flags or suggestions.
  • We didn’t extend the CFP period in 2023, great!
  • Two streams worked out well. Sunday morning had network congestion issues, so keep an eye out for those.
  • It’s easier for us to extend beyond 5pm than to go before 9am (especially for Pacific time). Extending beyond 5pm puts strain on European organizers and volunteers, though.
  • Put the speaker introduction right after the talk description for easier web page copying.

Announce

  • Post CFP to emacsconf-discuss, reddit.com/r/emacs, and in Emacs News
  • Submit to https://foss.events/

Promote the conference

Submit to https://foss.events/

Maybe it would be good to get in touch with podcasts like

etc to give a heads up on EmacsConf before it happens and also mention to them when videos are available to spark more interest.

Process proposals

  1. In the private repository, create a conf.org.
  2. Set emacsconf-org-file to its location.
  3. Create a heading for Submissions and set CUSTOM_ID to submissions.
  4. Prepare the prepare and submit pages on the wiki.

When proposals come in:

  1. Acknowledge with an e-mail along the lines of:

    Hello, ....!

<feedback> We'll wait another week in case anyone else wants to
chime in before I add it to the wiki and send further notes. :) Thanks for
submitting this!

  2. Use emacsconf-mail-add-submission if it works, or create the entry and paste it in. org-toggle-item can help convert Org-style headings into a nested list.

  3. Set the following fields (my/org-set-property can be helpful): EMERGENCY, Q_AND_A, AVAILABILITY, NAME, PRONOUNS, TIME, SLUG, EMAIL, NAME_SHORT, CUSTOM_ID, TRACK, TIMEZONE, CATEGORY, DATE_SUBMITTED, PUBLIC_EMAIL

Accept proposals :email:

Setup:

  1. Create YYYY/talks.md.

For each talk:

  1. Set up “Talk abstract” and “Talk details” sections in the conf.org talk subtree.
  2. Change status to TO_CONFIRM.
  3. Create wiki page with emacsconf-publish-add-talk.
  4. Use emacsconf-publish-info-pages and emacsconf-publish-schedule as needed.
  5. Send acceptance e-mail with emacsconf-mail-accept-talk

After the CFP ends:

  1. Change the yyyy.md page to remove the CFP and submit links.
  2. Update the yyyy/sidebar.md page to remove the CFP and submit links.
  3. Update the yyyy/talks.md page to remove the CFP.
  4. Change the IRC channel topics.
    1. /opall,
    2. ex: /conftopic Getting ready for EmacsConf 2025! Volunteer: https://emacsconf.org/volunteer
    3. /deopall

Example git commit

Draft schedule

  • Create entries for opening and closing remarks
    • FIXED: t
    • SCHEDULED
    • TIME: 10
    • BUFFER: 0
    • CUSTOM_ID:
    • SLUG:
    • Q_AND_A: pad
  • Create draft-schedule section in the public organizers notebook for the year
  • Add missing items to plan

TODO Send draft schedule to speakers :email:

  1. Evaluate the draft schedule we want to use.
  2. emacsconf-schedule-update-from-info
  3. C-u M-x emacsconf-mail-template-to-all-groups RET emacsconf-mail-draft-schedule RET
  4. If that looks good, M-x emacsconf-mail-template-to-all-groups. You can use M-x emacsconf-mail-merge-send-all to send all the drafts, or send them one by one.

Set up backstage and upload

See README.org.

Lessons learned:

  • Next year, let’s get upload.emacsconf.org in place as the domain name so that people don’t try to FTP files to it.

DONE Send backstage and upload instructions :email:

Post the schedule

  • <elisp:(setq emacsconf-publishing-phase 'schedule)>
  • <elisp:emacsconf-publish-info-pages>
  • <elisp:emacsconf-publish-schedule-org-files>
  • <elisp:emacsconf-ical-generate-all>
  • Update talks.md to refer to watch.md as well

Process uploaded files

Basic setup:

  1. Set up the media server and symlinks: README.org (Media).
  2. Set up the prerec processing areas on res: README.org (Processing prerecs).
  3. Set up the caption processor on res: README.org (Captioning).

Process:

  1. Review uploaded files with <elisp:emacsconf-upload-dired>
  2. Open the JSON for the file you want to process and use <elisp:emacsconf-upload-copy-from-json> . If more than one file uses the same extension, provide a suffix to disambiguate them. If emacsconf-upload-copy-from-json might take a long time, you can also scp the file to your local
  3. On res:
    1. Create a directory ~/current/files/$slug.
    2. Copy the uploaded file from ~/cache as $video_slug--original.$extension, or use rename-original.sh $slug $file.
    3. Call process-prerec.sh $file.
  4. When the screens are finished, do locally:
    1. update-cache on my computer.
    2. <elisp:emacsconf-publish-cache-video-data> or <elisp:emacsconf-cache-all-video-data>
    3. <elisp:emacsconf-publish-backstage-index>

TODO Generate assets

In-between pages

  • Make the $year/assets/in-between directory and copy the template.svg from the previous year.
  • <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-in-between-pages>

Intros

  • In an empty VTT file, <elisp:emacsconf-subed-intro-subtitles>
  • Record the audio and get captions
  • Splice together into a file that will be processed with subed-record-compile-video.

TODO Test videos

<elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-test-videos>

Record pronunciations

DONE Record pronunciations

  1. mkdir -p ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/intros ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/in-between
  2. cp ~/proj/emacsconf/2024/assets/in-between/template.svg ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/in-between/template.svg
  3. <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-in-between-pages>
  4. Create ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/intros/intro.vtt
  5. <elisp:emacsconf-subed-intro-subtitles>
  6. Record the audio, possibly with subed-record, left, and right.
  7. Split the lines for nicer subtitles.
  8. Use <elisp:subed-record-compile>

DONE E-mail speakers asking them to confirm the pronunciations

Prepare the infrastructure

Checklist:

  • ☐ IRC
    • ☐ Manual announcements
    • ☐ Automated announcements
  • ☐ Web conference
  • ☐ Streaming assets
    • ☐ Overlays
    • ☐ Intros
  • ☐ OBS
  • ☐ VNC
  • ☐ Publishing to the wiki
  • ☐ Publishing to the media server
  • ☐ Etherpad
  • ☐ Mumble
  • ☐ Icecast

Getting ready for captions

Onboarding:

  • Add captioner to conf.org with the :caption: tag, under a Volunteers heading with the volunteer tag. Make sure the EMAIL property is set.
  • Add captioner to emacsconf-org mailing list.
  • Send backstage information <elisp:emacsconf-mail-backstage-info-to-volunteer> . (Can be sent to all captioning volunteers with <elisp:emacsconf-mail-backstage-info-to-captioning-volunteers>)

Getting ready for the conference

<elisp:emacsconf-pad-prepopulate-shift-hyperlists>

DONE Check in with speakers for cancellations, adjustments

emacsconf-mail-intro-to-all

TODO Record opening remarks

TODO Send check-in details, schedule update, etc. :email:

One day before the conference

  • ☑ Set emacsconf-publishing-phase to conference.
  • ☑ Set emacsconf-publish-include-pads to t.
  • ☑ Republish the schedule and the info pages.
  • ☑ Update the conf.org and the wiki on res. (~/emacsconf-2025-private, ~/emacsconf-wiki)
  • ☑ Resize the BBB server to production levels with bbb-prod: 16 GB $0.1440/hour 6 CPUs
  • ☑ Send check-in details and last-minute schedule updates.
  • ☑ Start thelounge on front0: systemctl start thelounge.
  • ☑ Confirm I can connect to Mumble.
  • ☑ Resize front0 to production: front0 shared Linode 32GB 8 CPUs 640GB $0.2880/hour
  • ☑ Resize live0 to production: shared Linode 64GB 16 CPUs $0.5760/hour
  • ☑

    Start the VNC servers.

    #!/bin/bash
# SSH to both
cd ~/proj/emacsconf/emacsconf-ansible

# Gen
export TRACK=gen; TRACK_PORT=5905; export SSH_PORT=46668
ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -p $SSH_PORT /home/emacsconf-$TRACK/bin/track-vnc
sleep 5
ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -N -L $TRACK_PORT:127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -p $SSH_PORT &
xvncviewer 127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -shared -geometry 1280x720 -passwd vnc-passwd-$TRACK &

# Dev
export TRACK=dev; export TRACK_PORT=5906; export SSH_PORT=46668
ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -p $SSH_PORT /home/emacsconf-$TRACK/bin/track-vnc
sleep 5
ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -N -L $TRACK_PORT:127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -p $SSH_PORT &
xvncviewer 127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -shared -geometry 1280x720 -passwd vnc-passwd-$TRACK &
  • ☑ Confirm that we can use “Start Recording” to stream to gen.
  • ☑ Confirm that we can stream to dev.
  • ☑ Confirm that I can restream to YouTube.
    • Settings - Stream, paste in the RTMP key for the relevant event, then Start Streaming.
    • ☑ gen
    • ☑ dev
  • ☑ Confirm that I can restream to Toobnix
    • ☑ live0: restream-gen-toobnix
    • ☑ live0: restream-dev-toobnix
  • ☑ Check automated announcements and publishing
  • ☑ Confirm icecast stats are available: http://live0.emacsconf.org/admin/stats (username: admin, password is in prod-vars.yml)

During the conference

<elisp:emacsconf-pad-open-shift-hyperlist>

After the conference

Capture stats

2024 stats

Saturday: gen: 177 peak + 14 peak lowres dev: 226 peak + 79 peak lowres

Sunday: gen: 89 peak + 10 peak lowres

http://live0.emacsconf.org/admin/stats (username: admin, password is in prod-vars.yml)

meet peak 409% CPU (100% is 1 CPU), average 69.4% front peak 70.66% CPU (100% is 1 CPU) live peak 552% CPU (100% is 1 CPU) average 144% res peak 81.54% total CPU (each OBS ~250%), mem 7GB used

so far we have used 1.2TB of transfer this month

Back up the data

Icecast

rsync -avze ssh live:’/data/emacsconf-2024-*’ media:~/2024

rsync -avze ssh live:’/data/emacsconf-2024-*’ .

BigBlueButton

rsync -avze ssh root@bbb:/var/bigbluebutton/ bigbluebutton/

ssh root@66.175.208.243 ’dd if=/dev/sda bs=5M ’ | dd of=bbb-img-2024-12-08.img status=progress

The img can be loaded with sudo losetup –find –show bbb-img-2024-12-08.img sudo mount /dev/loop10 test cd test

Reviewing all the Q&A durations and chat messages
(let ((default-directory "/home/sacha/proj/emacsconf/2024/backups/bigbluebutton/published/video"))
    (mapconcat
     (lambda (dir)
         (let ((chat (xml-parse-file
                                    (expand-file-name "video.xml" dir)))
                     (metadata (xml-parse-file
                                            (expand-file-name "metadata.xml" dir))))
             (concat
                "- "
                (dom-text (car (dom-by-tag metadata 'meetingName))) " ("
                (format-seconds  "%.2h:%z%.2m:%.2s"
                                                 (/ (string-to-number (dom-text (dom-by-tag metadata 'duration)))
                                                        1000))
                ")"
                "\n"
                (if (dom-by-tag chat 'chattimeline)
                        (mapconcat (lambda (node)
                                                 (concat "  - " (dom-attr node 'name) ": "
                                                                 (dom-attr node 'message) "\n"))
                                             (dom-by-tag chat 'chattimeline)
                                             "")
                    "")
                "")
             )
         )
     (directory-files "." nil "-"))
    )
  • Copy IRC logs to cache and therefore to backstage: (ex: 2024-12-07-emacsconf-gen.txt)

Combine the IRC logs and the pads, and add them to the wiki

(did we e-mail the speakers before or after?)

Process the Q&A recordings and live presentations

  • Save answers videos as –answers.webm.
  • From the pad file: emacsconf-extract-copy-pad-to-wiki
  • update cache
  • Set QA_PUBLIC property to t as each Q&A gets processed.
  • change status to TO_INDEX_QA
  • emacsconf-publish-media-files-on-change
  • emacsconf-publish-info-pages-for-talk

Indexing

  • emacsconf-extract-insert-note-with-question-heading
  • emacsconf-subed-make-chapter-file-based-on-comments
  • change status to TO_CAPTION_QA

Also copy the YouTube comments and IRC comments emacsconf-extract-irc-anonymize-log

Send thank-you emails to the speakers :email:

Notify emacs-discuss that the Q&A is up

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacsconf-discuss/2024-12/msg00000.html

Hello, everyone!

https://emacsconf.org/2024/talks and https://media.emacsconf.org/2024
should have the talks and Q&A sessions now, hooray, including chapter
indices for the Q&A. I've also copied over notes from Etherpad and IRC
on the talk pages, and I've e-mailed them to the speakers so they can
update the wiki directly or send in additional answers.

BigBlueButton audio mixing is kinda iffy, so I'm holding off on
uploading the Q&A videos (and the live talk for secrets) to
YouTube/Toobnix until Leo and other volunteers have a listen to see
whether the audio needs to be tweaked, and maybe even to do some kind of
normalization. Unfortunately, recordings with separate audio tracks per
participant aren't available--it would be cool to figure that out next
year--so some talks might need some manual processing. (Please feel free
to volunteer if that's up your alley!) In the meantime, you can check
out the Q&A videos from the talk pages on the wiki. Please let us know
if there's anything that needs tweaking.

Enjoy!

Sacha

Write a report

Sample: https://emacsconf.org/2023/report/

Send thank-you emails to the volunteers :email:

emacsconf-mail-template-ask-volunteer-for-mailing-address

Process the lessons learned

Ideas for improvement

How can we make EmacsConf better for participants? Speakers? Volunteers? People who come across the videos afterwards?

General infrastructure

Linode instance sizes

Production

  • front0 shared Linode 32GB
  • live0 shared Linode 64GB
  • meet Dedicated CPU 16GB

Dormant

Resize disk to 25GB, copying large files to media if needed

  • nanode front0
  • nanode live0
  • delete meet after downloading all the recordings, or resize down to nanode

File uploads

psi-4ward/psitransfer: Simple open source self-hosted file sharing solution

Before the conference:

  1. Set upload_enabled to true in prod-vars.yml and run ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags upload.
  2. Confirm that https://upload.emacsconf.org has the upload interface and works with the password. If it’s not up yet, use sudo service upload start.
  3. Use emacsconf-mail-template-to-all-groups and emacsconf-mail-upload-and-backstage-info to e-mail the upload information to all speakers.

After the conference:

  1. Set upload_enabled to false in prod-vars.yml and run ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags upload.
  2. Confirm that https://upload.emacsconf.org shows the in-between page.

Media processing

  1. Make sure group_vars/all.yml has the correct setting for emacsconf_year.
  2. ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags prerec

  3. Set up the update-cache script.

    !/bin/bash

    export CONF_PUBLIC=1

    rsync -avu ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/intros/--intro. ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/cache/ rsync -avzue ssh --exclude ffmpeg2pass --exclude .lock-* --exclude 'partial--' res:~/cache/ ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/cache/ --exclude .git chmod ugo+r . -R rsync -avzue ssh --exclude ffmpeg2pass --exclude 'partial--' ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/cache/ res:~/cache/ $ --exclude .git rsync -avzue ssh --exclude ffmpeg2pass --exclude 'partial--' ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/cache/ orga@media:/var/www/media.emacsconf.org/2025/backstage/ $ --exclude .git ssh orga@media "cd ~/backstage; chmod ugo+r -- " if [ ! -z "$CONF_PUBLIC" ]; then echo "Updating public media" rsync -avzue ssh --exclude *--original* --exclude ffmpeg2pass --exclude *--reencoded* ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/cache/ orga@media:/var/www/media.emacsconf.org/2025/ 3--exclude .git fi rsync -avzue ssh ~/proj/emacsconf/2025/assets/ res:~/current/assets/

When a talk comes in:

  1. Update the talk status to PROCESSING. Re-evaluate the schedule draft.
  2. Set the file prefix with emacsconf-set-file-prefix-if-needed or use emacsconf-set-file-prefixes.
  3. Download the talk’s files to your local cache (as specified by emacsconf-cache-dir).
  4. Rename the files with emacsconf-rename-files.
  5. Use ../update-cache to update res and backstage.
  6. SSH to res. Go to the ~/cache directory.
    1. Start or reuse a screen session.
    2. Use make to convert the file to WEBM and caption the file.
  7. On your local computer, use ../update-cache to move files around.
  8. emacsconf-publish-cache-video-data to save the file size and length.
  9. emacsconf-publish-backstage-index

Wiki

Stylesheet: <file://ssh:front|sudo:ikiwiki@front:/var/www/emacsconf.org/style.css>

See also Ansible notes

DONE Icecast

Success: You can send a stream to Icecast and the results can be viewed by mpv.

  • ☑ Gen
  • ☑ Dev

Also, recordings are available in /data.

See also: Use OBS+VNC to record

New year:

  1. Reprovision with

    ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags stream

    so that the year is updated in the configuration.

  2. SSH to live0.emacsconf.org and run /etc/init.d/emacsconf stop. Confirm that icecast has stopped with ps | grep emacsconf; if not, kill the process. Start it again with /etc/init.d/emacsconf start

  3. To test, you can use FFmpeg like this for the gen stream:

    ffmpeg -y -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=1280x720:rate=10 -i background-music.opus \
                            -c:v libvpx -b:v 500K -crf 25  -b:a 128k \
                            -content_type video/webm "icecast://emacsconf:$EMACSCONF_ICECAST_SOURCE_PASSWORD@live0.emacsconf.org:8001/gen.webm"

    For dev:

    ffmpeg -y -f lavfi -i testsrc=size=1280x720:rate=10 -i background-music.opus \
                         -c:v libvpx -b:v 500K -crf 25  -b:a 128k \
                         -content_type video/webm "icecast://emacsconf:$EMACSCONF_ICECAST_SOURCE_PASSWORD@live0.emacsconf.org:8001/dev.webm"

    and then view it with

    mpv https://live0.emacsconf.org/gen.webm
mpv https://live0.emacsconf.org/dev.webm

Cooldown

ssh live0.emacsconf.org sudo /etc/init.d/emacsconf stop

DONE Watching pages

Success: You can watch at https://live.emacsconf.org.

  • ☑ https://live.emacsconf.org goes to the current year’s page.
  • ☑ gen stream works in the browser
  • ☑ dev stream works in the browser
  • ☑ Schedule is correct

New year:

  1. ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags live
  2. Republish with <elisp:emacsconf-publish-watch-pages>.
  3. Update front:/var/www/live.emacsconf.org.

Set up test streams (see ffmpeg instructions from Icecast) and then:

DONE VNC

We use VNC to connect to the X servers on res.emacsconf.org so that we can stream from it.

Success:

  • ☑ Confirm that you can connect to emacsconf-gen via VNC
  • ☑ Confirm that you can connect to emacsconf-dev via VNC

Instructions

NOTE: VNC+OBS doesn’t work well if you have a window manager that automatically resizes windows, like i3. Please configure your window manager so that the VNC window is not resized.

  1. Install a VNC viewer on your system (ex: tigervnc-viewer).

  2. Set up your local environment:

    • gen: export TRACK=gen; export TRACK_PORT=5905; export SSH_PORT=46668
    • dev: export TRACK=dev; export TRACK_PORT=5906; export SSH_PORT=46668

  3. Copy the password:

    scp emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org:~/.vnc/passwd vnc-passwd-$TRACK -p $SSH_PORT

  4. Forward your local ports and connect via VNC viewer to the appropriate forwarded port from your laptop:

    ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -N -L $TRACK_PORT:127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -p $SSH_PORT &
sleep 5   # Give it time to establish the tunnels
xvncviewer 127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -shared -geometry 1280x720 -passwd vnc-passwd-$TRACK &

If you get the following error:

channel 2: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused
CConn:       End of stream
CConn:       The connection was dropped by the server before the session could
             be established.

then the VNC server hasn’t started yet. You can start it with

ssh emacsconf-$TRACK@res.emacsconf.org -p $SSH_PORT /home/emacsconf-$TRACK/bin/track-vnc

and then connect with:

xvncviewer 127.0.0.1:$TRACK_PORT -shared -geometry 1280x720 -passwd vnc-passwd-$TRACK &

Cooldown

ssh sachac@res sudo killall Xtigervnc

DONE Streaming with OBS

Success: You can use OBS+VNC to record, and the results can be viewed by mpv.

  • ☑ gen
  • ☑ dev

New year: reprovision with

ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags obs,stream

so that the year is updated in the shell scripts.

icecast is on live0.emacsconf.org and can be restarted with /etc/init.d/emacsconf restart.

Instructions

  1. Connect to the VNC session for the track.

  2. Start recording (not streaming). If you don’t see OBS when you connect, it’s probably on workspace 2, so you can switch with Alt-2. If you still don’t see it there, you can open a terminal with Alt-Enter and then run track-obs. After you start recording, confirm that it is now broadcasting to the stream.

  3. Verify with MPV on your local system:

    mpv https://live0.emacsconf.org/$TRACK.webm &

so that the year is updated in the configuration.

DONE Mumble

Success:

  • ☑ You can connect to Mumble on your preferred device(s).
  • ☑ You can broadcast to the emacsconf-gen channel.
  • ☑ You can broadcast to the emacsconf-dev channel.

mumble.emacsconf.org is hosted on front. Start it with:

sudo /etc/init.d/mumble-server start

It listens on port 64738

Logs are in /var/log/mumble-server.

To add a new account:

  • After they log in, register their user.
  • Right-click on the server name. Edit - Groups. Add them to the org group.

Shell scripts

Success: From the commandline, hosts can:

  • ☑ play just the intro: intro $SLUG
  • ☑ play a file without an intro: play $SLUG
  • ☑ play a file with an intro: play-with-intro $SLUG (hmm, this didn’t show the subtitles) ah, it’s because the intros need to be in the cache dir?
  • ☑ open the Q&A for a talk: handle-qa $SLUG
    • ☑ open the pad: pad $SLUG
    • ☑ open BBB: bbb $SLUG
  • ☐ do the whole thing: handle-session $SLUG
  • ☐ rebroadcast the other stream:
    • rebroadcast gen
    • rebroadcast dev
  • ☐ control background music: music, stop-music

Setup:

  • OBS must be streaming from the stream you’re testing. Streaming with OBS
  • You may want to generate test assets and copy them over to the assets/stream directory.
  • Generate all the overlays and copy them to assets/overlays
  • Set up the assets/music directory

Backstage

Update this with <elisp:emacsconf-publish-backstage-index>

Explanation of files:

--original.mp4/mov/webm original file as uploaded by the speaker
--silence.mp4/mov/webm silence sample if uploaded by speaker
--reencoded.webm converted to .webm format and compressed
--reencoded.opus audio only
--normalized.opus normalized audio
--reencoded.vtt WhisperX captions, WebVTT format
--reencoded.json WhisperX word data
--reencoded.srt WhisperX captions, SRT format
--reencoded.txt WhisperX captions, plain text
--main.vtt edited captions
--main--chapters.vtt chapter markers
--main.txt captions as text (optional)
--main.webm version for streaming based on the most recent resources

Other files might also have been uploaded by the speaker, such as slides or notes.

Thelounge IRC web client

Success:

ansible: lounge tag

On front:

  • To start: sudo systemctl start thelounge
  • To stop: sudo systemctl stop thelounge

DONE Ask libera.chat to increase IRC limits

Remember to schedule a task to ask libera.chat to increase the number of users it will accept from chat.emacsconf.org to avoid connection exhaustion errors.

Message I’ve posted to support@libera.chat:

Thank you for running libera.chat. We’re looking forward to using IRC (#emacsconf, #emacsconf-gen, #emacsconf-dev, #emacsconf-org) for the discussions for the upcoming EmacsConf (Dec 6-7, https://emacsconf.org). In the past, we’ve needed to coordinate with Libera staff to increase the number of connections allowed from chat.emacsconf.org during conference days in order to avoid connection exhaustion errors. Is that something we can plan now or would you like me to bring it up a few days before the conference?

Etherpad

Success:

  • ☑ pad.emacsconf.org redirects to this year’s entry
  • ☑ Each talk has its own Etherpad

Lessons learned:

  • After 2024: Added pronouns and pronunciation to the pad template since that’s what the hosts will be looking at

The pad is at front0.emacsconf.org

Non-JS way to get plain text or HTML of a pad: ex:

Publishing media to the server and to the wiki

Start of year:

  1. Set media_protect_root to true in Ansible group_vars/all.yml.
  2. ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags media
  3. Generate the index with emacsconf-publish-update-media

Confirm by using talk sat-open PLAYING on res. The public media directory should have the files and the entry should be in the index. Switching it back to TO_STREAM and calling <elisp:emacsconf-publish-media-files-on-change> should remove it.

DONE Switch public media to unprotected root before the conference :tminustwo:

  1. Clear public media directory.
  2. Set media_protect_root to false in Ansible group_vars/all.yml.
  3. ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags media

You can generate the index with emacsconf-publish-update-media.

Automated publishing to the media server

ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags publish,edit

On orga@res, in the screen session with the emacs server, make sure emacsconf-year and emacsconf-cache-dir refer to the current ones.

DONE Automated IRC announcements

Success:

  • ☐ When a talk starts playing, it is announced in the relevant channel

How it works: On res:

/usr/local/bin/handle-session sudos to the orga user and calls the /usr/local/bin/talk shell script,

You will need the private repository checked out to orga/emacsconf-2025-private, which is set up by the ansible playbook publish tag.

This is by /usr/local/bin/talk on res, which connects to a running Emacs with emacsclient. Make sure the emacs thing has the right year.

BigBlueButton

ssh orga@media.emacsconf.org “~/bin/bbb-before sat-open” https://media.emacsconf.org/2024/current/bbb-sat-open.html

ssh orga@media.emacsconf.org “~/bin/bbb-open sat-open”

After restarting, and in case of “Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at wss://bbb.emacsverse.org/graphql.”

ssh root@bbb cd greenlight-v3 docker compose restart

Sizes:

  • dormant: 1 GB nanode
  • testing: 4 core 8 GB shared CPU
  • production: 8 core 16 GB dedicated CPU (roughly half CPU load for 107 simultaneous users, 2024)
    • maybe 8 core 16 GB shared CPU next?

Installing BigBlueButton

  1. Create the instance.
    • Linode 4core 8GB shared CPU
    • Image: Ubuntu 22.04
  2. Update the DNS for bbb.emacsverse.org with its IP address.
  3. Download the BBB installer and make it executable.
  4. ufw allow 16384:32768/udp
  5. Run the BBB installer: ./bbb-install.sh -v jammy-300 -s bbb.emacsverse.org -e emacsconf@sachachua.com -g
  6. sudo apt install bbb-playback-video and then follow the instructions at Server Customization | BigBlueButton .

    • /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/bigbluebutton.yml:

      steps:
  archive: 'sanity'
  sanity: 'captions'
  captions:
    - 'process:presentation'
    - 'process:video'
  'process:presentation': 'publish:presentation'
  'process:video': 'publish:video'
    • systemctl restart bbb-rap-resque-worker.service
  7. docker exec -it greenlight-v3 bundle exec rake admin:create[’name’,’email’,’password’]

System audio limitations

Sharing system audio by changing the audio device to “Built-in Audio Analog Stereo” is very choppy, only gets captured in the recording if I’m using Firefox (not Chrome) AND there’s at least one listener, and doesn’t allow simultaneous narration from the speaker.

Using pulseaudio to change the app’s recording device to the audio monitor results in smoother audio (because it’s pretending to be the microphone), but still doesn’t allow simultaneous narration from the speaker.

Combining microphone + system audio into a new virtual microphone source is probably more complicated than we want to walk speakers through.

BBB says sharing system audio works only if you use Chrome on Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows (https://support.bigbluebutton.org/hc/en-us/articles/1500005315642-Can-I-play-a-video-using-screen-sharing). I tested it on Linux and sharing system audio is not an option. If you happen to know of any more elegant way to do this, I’d love to hear it.

Related: https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/issues/8632

DONE Create meeting rooms for each speaker

docker exec -it greenlight-v3 /bin/bash -c "bundle exec rails console"

user_id = User.find_by_email("emacsconf@sachachua.com").id
  1. <elisp:emacsconf-bbb-create-rooms>
  2. <elisp:emacsconf-bbb-load-rooms>: set the ROOM properties.
  3. <elisp:emacsconf-publish-bbb-static-redirects>

Print out the room IDs with:

Room.all.each { |x| puts x.friendly_id + " " + x.name }; nil

It’s possible to change the friendly_id and then use x.save!.

DONE Set up moderator access codes

  • <elisp:emacsconf-bbb-spookfox-set-moderator-codes>
  • <elisp:emacsconf-bbb-spookfox-confirm-settings>

Then you can use <elisp:emacsconf-mail-checkin-instructions-for-attending-speakers> or <elisp:emacsconf-mail-checkin-instructions-to-all> to send the info.

Processing BBB videos

bbb-record --list shows all the recordings. You can use bbb-record --rebuild to regenerate the meeting, and bbb-record --watch to monitor progress. Presentation is a web-based interface, video is a single video file that contains the webcam, the screenshare, and the audio.

If you don’t see the video format, doublecheck that the video format is enabled.

bbb-record seems to call ruby /usr/local/bigbluebutton/core/scripts/process/video.rb -m ID, which might be a useful backup.

Backing up BBB :backup:

rsync -avze ssh root@bbb:/var/bigbluebutton/ bigbluebutton/

ssh root@bbb ’tar zcvf - /var/bigbluebutton /etc/bigbluebutton /root/greenlight-v3 /usr/local/bigbluebutton /usr/share/bbb-web’ > bbb-backup-$(date “+%Y-%m-%d”).tar.gz

ssh root@bbb ’dd if=/dev/sda bs=5M ’ | dd of=bbb-img-$(date “+%Y-%m-%d”).img status=progress

Scaling BBB up and down

Scaling a BigBlueButton server down to a 1 GB node between uses

When the server is downscaled, /etc/nginx/sites-backup configures the Nginx. The web root is /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/assets, and the page is /var/www/bigbluebutton-default/assets/backup/index.html.

Spinning BBB up again from scratch

Previous notes:

  1. Create a Nanode.
  2. Update the DNS for bbb.emacsverse.org with its IP address. (dns.he.net)

  3. Reboot into Rescue mode. In Lish:

    passwd  # set interactively
sed -i -e 's/#PasswordAuthentication yes/PasswordAuthentication yes/g' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
echo 'PermitRootLogin yes' >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
service ssh start
  4. From the backup directory: gunzip -c bbb-img-2024-12-08.img.gz | ssh root@bbb.emacsconf.org “dd of=/dev/sda bs=4M status=progress oflag=direct iflag=fullblock”

  5. After I resized to 4core 8GB RAM, I couldn’t log in with SSH, so I used the Linode shell. sshd -t said no host keys available. Fix:

    ssh-keygen -A
service ssh --full-restart
  6. ./bbb-install.sh -v jammy-300 -s bbb.emacsverse.org -e emacsconf@sachachua.com

Resources:

TODO Manual IRC announcements

Success:

  • ☑ You can /opall, /conftopic, and /broadcast

Check test crontab

TODO Confirm automated IRC announcements from res

Success:

  • A test schedule can generate announcements.

    See C-u M-x emacsconf-stream-crontabs

Low-res stream

Should be automatic, handled by Icecast backup on live:

  • /usr/local/bin/emacsconf-lowres-gen-on-connect
  • /usr/local/bin/emacsconf-lowres-dev-on-connect

Upload talks to YouTube

Channel videos

(seq-keep
 (lambda (o)
     (when (and (string= (plist-get o :status) "TO_STREAM")
                            (not (plist-get o :youtube)))
         (list
            (plist-get o :slug)
            (org-link-make-string
             (concat "copy:"
                             )
             "video file")
            (org-link-make-string
             (format "elisp:(emacsconf-publish-video-description \"%s\" t)"
                             (plist-get o :slug))
             "desc")
            (if (emacsconf-talk-file o "--main.vtt")
                    (org-link-make-string
                     (concat "copy:"
                                     (emacsconf-talk-file o "--main.vtt"))
                     "sub file")
                "")
            (org-link-make-string
             (concat "elisp:(emacsconf-set-property-from-slug \""
                             (plist-get o :slug)
                             "\" \"YOUTUBE\" (read-string \"YouTube URL: \"))"
                             )
             "save")
            (plist-get o :scheduled))))
 (emacsconf-publish-prepare-for-display (emacsconf-get-talk-info)))

Restream to YouTube

TODO Set up YouTube restreaming events

Need to have set up shifts first.

  1. Switch to the EmacsConf account.
  2. Go to https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCwuyodzTl_KdEKNuJmeo99A
  3. Create > Go live > Schedule stream.
    • ☑ Gen - Sat AM
    • ☑ Gen - Sat PM
    • ☑ Dev - Sat AM
    • ☑ Dev - Sat PM
    • ☑ Gen - Sun AM
    • ☑ Gen - Sun PM
    • ☑

      Test

      emacsconf-stream-copy-livestream-description

      Then set the emacsconf-rtmp-shifts variable. See the conf.org from 2025 for an example.

      This will be used in the shift hyperlists, which you can generate with emacsconf-pad-prepopulate-shift-hyperlists

      There’s also a note in the ansible README.org about restreaming. Set up the restreaming_platforms variable in prod-vars.yml and use ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags restream to set up

Restream to Toobnix

DONE Set up Toobnix restreaming events

  1. https://toobnix.org, Publish, Permanent/recurring live
  2. emacsconf-stream-toobnix-copy-livestream-description

i3 window manager

termit is the terminal

  • M-d: launcher
  • M-1, M-2: change workspace

Other process notes

Adding another user to BBB

ssh bbb.emacsverse.org
docker exec -it greenlight-v2 bundle exec rake user:create["USERNAME","EMAIL","PASSWORD","user"]

Schedule changes

In general:

(emacsconf-schedule-update-from-info)
(emacsconf-update-schedule)
(emacsconf-publish-watch-pages)
(emacsconf-publish-talks-json-to-files)
(emacsconf-publish-info-pages)

When a talk is added after the schedule has already been drafted

  • ☑ Add the talk to conf.org
  • ☑ Add the talk ID to the draft schedule
  • ☑ Run the draft schedule block
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-schedule-update-from-info>
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-publish-talks-json-to-files>
  • ☑ Generate pads with ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml prod-playbook.yml --tags pad
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-set-file-prefixes>
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-update-schedule>
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-overlays>
  • ☑ <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-test-videos>
  • ☑ rsync -avze ssh ~/proj/emacsconf/2024/assets/ res:/data/emacsconf/shared/2024/assets/
  • ☑ Send the upload instructions
  • ☑ Generate the intro text
  • ☐ Record the intro

When a talk is cancelled

<elisp:emacsconf-cancel-talk>

  1. Update the status to CANCELLED. Update that specific talk with <elisp:emacsconf-publish-info-pages-for-talk>.
  2. Rejig the schedule if needed, and update with <elisp:emacsconf-schedule-update-from-info>
  3. Update the published schedule with <elisp:emacsconf-update-schedule>.

Manual steps:

  1. Push the wiki.
  2. Regenerate the intros (before, after). <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-in-between-pages>, then use <elisp:subed-record-compile-video> in the intros file.
  3. Resync the cache directory.
  4. Consider updating the screenshots for sat-open and sun-open.

When a talk changes title

  1. Update the title in conf.org.
  2. Delete the FILE_PREFIX property.
  3. Call <elisp:emacsconf-set-file-prefix-if-needed>.
  4. Rename existing files with <elisp:emacsconf-update-file-prefixes>.
  5. Update the intro VTT file with the new title.
  6. Update the wiki page for the talk.
  7. Regenerate the in-between images with <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-in-between-pages>
  8. Rerecord and recompile the intro, and recompile the intro for the talk after it.
  9. <elisp:emacsconf-update-schedule>
  10. <elisp:emacsconf-pad-prepopulate-hyperlists>

When a talk Q&A changes method

  1. Update the talk property.
  2. Update the schedule with <elisp:emacsconf-update-schedule>
  3. Regenerate the intros (before, after). <elisp:emacsconf-stream-generate-in-between-pages>, then use <elisp:subed-record-compile-video> in the intros file.
  4. Sync the new intros to the /data/emacsconf/shared/$YEAR/assets/intros directory.
  5. Regenerate the pads: <elisp:emacsconf-pad-prepopulate-all-talks>
  6. Regenerate talks.json: <elisp:emacsconf-publish-talks-json-to-files>

To play the other stream

  • mpv --profile=full https://live0.emacsconf.org/gen.webm
  • Change the channel topic to note that discussion can be in the other channel

When a system is down

Let people know in #emacsconf and #emacsconf-org

Update the status page:

<file://ssh:orga@front0.emacsconf.org:/var/www/status.emacsconf.org/index.html>

/broadcast may also be helpful

When we need to bring on a last-minute volunteer

/backstage nick

will give them the backstage credentials and links to the index

Checking people in

/checkin nick /room nick (should be automatic if live, but there just in case)

Ansible

git clone git@git.emacsconf.org:pub/emacsconf-ansible