Topic: user Authenticate (Accountcodes) on SAIL (Selintra)

[yorchis]

Hi, I have been working happily with SAIL/Selintra on SME7 for serveral months now, and I still havent been able to set up codes on per user basis, so their personal call history can be identified/billed/reviewed  . Thats why the "accountcode" column on STAT (CDR) listing is always empty.

I cant believe such a super enterprise function has been left out of SAIL/Selintra, So I know I am missing something. How could this be done?

On a regular Asterisk I just set the first line of a route on extensions.conf to something like:

exten => _9XXXXXXX,1,Authenticate(/etc/asterisk/local|a)

where /etc/asterisk/local is just a plain text file full of codes ( 4 digit numbers actually)

but I cant do this on SAIL, because extensions.conf gets overwritten.

What I would like to know is how do I set codes (passwords) on routes or outbound lines with SAIL? is it possible?

Thank you.

[SARK devs]

I cant believe such a super enterprise function has been left out of SAIL/Selintra, So I know I am missing something. How could this be done?

Hi Yorchis,

First of all - don't assume we know anything about anything!  You've intrigued us with this so please explain in more detail what you want to do and why it is useful.  We've always got a bit of time to add new features and the SAIL architecture usually makes it fairly easy for us to add stuff.

looking forward to learning more about this and thanks for the post.

Kind Regards

Selintra

[yorchis]

Hi Selintra, thank you for your fast answer. I was out of office and havent been able to check your replay sooner.

I have been Installing asterisk servers for over two years now. And you are absolutely right, I think most of us, fell on believing that, what clients ask of us, Is what clients all over the world ask for.  

This is what I want to do:
1. A user picks up the phone and dials  9 + OutsideNumber
2. Asterisk asks "password please"
3. If password is correct the user the call is completed, if not Asterisk asks for password again
4. Best of all is "account code" or password is written down on the  CDR files, and then if each user has its own password, you have a very detailed calling control on per user basis. (or per group if one wishes)
 
Ahhh and other great sideline of this method is that With this same code I may choose who has call rights on per "route" basis, just by pointing the "password" file to a diferent file for each "route"... I just keep the allowed passwords and remove the ones from users who are not allowed to call international (for example)

 Besides it provides great friendly security, on avoiding (or dis-encouraging) hackers to hack a sip account and gain free unlimited calls.


If you wish I could post my code for doing this... well why wait... here it is:

;Local phone calls
exten => _9XXXXXXX,1,Authenticate(/etc/asterisk/local|a)
;exten => _9XXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNK}/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _9XXXXXXX,3,Congestion
exten => _9XXXXXXX,102,Background(tt-allbusy)
exten => _9XXXXXXX,103,Goto(t,2)

;National
exten => _901XXXXXXXXXX,1,Authenticate(/etc/asterisk/National|a)
exten => _901XXXXXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNK}/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _901XXXXXXXXXX,3,Congestion
exten => _901XXXXXXXXXX,102,Background(tt-allbusy)
exten => _901XXXXXXXXXX,103,Goto(t,2)

;International Calls
exten => _9001XXXXXXXXXX,1,Authenticate(/etc/asterisk/International|a)
exten => _9001XXXXXXXXXX,2,Dial(${TRUNK}/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _9001XXXXXXXXXX,3,Congestion
exten => _9001XXXXXXXXXX,102,Background(tt-allbusy)
exten => _9001XXXXXXXXXX,103,Goto(t,2)

[01 and 001 are the National, and international calling prefixes of my Telephone company]

so Local, National, and International files just have plain text file with numeric passwords... Now, for example, if one user is allowed to call anyware... his password ( "account code") will be repeated on the 3 files.

I am sure the "account code" function is great.   , and it will be useful to many SAIL users.

Merry Chritmas... by the way.

[yorchis]

Hi Selintra, please dont forget the account codes, This is such an easy thing to implement, you have just to add a single line on the extension definition, and a way to have control of this accountcodes from the web interface.... a plain file will do... accountcodes arent linked to any user, you just put a bunch of numbers (codes) and tell every user just his own code, so he has to dial his account code when this is asked for.

If you can have serveral lists, and assign one per  ROUTE definition, It would be really really GREAT. Even a very low end panasonic pbx has the ability to assign calling codes so you can spare them between the users... and have them dial them to gain outgoing access, so you can see what each user calling history was.

Thank you

[yorchis]

just add this line

exten => _9XXXXXXX,1,Authenticate(/etc/asterisk/local|a)

where /etc/asterisk/local is a plain text list of numbers!
and _9XXXXXXX is the route to external calling


or add the Authenticate section on the AGI script...

[SARK devs]

Hi

I haven't sanctioned this code yet.  For a couple of reasons...

We've NEVER seen this anywhere in the UK.  That's not to say it doesn't exist but we have no demand for it.  Typing in a passcode on every dial would be such a productivity killer that most companies simply wouldn't use it even if it were available and most employees would hate it with a passion.  

Perhaps it might be useful in a calling card environment but we already support authentication for dial-in/dial-out (DISA) and we'd be happy to extend that for you.

Finally, it isn't a simple fix.  We would want to implement such a feature selectively, probably by extension, so there'll be implications for the web code and the generator/database handler.  Also, a true "presence" implementation may be a better solution, where an employee/agent/associate logs into a phone at session start and logs out at session end or after a fixed period of inactivity.  Our lead designer prefers this approach but I don't want to jump until we see what others (like Microsoft and Digium) are doing with presence.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but this will have to wait its turn -   unless a paying customer asks for it (then we'll do it in a flash - ).  We will get 'round to it, but right now most of our activity is going into the OpenSER SIP Stack integration.  Maybe in a month or so....

If there are others who feel this feature is a big necessity then please shout up and we'll bump it up the priority list.


Kind Regards

Selintra

[yorchis]

Hi, sounds great anyway.

I am very amazed, you say you've NEVER seen this anywhere in the UK. But on USA and Mexico, I cant recall any company, where you can just pickup a phone  and dial home... you need a code, for anything except calling another extension.

This is the way it was at my College, you need to have a teacher code to get to call anyware, and Teachers need a long distance code to make insterstate calls, and international calls were not allowed to anyone... except from certain areas. (The Director's and Principal's office for example... and they also did need a code)

I definitively agree users may hate this function... =) but Bosses ask for it, at least each and everyone on Mexico, and I bet on every country where calling out of your city is charged per minute! ( here we are charged 12cents Euro per minute, and 30c of EURO per minute to USA, 1 Euro to any other country, Imagine someone leaving accidentally a phone offhook for several hours!)

I agree, this function need to be applied selectively, its not for every single call,  its for outgoing calls on per route basis, (well this is the way It had to be done on the "regular" PBXs I had configured,  well I was mainly just panasonic programmer)

What did you mean by a paying customer? are there any sail "commercial" customers allowed to ask for some tailoring? (I know the appliance but not a software for sale) or would this need to be kind of a special project?

Extending DISA sounds great for me Thank you, but what do you have in mind that could help us achieve a similar function?

Thank you again!

I will be happy to wait, I hope something similar gets to the SAIL code soon.
The "presence" concept also sounds really good, for call centers and so. But for call control its a soft lock. But a lock is a lock! =)

[SARK devs]

Thanks Yorchis,

We had no idea that this feature was so widely used.

Anyone else want to chip in?  Is such a feature is used in your country/company/organization?

Please let us know.

Kind Regards

Selintra

[hervep]

Hi all,

Here is the belgian feedback .
This kind of particular feature is also used in belgium, most of the time where a set is to be used by different 'guests'.
Hospitality & Healthcare business is asking for such features, but most of the time with some extended integration ' Checkin - Checkout ' method for Hotels, Account code ( also called PIN code ) for the hospitals.
These are ( to my opinion ) LOB's that are not (yet) compatible with some 'asterisk/openpbx' standard 'product'. Maybe hospitality 'project' based, certainly not 'healthcare' at this stage. Sail V3 is ( again to my opinion ) the first step making such kind of integration 'possible'.

Kind regards,

Herve

[sonoracomm]

This is a common, even expected, feature in the US at businesses.

G

[yorchis]

Thank you sonoracom and hervep for your support, I hope more and more people who finds this function usefull could please post a reply too. So we may have the importance of this feature stand out.

I know this function would be of use to lots of people and countries.
I see the topic is looked at very often, we have at this moment over six hundred hits, (thats shows lots of people interested I presume) If you are also interested please post something like "It will also be usefull here at  [country]"

I hope we can see this soon on SAIL!

kind regards.

[activepc]

I am new in the asterisk environment and could not believe that the pin codes option is not available in asterisk.

In South Africa our cost to phone local is high and for a company to "sponsor" the calls will be a killer.  

About 99% of our customers a pin code or some type of authentication is needed so that he / she can be billed for the calls made.

The A2billing programs would be excellent but it must be modified to cater for small code 4 characters or whatever .

Thanks
Pieter

[SARK devs]

OK - we know when we're beaten!  

We'll look at this for a near release.

Thanks everyone for your input

Kind Regards

Selintra

[activepc]

Hi

I used this authentication on a regular asterisk and it is asking for a password but the message told me to enter password and press pound. Hmmm I found out that the Americans call the # the pound key.  But the # key is not working. Must i activate the use of the # key ... I tried this with  different phones but no go .....it does work perfectly with with softphone ....

Thanks

[yorchis]

Hi Selintra this are very good news... hope to see the release with Account Codes very soon.
Thank you for your support to other countries necesities.

ActivePC: Im sorry but think this probably isn't the best place to have your question answered. Since you are looking for a regular asterisk "support" (not selintra's) I will recommend looking at http://forums.digium.com/ or www.asterikguru.com good luck!