Moodle Talk Bridge

Nextcloud companion app for the Moodle Nextcloud Talk Session activity (mod_nextcloudtalk). It lets a Moodle course create a Nextcloud Talk room and drop teachers and students straight into it, without them needing to manage separate Nextcloud credentials.

This app is the Nextcloud half of the integration.

Getting the Moodle plugin

The companion Moodle activity plugin (mod_nextcloudtalk) is supplied directly by Brain Station 23 rather than through the Moodle plugins directory. Both halves are required — this app does nothing on its own.

To request the plugin, or for installation and support enquiries, contact elearning@brainstation-23.com.

What it does

• Receives HMAC-signed webhooks from Moodle and creates, updates or archives the matching Talk conversation.
• Provisions Nextcloud accounts for Moodle participants on first use and keeps a persistent Moodle-user to Nextcloud-user mapping.
• Syncs the room roster with course enrolment: teachers become moderators, students become regular participants.
• Issues and verifies signed single-use tickets, so a user following the activity link from Moodle lands in the conversation already signed in.
• Exposes a health endpoint backing the "Test connection" button on the Moodle side.

Screenshots

Requirements

• Nextcloud 30–35
• PHP 8.1+
• Nextcloud Talk (spreed) installed and enabled — this app drives Talk and does nothing without it.
• A dedicated Nextcloud bot account with an app password.

Installation

From the App Store: search for Moodle Talk Bridge in Apps → Integration.

Manually:

# The directory name must be exactly `moodle_talk_bridge`.
cp -r moodle_talk_bridge /var/www/html/custom_apps/
occ app:enable moodle_talk_bridge

No build step is required — the app ships no compiled frontend assets and has no runtime Composer dependencies.

Configuration

Set everything from Administration settings → Moodle Talk Bridge. The two secrets are write-only in the panel: they render as placeholders, and leaving a secret field blank keeps the stored value.

Every key can also be applied with occ, which is the better route for scripted or automated installs.

occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge shared_secret     --value="<32-byte hex>"
occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge nextcloud_url     --value="https://cloud.example.org"
occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge bot_user          --value="moodle-talk-bot"
occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge bot_app_password  --value="<app password>"
occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge allowed_instances --value="https://moodle.example.org"
occ config:app:set moodle_talk_bridge moodle_host       --value="https://moodle.example.org"

Key	Required	Default	Description
shared_secret	yes	—	HMAC secret; must match the Moodle plugin's setting.
nextcloud_url	yes	—	Base URL this app uses to reach its own Talk API.
bot_user	yes	—	Nextcloud account that owns the rooms.
bot_app_password	yes	—	App password for bot_user.
allowed_instances	yes	—	Comma-separated Moodle origins allowed to call the webhook.
moodle_host	yes	—	Moodle base URL used when linking back.
auth_mode	no	hmac	Reported by the health endpoint. hmac is the only supported mode.

Generate the shared secret with openssl rand -hex 32 and set the identical value on both sides.

Note: bot_app_password is stored in Nextcloud's app configuration. Treat the value as a credential, scope the bot account to the minimum it needs, and rotate it if the database is ever exposed.

Endpoints

Route	Auth	Purpose
POST /ocs/v2.php/apps/moodle_talk_bridge/api/v1/webhook	HMAC signature	Room lifecycle events from Moodle.
GET /apps/moodle_talk_bridge/sso	Signed single-use ticket	Authenticated join and redirect into the room.
GET /apps/moodle_talk_bridge/health	Public	Talk reachability and bot auth probe. Returns booleans only, never secrets.

Development

Most of the suite extends Nextcloud's own Test\TestCase, so the tests must run inside a Nextcloud installation, with the app checked out at the same depth as core apps (e.g. custom_apps/moodle_talk_bridge). Running them on the host fails with Class "Test\TestCase" not found.

# inside the Nextcloud container / server
cd custom_apps/moodle_talk_bridge
composer install
composer exec phpunit -- -c phpunit.xml

Building a release

make appstore OCC=/var/www/html/occ

This stages a clean copy (no tests, no Composer files, no vendor/), signs it with occ integrity:sign-app, writes build/moodle_talk_bridge.tar.gz, and prints the base64 signature to paste into the App Store upload form. Signing happens before packaging — any change made afterwards invalidates the signature.

License

Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later. See COPYING.