Domain for calls
The Calls tab of the System screen. It sets the domain messenger calls go through.
A call normally goes straight between the two people. In networks with heavy restrictions — hotel, office, some mobile ones — it cannot, and the call takes a detour through your box instead. The box can only tell such a call apart from an ordinary request to the admin panel or to a site by the domain — so calls need one of their own.
This tab is shown only to administrators with the system-management permission.
How to set the domain
- Open System → Calls.
- Leave Domain for calls empty if you do not need a domain of your own: it is then derived from the box address and there is nothing to register.
- To move calls onto a domain of yours, create a record pointing straight at this box's address and enter it in the field. The domain must not be proxied through Cloudflare: ordinary requests travel through it, and a call addressed to such a domain simply never arrives.
- Click Save. A state line appears under the field; while the certificate is being issued it updates itself — usually a few minutes.
Which domains cannot be used
- The admin domain itself.
- The domain of a site this box already serves.
- The domain of a server block you added by hand in the nginx settings.
The reason is the same for all three: a domain given to calls is given to them whole, and the admin panel, the site or that server block would simply stop answering on it. The first the field refuses outright; about the other two the state line tells you the name is taken — and says which of the two holds it, so you know where to go and look.
A domain covered by a wildcard entry
A name that this box does not serve under its own name, but which a wildcard entry such as *.example.com covers, is a case of its own — and it is allowed. Calls claim that one name; the wildcard's other subdomains keep answering. The screen warns instead of refusing, and the choice is yours.
One condition comes with it, and it is worth knowing before you enter such a name. The certificate is issued after an ownership check that arrives on port 80, and there a wildcard entry outranks calls — so the check is answered by that entry, and the certificate may never be issued. If that happens, the state line names the wildcard rather than sending you off to check your DNS records: free that name in the nginx settings, or enter a domain outside the pattern.
When the line says calls will not work here
There are boxes where the detour has nothing to run on — for example when the box hands its traffic to Cloudflare and the port calls would use is already taken by it. On such a box calls work in ordinary networks only. The domain is still saved, but it changes nothing, and changing it again is pointless.
How long a call rings
Ring for, seconds, on the same tab, is how long an unanswered call keeps ringing before it is written down as missed. The default is 40 seconds. Enter a whole number of seconds from 0 to 120; the change applies to new calls straight away, no restart needed.
Zero stands apart: it is not a number from that range but a separate answer — do not cut the call off by time at all. It rings until somebody ends it.
There is one thing zero does not cover, and it is deliberate. A call nobody joined at all (the caller closed the tab, the room stayed empty) is ended by the box itself: it holds a ceiling of its own on ringing — about ten minutes, after which it takes a couple more housekeeping passes to be sure the room really is empty. We do not promise an exact moment: if a poll of the media server fails, the count starts over. The point of the ceiling is one thing only — so a conversation is not left occupied by a call nobody is in.
A call somebody is sitting in and waiting on is never touched by that, however long it goes on.