Frequently Asked Questions

What is Virola?

Virola is a team collaboration tool, which you can either install on your own server or use on a cloud server. With Virola Corporate Messenger you can keep your conversations and data protected. Moreover, you can have all your workflow in one place, schedule meetings, create and assign tasks, track the progress and many more.

Is Virola Corporate Messenger free?

Virola Corporate Messenger is available for free for small teams with up to 10 active users.

Who can use Virola Corporate Messenger?

Virola Corporate Messenger is perfect for internal company communication. Today more and more companies are forced to move to virtual offices. The demand for remote internal communication grows. Virola helps manage remote teams, arrange communication between them, create topic based chats and schedule voice and video conferences.

With Virola you can improve your internal communication:

• Keep all important information at your fingertips
• All files are stored and can be easily accessed
• All internal communication is conducted in one application
• Create topic-based communication rooms
• Assign tasks and monitor your team progress with help of task board

Is Virola self-hosted?

Both self-hosted and cloud versions of Virola are available. You can either install the application on your server or create and use the cloud server.

What kind of personal data do you collect?

Please check our Privacy Policy for this information.

Where is my data stored?

If you use self-hosted Virola Corporate Messenger, the data is stored on your server. If you use our cloud-based solution, the data is stored on our corporate dedicated servers.

Learn how to find Virola database on your self-hosted server.

How to get started?

You just need to follow 3 steps to set Virola Corporate Messenger up and running:

1. Setup a server. You can either create a cloud server or install Virola server application on your own server. Installation packages are available for Linux, Windows and macOS
2. Install Virola client and create user profiles and topic based groups
3. Provide your teammates with login credentials and let them install Virola client on their computers and mobile devices

What are system requirements for Virola self-hosted server?

• Processor: any processor not older than 10 years
• RAM: 32MB ＋ 1MB per user
• Hard drive: 2MB per user ＋ the total size of all files transferred by users (the size and amount of transferred files vary from company to company, so we cannot predict it)

How to install Virola on Linux server?

Please refer to our detailed step by step video tutorial showing how to install Virola on Linux server.

Also check installation instructions for Ubuntu and Debian, Alma and Rocky, Windows, and macOS.

Can I run Virola as a Daemon on Linux Ubuntu?

Yes, you can do this with the help of special script. We have detailed instructions about running Virola server as a daemon.

Do you offer mobile apps?

Mobile apps for iOS and Android are available on the App Store and on Google Play.

Do you offer video conferences?

You can enable live video streaming mode during the conference. For this you need to click 'video camera' icon in the chat room toolbar. This way the conversation participants will see that you are ready to stream the video. They will need to click the 'eye' icon in the chat room toolbar to start watching live streams from the room participants.

Do you offer screen sharing?

Yes, screen sharing is available for the chat participants. It is available only for specific chat or group chat members. To share the screen you need to click 'share screen' icon in the chat room toolbar. Your chat participants will see the shared screen in a separate tab which will appear in the chat room toolbar after the screen has been shared. Screen sharing session can be combined with a voice meeting.

Do you offer remote control feature?

Yes, you can let your co-worker take over the selected area on your screen with help of the remote control feature. Remote control feature makes it easy to train your employees and fix technical issues on their computers.

Can I schedule meetings?

You can schedule meetings and view upcoming events for specific chat room by clicking 'calendar' icon in the contacts toolbar.

How many group topic based chats can I create?

You can create any number of topic based group chats, this is not limited.

Is transferred files storage size and time limited?

The files sent in Virola corporate messenger are not limited in size and time storage. They can be easily accessed in the chat history.

Do you have LDAP integration?

Yes, LDAP integration is available and authorization with Active Directory credentials for Virola users is supported.

Can I tag other users in chat?

With help of @username feature you can tag group chat participants. You just need to type @ and select the needed chat participant from the list.

Is it possible to nudge a user if they are not responding?

We offer a nudge feature which allows sending a nudge to selected user. To send a nudge you need to right click on the user's photo in the chat room and select "Send Nudge" command from the appeared context menu.

Are there replies or threads?

Both. Reply means sending a new message with the existing message quotation within the same chat room/thread. Thread (we call them Discussions) means sending a new message as a comment to the existing message and is displayed on a separate screen. Replies are supported within threads (discussions).

Is data transferred between client and server encrypted?

Yes. Public-key cryptography and SSL are used for data protection during the data transfer process. The security certificate is generated automatically on a server when it is launched. For self-hosted Virola server the security certificate can be defined by a user.

Symmetric-key encryption AES is used for voice chats. Keys are stored in RAM only while the server is running and are generated on a server when it is running.

Does Virola support end-to-end encryption?

We plan to have end-to-end encryption support in the near future, however, many enterprise features such as issue tracking will not work with it.

On the other hand, self-hosted server is a pretty secure solution compared to a third-party cloud, even if they promise end-to-end encryption.

Learn more about the self-hosted server infrastructure and Virola serurity.

Is it possible to run Virola Server with my own SSL certificate / Private key pair?

Yes. For more detailed information you can use Virola Server command line options help.

I used my own security certificate for my self-hosted server, and now client apps cannot connect

To fix this:

1. Enter your Virola Server IP address as the Server Host when logging into the Virola Client app
2. After successfully logging in, navigate to Administration / Server-side SSL Options and either:
   • Select the Use Self Signed Certificate for SSL option, or
   • Provide a valid certificate if you prefer to use the Use Trusted CA Certificate for SSL option

Are any third party platforms used in Virola?

For push notifications on mobile apps the following platforms are used:

• Firebase platform created by Google is used to send push notifications in Android app
• Apple Push Notifications service (APNs) is used to send push notifications in iOS app

However you can fully disable push notifications for your self-hosted server by adding command line parameter
--no-push-notifications
when starting Virola server.

Are any command line options to get help available for Virola Server?

Yes. To get help on Virola Server command line usage you need to run Virola Server with --help or or -h parameter. For example:
./virola_server_app.exe --help

There is also a full list of command line options available for Virola Server.

Does Virola work on computers with ARM64 processors?

Virola client from the App Store can be installed on MacBooks, iPads and iPhones with M1 (ARM64) processors.

Do you support Single sign-on (SSO)?

We offer LDAP integration which allows users to log into Virola client with their Active Directory credentials.

How do I locate my Virola Sever database?

All your server data (users' profiles, chat messages, files, chat rooms configuration, etc.) is stored in a MySQL database file named virola_server_database_v9.db. The file location depends on your operating system:

• Windows - in the directory you specified as Storage Directory in Virola Server GUI or as storage-dir parameter when running the server from the command line;
• Linux and macOS - by default in storage subdirectory of the directory from which your Virola Server is running.

How do I transfer my chats data to a new server?

1. Locate your server database
2. Copy it to the new location
3. Specify the new storage directory location when running Virola Server

If I upgrade my server, will the data get lost?

There should not be any data losses if you upgrade your server. However, before you do anything on your server, we recommend making a backup of your data.

What happens with conversation history if a user is removed from the group chat room?

For the removed user. The group chat room with its conversation history disappears immediately if the user is logged into Virola client. If the user is offline, the room will disappear as soon as the user logs into the Virola client.

However, if the user is added to the group chat room again, all the chat history will be restored for him/her.

For other room participants. Nothing will change. Regardless whether the user was removed from the room or deactivated at all, all his/her messages and transferred files will be kept intact.

What happens with conversation history if a user is removed from Virola Server?

In order to keep the conversation history consistent, we don't totally remove users from Virola Server. If a user shouldn't have access to Virola Server anymore, their user profile should to be suspended by the server admin.

Suspended users cannot login to Virola anymore and their avatars have a special status icon. However, all messages and files sent by suspended users are kept intact and are available in the conversation history.

Is API available?

A basic web API to check sever health information and send a text message into a chat room is available. You can get more information on how it works in our user manual.

I installed Virola self-hosted server but I can't hear anybody. What to do?

Audio in Virola uses UDP protocol. You need to open UDP for the port on which Virola server is running. Please use our OS-specific instructions on opening ports.