Asterisk
I’ve decided to play around with asterisk a bit more, partly for interest, partly as we could do with cheaper conferencing at work - we spend a fair amount of money on it. I’ve started making notes on my setup but they are very rough ATM.
Things I’ve discovered so far:
- xen DomU’s can’t run ztdummy timing module
- however the “callweaver” fork of asterisk can as it the normal kernel timing sources
- however the “callweaver” fork of asterisk can as it the normal kernel timing sources
- how to partially fix the microphone on Dell D630
- dialplan syntax is like some bastardised version of regexp using non-standard characters (I understand that the asterisk character itself exists on phones, but still)
- I need to find a SIP provider so that we can have an 0800 number for work (and possibly a local rate call number too). Looks like gradwell or magrathea
I may well swap to callweaver later (it’s fairly easy to convert - only dialplans need some tweaking), however for now I can use a precompiled asterisk installation. I’ve had a go at updating sipx to 3.10 for Debian (currently only 3.8 is available) but I’ve hit a fair few compile issues so I’ve put that on hold for the time being.
Posted: June 1st, 2008 under Linux.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from Dave Walker
Time: Sunday 1 June, 2008, 22:11
ztdummy module can infact run on DomU, however you do need to comment out RTC support in the source. However, you may not get a decent timing accuracy, using zttest.
The callweaver alternative for conference is largely based on on app_conference which is also an unofficial application for asterisk (due to the author not wanting to disclaim ownership of his code to Digium AIUI).
Note, that callweaver is making some excellent development - it is still based on the asterisk 1.2 code base.
I quite like the Asterisk Dialplan syntax, but it certainly took me a long time to fully understand how extensions.conf fully fitted into it. Thankfully it has improved in the last few years.
For the 0800, i would REALLY recommend magrathea over gradwell. I use magrathea for high volume, and am very happy with them. They don’t provide a flashy web interface to make updates, but they do provide a telnet interface / API. However, they are not really suitable if you want less than 100 (IIRC) local/national DDI’s - but are fine for adhoc 0845/0870/0800. You can easily forward their numbers to SIP/IAX/H323, another number, voicemail, fax etc. They provide much of upstream for sipgate, and are always very helpful.
HTH
Comment from adrian
Time: Monday 2 June, 2008, 05:54
Cheers Dave, very helpful 
Is there any point loading ztdummy if it has RTC commented out?
Comment from Adrian Bridgett
Time: Tuesday 3 June, 2008, 09:04
Ah, you need it for meetme conferencing at least. BTW you also _require_ HZ=1000 (in addition to USE_RTC commented out).
Comment from fozzie
Time: Tuesday 3 June, 2008, 10:20
I’d agree with using Magrathea. If you’re just starting out, it’s quick and easy to get an account set up with them, for both inbound and outbound routing. The process of assigning and pointing numbers is straightforward through a telnet session and there’s a web portal/ftp site for downloading CDRs. It is pre-pay but they’ll send you balance notifications when you hit a defined lower threshold.
Outbound rates are pretty competitive but don’t rely on overseas CLI being correct (unless you want to pay more for their ‘gold’ routing, but it’s still not guaranteed).
Few bells & whistles but hey, you want to make phone calls don’t you?
Comment from adrian
Time: Wednesday 4 June, 2008, 21:09
The costs for magrathea unfortunately start quite high, so ATM I’m going to look elsewhere for test purposes.
Comment from Ken
Time: Wednesday 2 July, 2008, 09:04
But even with costs of magrathea benefits you get from 0800 numbers will cover all expenses. The company that has 0800 numbers ( see prices here smart-numbers.net/ ) has much more clients, as they prefer to call for free instead of paying money. That’s why sales of the company increase and profit rises.
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