Topic: Note on Asterisk DAHDI and kmdls

[SARK devs]

You can find the note on the wiki...

http://sarkpbx.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/AsteriskDahdi

Kind Regards

S

[David Harper]

Jeff, I think we may end up harvesting packages from atrpms and then serving them up from a custom Selintra repository, where we can control archiving and release policies. As it's all open source, you could use the SME mirror network rather than your own bandwidth. With regards to DAHDI, I think that SME 7.x will be around for a while yet, so it would be a good idea to have a DAHDI compatible SAIL release for 7.x IMHO.

[Teviot]

Jeff, I think we may end up harvesting packages from atrpms and then serving them up from a custom Selintra repository, where we can control archiving and release policies. As it's all open source, you could use the SME mirror network rather than your own bandwidth. With regards to DAHDI, I think that SME 7.x will be around for a while yet, so it would be a good idea to have a DAHDI compatible SAIL release for 7.x IMHO.

For what it is worth ... I like that idea and agree with it

[SARK devs]

Agreed but we don't know who to ask about using contibs mirrors

Best

S

[David Harper]

Charlie Brady would be best I think - either he is responsible for this or knows who is. You can use the forum messaging system to contact him, or file a bug and add his address (charlieb-contribs-bugzilla | AT | budge DOT apana DOT org DOT au) on the CC list - he haunts Bugzilla regularly (I mean this in a good way! ).

[Daniel B.]

DAHDI drivers have been pushed in smecontribs repo (I needed it for my FreePBX contrib). So it should now be available for the current SME Server kernel without problem.

[David Harper]

Thanks VIP-ire

I think that because SARK UCS is a controlled solution spanning multiple packages - SAIL, Zaptel/DAHDI, Asterisk, bristuff, mISDN - it requires that the maintainer (Selintra) be in control of a seperate repository. So if, for example, you update Asterisk in smecontribs for FreePBX, or the atrpms maintainer updates Zaptel for a newer kernel release, it doesn't break SARK as a unified solution.

That breakage is the big issue IMHO. SARK is a commercial-grade business solution; if every other yum update breaks it then it becomes very difficult to support.

[Daniel B.]

Thanks VIP-ire

I think that because SARK UCS is a controlled solution spanning multiple packages - SAIL, Zaptel/DAHDI, Asterisk, bristuff, mISDN - it requires that the maintainer (Selintra) be in control of a seperate repository. So if, for example, you update Asterisk in smecontribs for FreePBX, or the atrpms maintainer updates Zaptel for a newer kernel release, it doesn't break SARK as a unified solution.

I won't upgrade asterisk, nor DAHDI, these upgrades are according to ATrpms upgrades, just recompiled for SME Server.
Additionnaly, asterisk is more or less DAHDI version independant. (just like it was for zaptel), so it shouldn't be a big problem. Once SAIL is modified to use DAHDI instead of zaptel, everything should be ok.

That breakage is the big issue IMHO. SARK is a commercial-grade business solution; if every other yum update breaks it then it becomes very difficult to support.

FreePBX is also a commercial-grade product, even more used than SAIL (I mean globally, not specific to SME).

[David Harper]

I won't upgrade asterisk, nor DAHDI, these upgrades are according to ATrpms upgrades, just recompiled for SME Server.

Unfortunately atrpms upgrades have outpaced SAIL.

Additionnaly, asterisk is more or less DAHDI version independant. (just like it was for zaptel), so it shouldn't be a big problem. Once SAIL is modified to use DAHDI instead of zaptel, everything should be ok.

True, but one of the things about Linux development in general is that nothing tends to stay fixed for very long.... imho anyway.

FreePBX is also a commercial-grade product, even more used than SAIL (I mean globally, not specific to SME).

My mistake!

[SARK devs]

Thanks everyone,

It looks as tho' VIP-ire has already begun to harvest the rpms (at least 78.0.13 is there), for which - well done!

I'm a bit puzzled though... Why did you harvest Asterisk and the add-ons?.. and why only half of libpri?

Do you intend to continue this harvesting exercise or are these modules sufficient to your needs? 

...just recompiled for SME Server.

Why would you recompile the ATrpms rpms?..  Or have I misunderstood?

Kind Regards

S

[Daniel B.]

Hi.
In fact, I asked my contrib smeserver-freepbx, dahdi-linux(-kmdl), dahdi-tool, and misdn(-kmdl) to be imported in the buildsystem. You're right that only the kernel modules needs to be recompilled to match SME kernel. We can use directly the rpms from Atrpms (I used them a lot before). But the goal of the smecontribs repo is to include any dependencies needed by a contrib. As my freepbx contrib needs asterisk and some others tools, they were imported also.
There's still some componant missing (for example the chan_misdn rpm), I'll try to ask a developper to import it (well, to enable it during asterisk compilation in the build system), and the libpri srpm.
What other componant do you need for SAIL ?

I think it could be easier for you if all the needed dependencies are in smecontribs.

Cheers, Daniel

[David Harper]

Unfortunately the version of Asterisk in smecontribs (1.4.23) is incompatible with SAIL (which requires 1.4.21). This is what I mean about external factors creating issues. You update Asterisk for freepbx (perfectly legitimately) and it breaks SAIL.

Thus the need to have a seperate selintra repo, IMHO.

[SARK devs]

Maybe not...

FreePBX is a little ahead of us with their support for DAHDI.  But not by much.  In the end, Asterisk releases are a given.  We'll take another look at the workload requirement for DAHDI this weekend.  After all, we already have it running on SME 8.0, so it shouldn't be too big a stretch to backport it.

Best

S



 

   

[SARK devs]

Basic 8.0->7.3 backport is done.  We have tested on Digium, OpenVox and Atcom TDM cards without issue.  Deliverables will be -720+ releases, expect stable by around -725.  These releases will support CentOS4 and CentOS5 (SME7.4 and 8.0).  In keeping with our "lightweight" philosophy for SARK/SAIL, we have managed to remove about 800 lines of code from the base as part of the change.  We also made the decision that this release will NOT be dual purpose (DAHDI/Zaptel), it will be DAHDI ONLY, so it may be released as 2.2.2-720.  FreePBX have committed to dual purpose but in our view this will simply make the product "heavier" and more difficult to support, especially in view of the fact that 1.4.22 was the only Asterisk dual release and Zaptel won't run with 1.4.23 (the current release).   

We can use any available DAHDI release which matches whichever kernel you have.  This means that you can use the Firewall Services Contribs archive as long as they update it to include libpri.

New install instructions will be posted to the Wiki upon release, which is expected late this week/early next.

S







 

[David Harper]

Great, thanks for the update Selintra.