Topic: asterisk zaptel (zappri) and yum updates

[SARK devs]

Hi all,

As you may or may not know, the Digium analogue card driver "zaptel" is very sensitive to the kernel release.  Up to now this has meant a re-compile of zaptel and a new rpm every time there is a kernel change (which seems to happen fairly frequently in the CentOS/SME7 world).

The current zappri rpms were compiled with the 2.6.9.34.EL and .ELsmp kernels.  However, if you apply the latest yum update to your system then you will end up with 2.6.9.34.0.2.EL and .ELsmp which won't work.  Unfortunately, we (selintra) simply don't have the bandwidth to produce and test rpms as quickly as you would like.  JonB has been hammering me about this for a couple of weeks now.  So here are the options...

apply your yum updates.
 
Option 1

Simply start SME with the 2.6.9.34.EL kernel by pressing the space bar at the splash screen and choosing the 34.EL or 34.ELsmp kernel.

This appears to work fine for the limited testing we've been able to do.

Option 2 (asterisk-zappri-MPP users)

Apply the following change at the SME Server console (this won't work for anabri users)

If you are running .EL....

Code: [Select]


[box]# cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.EL/extra/ /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.0.2.EL
[box]# depmod


if you are running .ELsmp....

Code: [Select]


[box]# cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.ELsmp/extra/ /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.0.2.ELsmp
[box]# depmod


Asterisk should now start and run normally.

Option 3 (anabri-asterisk-zappri users)

Apply the following change at the SME Server console (this won't work for none anabri users)

Code: [Select]


[box]# cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.EL/misc/ /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.0.2.EL
[box]# depmod


Asterisk should now start and run normally.

These fixes have only been tested on the 0.2 kernel release but ymmv.  We'll publish new rpms as soon as we have the bandwidth and we'll test the fixes with any new kernels which come along (they should be OK for minor releases but we can't guarantee).

Kind Regards

Selintra

[del]

Hi Selintra,

I have tried all these options but asterisk still doesn't start at boot up
I can manually start it using the command: /etc/init.d/asterisk start
and of course it will be OK until the next reboot. I have pressed the space bar and tried every option and it is still the same
Any ideas? I am using: smeserver-asterisk-zappri-MPP-1.2.6-1.i686.rpm which I believe is the latest one. Thanks.

Regards,
Del

[chris burnat]

I have tried all these options but asterisk still doesn't start at boot up Crying or Very sad
I can manually start it using the command: /etc/init.d/asterisk start

Have you installed tftp?
Just been down this road, installing tftp solved the problem.
Regards
chris

[gregswallow]

There are zaptel kernel modules here, and are likely to be kept up to date:
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/zaptel/

atrpms also packages asterisk and other related rpms.

[del]

Hi both,

Burnat,

Have you installed tftp?
Just been down this road, installing tftp solved the problem.

I installed this before the updates, do I need to reinstall?

Greg,

There are zaptel kernel modules here, and are likely to be kept up to date:
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/zaptel/

atrpms also packages asterisk and other related rpms.

thanks for the link I will check it out.

Regards,
Del

[del]

Hi Greg,

There are zaptel kernel modules here, and are likely to be kept up to date:
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/zaptel/
atrpms also packages asterisk and other related rpms.

Will these work with sme or do they need compiling?

Thanks,
Del

[SARK devs]

Hi

Asterisk start-up problems are unlikely to be cured by adding and removing rpms.  In order to determine why it isn't starting first disable it (so you can watch a controlled startup)

config setprop asterisk status disable

Now reboot your system

When it has come up and settled down attempt to start asterisk

/etc/init.d/asterisk start

Now, you should see why it isn't starting. For what it's worth, I'm guessing it is timing out waiting for udev.  However, let's wait and see.

RE the ATrpms asterisk/zaptel rpms, this is the first I've seen of them, however a quick look at the Asterisk SPECS file clearly shows that they know what they are doing.   I have a few reservations (e.g. different zaptel rpms for UP and SMP) but if they are as good as they look we may simply roll over to using them for SARK/SAIL.

[gregswallow]

Jeff, You may want to look at:
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/yum-plugin-kmdl/
I don't know how it works, but I think it's integral with the kernel modules.  I don't know if the smeserver-yum rpm templates support it, but there's a yum.conf repository option called includepkgs that you could use to add the atrpms repository, but allow yum to download only the rpms you choose from it (ie, the kernel modules).
 
There are some other noarch rpms here (including asterisk-sounds, which you probably package as well):
http://atrpms.net/dist/common/

[SARK devs]

Thanks Greg

Yup - it looks as though they've done a good job.  For us, it would make our lives a whole lot easier if we knew that some other kind souls were delivering high quality asterisk rpms.  I'll kick off an exercise tomorrow (monday) to evaluate these packs in the SME environment.  

Kind Regards and thanks

Jeff

[del]

Hi Jeff,
I did this:

config setprop asterisk status disable

Now reboot your system

When it has come up and settled down attempt to start asterisk

/etc/init.d/asterisk start

and as you said it came up with

waiting for udev

and about 15 seconds later it came up with

starting asterisk  [OK]

And of course Asterisk is OK until next reboot
Any suggestions?

Regards,
Del

[SARK devs]

Jeff, You may want to look at:
http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/yum-plugin-kmdl/

Hi Greg

We've had a good play with these rpms and we are pretty pleased with them.  We've had to add a new rpm of our own in order to ensure that moprobes happen automatically before asterisk is started and so that we didn't have to mod these vanilla items.  

The only problem now is that they only run with the very latest Kernel, which sme doesn't have yet.  However, as soon as that happens we'll cut over to these.

Thanks again for bringing them to our attention.

Best

Jeff

[gregswallow]

Yup, I guess make sure you download those as theyy come out - atrpms doesn't keep much of an archive anywhere that I know of.

By the way, if you are brave you can enable the smeupdates-testing repo and the -42.0.2 kernel is there.  It's pretty safe.

[SARK devs]

Thanks Greg,

I have 42.0.2 running on our bleeding edge server and it seems to be fine.  

When do you estimate it coming into the regular yum update?

Best

Jeff

[gregswallow]

> When do you estimate it coming into the regular yum update?
Not sure...
http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1972

[Tib]

selintra,

Now that the latest kernel ver is up will you be releasing your latest setup for this problem?

I've got around the startup problem for now with a slight mode to your origional post: -

Code: [Select]


cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.EL/misc/ /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.2.EL

depmod

or

Code: [Select]


cp -r /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.ELsmp/extra/ /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.0.2.ELsmp

depmod


Regards,

Tib

[SARK devs]

Hello Tib,

Thanks for the workaround.  You are quick off the mark!  42-02 has only just become available.    We'll put this onto the docs Wiki.

Officially, for the 42-02 release, we will go over to the atrpms asterisk releases.  Thereafter, the intention is to use their rpms.  We just have one small problem to iron out with this which we should have a fix for in a week or so.

Kind Regards

Selintra