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New Versions of Asterisk and DAHDI

September 8, 2008

The Asterisk development team is pleased to announce new releases of Asterisk and DAHDI.

For more information on the reasoning behind the transition to DAHDI, please see the following post:

http://blogs.digium.com/2008/05/19/zaptel-project-being-renamed-to-dahdi/

The list of packages released today includes:

dahdi-linux 2.0.0-rc4
dahdi-linux-complete 2.0.0-rc4+2.0.0-rc2 asterisk 1.4.22-rc4 asterisk 1.6.0-rc5

All of these packages are available on http://downloads.digium.com in their respective directories. Detailed information about each package release is included below.

=== dahdi-linux-complete-2.0.0-rc3+2.0.0-rc2 ===

This release combines dahdi-linux-2.0.0-rc4 and dahdi-tools-2.0.0-rc2 into a single download, one-package installation process, so that users who are installing DAHDI for the first time don't have to download and install the dahdi-linux and dahdi-tools packages separately.

=== dahdi-linux-2.0.0-rc4 ===

This is a release candidate of the DAHDI Linux kernel modules package, which replaces the kernel modules components of Zaptel. It contains all the functionality of Zaptel 1.4 plus many improvements, but also has some old (generally unsupported) functionality from Zaptel removed, including (but not limited to):

- Support for Linux 2.4.x kernels
- Support for devfs dynamic device filesystems
- The 'torisa' and 'wcusb' drivers

Information on upgrading from Zaptel to DAHDI can be found in the included UPGRADE.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/dahdi/linux/tags/2.0.0-rc4/UPGRADE.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/dahdi-linux/releases/ChangeLog-2.0.0-rc4

=== asterisk-1.4.22-rc4 ===

This release candidate includes a large number of bug fixes and also is the first release of Asterisk 1.4 that includes support for DAHDI, the package that is replacing Zaptel. This version of Asterisk can be built against *either* Zaptel or DAHDI, but since Zaptel 1.4.12 is the last release of Zaptel 1.4, users are encouraged to transition to DAHDI as soon as they can, so that they will be able to continue to receive bug fixes and other improvements.

Information on how the transition from Zaptel to DAHDI affects this Asterisk release can be found in the included Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.4.22-rc4/Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/ChangeLog-1.4.22-rc4

=== asterisk-1.6.0-rc5 ===

This version of Asterisk contains a large number of enhancements and improvements over Asterisk 1.4, which can be found in the included CHANGES file, and read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/CHANGES?view=co

*All* users who install this version of Asterisk are strongly encouraged to read the UPGRADE.txt file to learn about changes that affect compatibility with previous versions of Asterisk; this file can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/UPGRADE.txt?view=co

Information on how the transition from Zaptel to DAHDI affects this Asterisk release can be found in the included Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/ChangeLog-1.6.0-rc5

=== ===

Thank you for your continued support of the Asterisk project!

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under Asterisk 1.4, Asterisk 1.6, News, Testing, Zaptel 

Migrating and Mounting VMWare Images from VMWare Server 2.x into a VMWare Server 1.x environment

September 5, 2008

Tonight we decided we'd had enough of VMWare Server 2.0's issues and shakiness. We started getting the following error, because as it turns out (we're stupid for not thinking of this ahead of time - lesson learned) VMWare server beta's have an expiry date, along with it's bugs. Today we started getting this error:

"VCommand error: This product has expired."

This box holds some Asterisk Development stuff and some other Dev systems that we couldn't really have go down on us. So, we downgraded our VMWare 2.x Server to the latest 1.x branch of VMWare. Then on we went to importing Virtual Machines from Server 2.0 and Workstation 6. As soon as we started to power them on, the fun started. Of course! The VM's weren't compatible anymore and gave us a couple errors. Here's how we fixed it.

The first error we received was:

"A General System Error Occurred: Unknown Error"

This happened as soon as we tried to power on the VM. This was easily fixed. We entered the Virtual Machine's directory, and edited the .vmx file for the virtual machine, this is just plain text. Replacing the next few lines fixed it right up for us.

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "6"

became

config.version = "4"
virtualHW.version = "4"

Now we could power them up. However, we now encountered another error that we couldn't open the virtual disk we had created. The error was something about how the Virtual Disks were created in a later version of vmware, and couldn't be mounted. We'd have to re-create them. Obviously this wasn't an option.

In some of the Virtual Machine directories, we had a file to edit with a text editor, this was simple enough.

# nano virtualdiskname.vmxf

Then change this:

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "6"

became

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"

However, some of the other directories (mainly the ones created with VmWare Workstation 6) did not have a simple text file to edit, instead we had to edit the actual virtual disk using a hex editor. We chose the wonderful heme editor. Usage Instructions for Heme are here.

Basically put, do this:

# heme virtualdisk.vmdk

Now press "w" on your keyboard to search for "virtualHWVersion". You will find it in the ascii column eventually. Hit "TAB" to enter Ascii mode, move your cursor with the arrow keys to where you need to replace the number. Replace the "8" or the "6" with a "4" and then press "s" to save the file. Answer yes to saving and then wait for it to save. Now exit the program by pressing "q". You'll notice it created a backup file with the "~" extension on it incase you messed up the hex editing. Leave this backup file here for now. Continue on, nothing to see here.

Now on the VMWare server, make sure that all the files in the virtual machine directory are chmodd'd properly.

# cd /virtual machine/directory/

# chown user:group *
# chmod og=rwx *

Now you should be able to start your vm without any issues.

If it all works, feel free to delete the backup .vmdk~ that heme created for you.

Good luck!

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under Howtos, Local, Testing, Ubuntu 

New Facebook Application for voting on Asterisk Based Services and Applications.

July 15, 2008

Hi all,

Just a heads up, I've added a voting section for products, etc that work with Asterisk to the AsteriskWatch application on FaceBook:

http://apps.facebook.com/asterisk/

If you produce a product for Asterisk in any of the categories below and use FaceBook, you should log in and add your products.

* Low End VoIP Phones
* Mid Range VoIP Phones
* High End VoIP Phones
* Low Density ATA
* High Density VoIP Gateways
* Analogue Cards
* Basic Rate ISDN (BRI) Cards
* Primary Rate ISDN (PRI) Cards
* Rack Mount Servers
* Embedded Servers
* Asterisk Distributions
* Call Centre Software
* Screen Popping
* Monitoring
* Asterisk Config Management
* Asterisk GUIs
* Asterisk Websites

Users receive points for voting on the products and adding points to increase their ranking in the community. You can also get points for the following:

* 1-5 Patches accepted into Asterisk: 25 points
* 5-10 Patches accepted into Asterisk: 50 points
* Many Patches accepted into Asterisk: 120 points
* Documentation Written: 40 points
* Tech Support Given: 20 points
* Mailing List Support Given: 25 points
* Asterisk Version Supplied: 1 point
* Description Supplied: 1 point
* URL Given: 1 point
* 1st Favourite Asterisk Use Supplied: 1 point
* 2nd Favourite Asterisk Use Supplied: 1 point
* Invites to AsteriskWatch: 5 points each
* Written an Open Source application for Asterisk: 35 points
* Contributed to an Asterisk related Open Source project: 30 points
* Gave their vote for the Asterisk products: 1 point for each vote
* Added Asterisk Products: 3 point for each entry

The current leader is Steve Davies with 330 points.

Every product that is added to the database is also given a unique comments system so that users can respond with how they've found the products.

If you would like me to upload a photo to your database entry please send me a link to a small picture (will be changed to 150px) by adding a comment to the forum section.

Thanks for your time.

- --
Kind Regards,

Matt Riddell
Director

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under Fun, News, Programs, Testing 

Patch for app_asr.c: DTMF instead of goto

June 4, 2008

Hi to all

if someone of you is interested on it, i've changed the code of app_asr.c

With these patch you can use the ASR application to play DTMF tones,
so you can have your own AGI application that uses the ASR and manages
the DTMF tones without change the dialplan.

EXAMPLE

exten => 003,1,Ringing
exten => 003,2,Wait(3)
exten => 003,3,Answer
exten => 003,4,ASR(t5000c80l4,100,200:pippo,300:pluto,400:paperino)
exten => 003,5,Read(digito||3)
exten => 003,6,SayDigits(${digito})
exten => 003,7,Wait(30)

The old app_asr will send you to the 200,300 or 400 extension.

With the modified app_asr you will hear (and Asterisk can detects, via
AGI or dialplan) 200,300,400 DTMF tones.

You can find more information here.

http://www.kumbe.it/pagine/dettaglio/34/206.html

Bye

--
/*************/
nik600
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ccmanager
https://sourceforge.net/projects/reportmaker
https://sourceforge.net/projects/nikstresser

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under News, Testing 

APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional Review – Part 4

May 29, 2008

We've used this program quite a bit over the past few weeks off and on when we had time for proper testing. Please see our previous articles for more information on this program, and while you're at it, don't forget to upload your personal Asterisk Dialplan diagrams to our awesome sister site Rate My Dialplan.com, where you can rate and share your Asterisk Dialplans.

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Here's a screenshot of the program, and links to our previous three articles.

Overall, we found the program loads fast on our computers, and we had no issues with the licensing or usage in both the trial, and paid versions of the program. The program was easy to use for both us, and we feel that novices to Asterisk Dialplan creation could also grasp by viewing the sample Asterisk Dialplans, and reading the extensive documentation. Visual Dialplan Professional could use a few features as we found out, but not much more.

We Like!:

  • Fast
  • Easy To Use
  • Documentation
  • Great Samples
  • Price
 Issues:

  • A Few Screen Redraw Issues noticed
  • No Save as Image Capability
  • No Ability to view Overall Dialplan
  • No "Site Manager"
  • Missing Asterisk 1.6 Support
Overall: 4/5 Rating for APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional

As you can see, most of our issues are with features lacking, but who can blame APSTel, the core features are there, and all work wonderfully.

Even for users that are New to Asterisk will be able to understand this product and how it works. From creating simple home dial plans to extensive corporate call centers, APSTel Visual Dialplaner will help speed up the process for administrators.

The only drawback is no easy way to export the whole diagram to show upper management, I've been told this feature is forthcoming in the software, so I'm personally really looking forward to that. See our previous articles for more information on this program, and while you're at it, don't forget to upload your personal Asterisk Dialplan diagrams to our awesome sister site Rate My Dialplan.com, where you can rate and share your Asterisk Dialplans. Thanks for reading!

If you'd like to download APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional or Standard edition to give it a try yourself, please use these links.

Free APSTel Visual Dialplan Download from RatemyDialplan.com

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under News, Products, Programs, Testing 

Deploying Asterisk Dialplans with APSTel Visual Dialplan – Part III

May 29, 2008

Earlier, we spoke about the basic features of APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional, and some Advanced Features in part ii of our series. This article will deal with deploying your dialplan to a remote server. Remember, once you've created some dialplans to post them on our other site, Rate My Dialplan.com.

If you'd like to download APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional or Standard edition to give it a try yourself, please use these links.
Free APSTel Visual Dialplan Download from RatemyDialplan.com

One very interesting feature of APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional is the ability to remotely deploy your Asterisk Dialplan to your Asterisk Server.

This makes it very easy to test your Asterisk Dialplans out quickly and efficiently. We didn't run into any issues using this portion of the software, except for permissions on our Asterisk Box. We disallow root ssh logins, and because we have Asterisk running as its own user we are not able to securely modify /etc/asterisk and its files. So, we instead just deploy to a symbolic link in our home directory to a file in the Asterisk directory with the proper permissions.

Make sure you validate your Asterisk Dialplan before you deploy it to your remote Asterisk PBX Server. This will make the whole process go a lot smoother as we found out the hard way.

18

After your Asterisk Dialplan is validated, you'll want to first select the Deploy to server button, if you configured it in the first step it should show up here. If you didn't, like we did in our first article, you will have to create one now.

This is fairly straight forward, when you first click the new button on the deployment server selection window, you will then be given a window with the options you can configure. See below for screenshots. Here you see the initial window where you can select the servers you can deploy to.

16

When you click New and go on to the next window, you will be given the ability to configure your server's settings. You can also deploy locally, if you have a directory mapped to your Asterisk directory or other fancy things setup for this to work. We chose to use the SSH method as we felt it would be the most commonly used scenario when deploying Asterisk Dialplans using APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional.

The screen allows you to Name your connection, and set its options up. We went with the following for our configuration as seen in the screenshot below.

Name: Local PBX
Server: <your server>
Port: 22
Username: <your user>
Password: <your password>
File Name: <your path> e.g. /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
Confirm Deploy: <Yes>
Create Backup: <Yes>
Reload: <No - Have to set Permissions First if Yes>

You can also edit the reload command for Asterisk if required. As noted above, for the reload command to work, you'll either have to ssh in as the user you are running asterisk as (and give that user a shell). Or you will have to ssh in as root and have that enabled on your server. There are probably other ways around this, but we have not implemented it yet. Maybe in another article :).

17

After setting your deployment options for APSTel Visual Dialplan, you'll next be presented with a box to confirm the remote deployment of your Asterisk Dialplan. Just click yes, and it will do its thing.

19

Seconds later a confirmation window appears. The Asterisk Dialplan is successfully deployed to the server.

20

This process was very easy to complete and makes management of Asterisk Dialplans easier. You can verify the Deployed Asterisk Dialplan by editing the file, like this:

21

Stay tuned for the fourth in our series of articles on APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional for Asterisk Dialplan creation. In our final article, we'll actually review the product itself. Don't forget to upload all your Asterisk Dialplan diagrams to our hot sister site Rate My Dialplan.com.

If you'd like to download APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional or Standard edition to give it a try yourself, please use these links.

Free APSTel Visual Dialplan Download from RatemyDialplan.com

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under News, Products, Testing 

Advanced Features of APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional – Part II

May 28, 2008

In our Previous Article, , We spoke about the basics of the program. Here we'll briefly touch on some of the advanced features that we were able to edit using the APSTel Visual Dialplan professional program. Remember, you can use these diagrams on our sister site, Rate My Dialplan.com.

If you'd like to download APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional or Standard edition to give it a try yourself, please use these links.
Free APSTel Visual Dialplan Download from RatemyDialplan.com

While creating the visual Asterisk Dialplan, you can include multiple contexts that you have setup elsewhere, and you can also modify time conditions for said included contexts. We found this interface easy to use, and easy to get to. This may be a little daunting for beginners, but it's by no means impossible to figure out.

Here you see the include context windows, and the time conditions menu available for the included contexts, pretty nifty.

10

Back in the main interface of the program, after we've saved our Asterisk Dialplan we can see the "TestContext" context in the contexts screen of Visual Dialplan Professional. This is where your contexts will be displayed for you to see the flow of them, and to easily click on any of them to edit them. We found this intuitive and easy to understand.

11

Clicking down to the Global Variables window, this is where you would set any specific variables you need for your Asterisk Dialplan. Below we've created a basic sample to show what it looks like, remembering to delete it because it's obviously not valid and will break the Asterisk Dialplan validation when we go to upload it. This was easy to follow and made sense to us in terms of user interaction and usage.

12

Following the Global Variables window is the Channel Variables window. This is where some of the default channel values are set, and can be added on to. These don't need to be edited unless you know what you're doing. We left this alone for our sample context and Dialplan.

Here is a sample screenshot of the Channel Variables window in APSTel Visual Dialplan.

13

The last and final window available is the Macros window. This is where you would setup any Macros for use in your Asterisk Dialplans. Creating the Macros' can be a little daunting, and we'd recommend it to people with previous experience with Asterisk Dialplan Creation.

14

Here's a Screenshot of the Macro Window, and Visual Context Creation for said Macro. The options can be a little confusing, so take your time or ask an experienced Asterisk Technician about this one.

Editing your Asterisk Dialplan Properties can also be configured from the menu if you desire. Simple click the Properties option and you can enable basic features or disable them. The defaults are fine, we didn't have to touch this, and like it that way.

15

Stay tuned for the next article in the series where we're going to discuss deploying your Asterisk Dialplan to your remote Asterisk Server using APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional. Don't forget to upload your Asterisk Dialplan to Rate My Dialplan.com .

If you'd like to download APSTel Visual Dialplan Professional or Standard edition to give it a try yourself, please use these links.

Free APSTel Visual Dialplan Download from RatemyDialplan.com

Written by Voip Phreak · Filed Under News, Products, Testing 

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