I hope this is not opening a big can of worms, as I am sure there are a lot of different opinions about this, but:
For a low/no growth company looking for a long term, low maintance, basic phone system (Calls, Hold, Transfer, Park, Conference), what is the best stable release of Asterisk to use?
Even worse question to ask, what is the best Linux ditro to run Asterisk on?
"What is CentOS?
CentOS is an Enterprise Linux distribution based on the freely available sources from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Each CentOS version is supported for 7 years (by means of security updates). A new CentOS version is released every 2 years and each CentOS version is regularly updated (every 6 months) to support newer hardware. This results in a secure, low-maintenance, reliable, predictable and reproducible Linux environment."
So if you don't want major upgrades for a while you might want to go with the latest version. To put it into Microsoft terms... the minor version is like a service pack. So CentOS 4.7 is really a base lined version 4, service pack 7. You get the new features in major releases (like there are no more "smp" kernels in 5 to deal with)
-Jonathan
On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Jimmy Ezell <jezell@hmhca.com (jezell@hmhca.com)> wrote:
Quote:
Quote:
On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 01:07:25PM -0700, Jimmy Ezell wrote:
> multi-processor machine ( I had to remember to specify smp
for the kernel)
I repeat: why bother with such an old system? Really?
Recall the comment from the book. That book had nothing really specific
to Centos 4. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot by
installing Centos4
now?
(not to mention Zaptel)
--
Tzafrir Cohen
Tzafrir thanks for the comments. I am not done playing with this and in the end I may well use newer software as you suggest.
According to wikipedia CentOS 4.7 was released OCT. 2008 (7 months ago) is that really consider that old? I am looking to setup a phone system that I would hope would not require any major software upgrades for many years.
Jimmy
>
_______________________________________________
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:07 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
Since you opened this “Can-O-Worms”, Digium “implicitly” endorses Scientific Linux and SVN branches using Zaptel, based on my findings from SwitchVox. This being said, I’d probably go with 1.4.21.X since anything above that replaces zaptel with DAHDI. There are still a lot of things “To be worked out” in DAHDI – Zaptel is a pretty solid standard. I’d stay away from OpenSUSE and any other distro that releases new releases more than every 6 months.
From:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jimmy Ezell
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:49 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
I hope this is not opening a big can of worms, as I am sure there are a lot of different opinions about this, but:
For a low/no growth company looking for a long term, low maintance, basic phone system (Calls, Hold, Transfer, Park, Conference), what is the best stable release of Asterisk to use?
Even worse question to ask, what is the best Linux ditro to run Asterisk on?
"[b]What is CentOS?[/b]
CentOS is an Enterprise Linux distribution based on the freely available sources from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Each CentOS version is supported for 7 years (by means of security updates). A new CentOS version is released every 2 years and each CentOS version is regularly updated (every 6 months) to support newer hardware. This results in a secure, low-maintenance, reliable, predictable and reproducible Linux environment."
So if you don't want major upgrades for a while you might want to go with the latest version. To put it into Microsoft terms... the minor version is like a service pack. So CentOS 4.7 is really a base lined version 4, service pack 7. You get the new features in major releases (like there are no more "smp" kernels in 5 to deal with)
-Jonathan
On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Jimmy Ezell <jezell@hmhca.com (jezell@hmhca.com)> wrote:
>On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 01:07:25PM -0700, Jimmy Ezell wrote:
>
>> multi-processor machine ( I had to remember to specify smp
>for the kernel)
>
>I repeat: why bother with such an old system? Really?
>
>Recall the comment from the book. That book had nothing really specific
>to Centos 4. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot by
>installing Centos4
>now?
>
>(not to mention Zaptel)
>
>--
> Tzafrir Cohen
Tzafrir thanks for the comments. I am not done playing with this and in the end I may well use newer software as you suggest.
According to wikipedia CentOS 4.7 was released OCT. 2008 (7 months ago) is that really consider that old? I am looking to setup a phone system that I would hope would not require any major software upgrades for many years.
Jimmy
Quote:
_______________________________________________
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Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 12:58 -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
This being said, I’d probably go with 1.4.21.X since anything above
that replaces zaptel with DAHDI. There are still a lot of things “To
be worked out” in DAHDI – Zaptel is a pretty solid standard.
It continues to amaze me when I hear this, as there really isn't much
difference between Zaptel and DAHDI. In fact, the only two differences
I know about are:
1) The name change
2) Making software echo can modules able to be loaded on a per-channel
basis
3) DAHDI will continue to be developed, Zaptel will not
I've been using DAHDI in both my personal systems and in the Asterisk
training classes I teach for more than six months now, and I have yet to
find any reason not to use it. If you're having problems with DAHDI,
mind sharing the specifics of what those are?
I've also been using the 1.6.0 branch of Asterisk, and it's been *much*
more solid than the 1.4 branch for me and the things I use. It's not to
say there haven't been some quirky little bugs, but overall I've been
very happy with it.
As far as Linux distributions go, I'd say go with whatever you're most
comfortable with, and will have the best chance of supporting over the
long term. I personally like RHEL and CentOS, but Debian or Ubuntu LTS
would be great choices as well, as they all have *years* worth of
updates rather than months.
(Please read these comments as own opinion, and not necessarily being
officially endorsed by my employer.)
--
Jared Smith
Training Manager
Digium, Inc.
_______________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:39 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
There are over 100 open items on the Digium board related to DAHDI. I'm
sure quite a few are "chair-to-keyboard" issues, but here are two real ones:
1. DAHDI will not look for a connection when dialing, so if I make a call
and play a file, X percent of the file plays before the person actually (if
ever) answers the phone.
2. DAHDI (IMO and IME) is more difficult to tune than Zaptel.
I'm certain that DAHDI will be solid and great in a few years; It just
doesn't seem to be yet.
Zaptel isn't the "end all" either; I upgraded to 1.4.25-rc1 because I
couldn't get zaptel to tune sufficiently on 1.4.21.2. We use POTS for our
outgoing service and haven't gotten satisfactory results with DAHDI or
Zaptel on TDM400 and TDM410.
I've spent probably 4 1/2 of my 8 months exposure to Asterisk just trying to
get the sound right on calls.
-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 1:18 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 12:58 -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
This being said, I'd probably go with 1.4.21.X since anything above
that replaces zaptel with DAHDI. There are still a lot of things "To
be worked out" in DAHDI - Zaptel is a pretty solid standard.
It continues to amaze me when I hear this, as there really isn't much
difference between Zaptel and DAHDI. In fact, the only two differences
I know about are:
1) The name change
2) Making software echo can modules able to be loaded on a per-channel
basis
3) DAHDI will continue to be developed, Zaptel will not
I've been using DAHDI in both my personal systems and in the Asterisk
training classes I teach for more than six months now, and I have yet to
find any reason not to use it. If you're having problems with DAHDI,
mind sharing the specifics of what those are?
I've also been using the 1.6.0 branch of Asterisk, and it's been *much*
more solid than the 1.4 branch for me and the things I use. It's not to
say there haven't been some quirky little bugs, but overall I've been
very happy with it.
As far as Linux distributions go, I'd say go with whatever you're most
comfortable with, and will have the best chance of supporting over the
long term. I personally like RHEL and CentOS, but Debian or Ubuntu LTS
would be great choices as well, as they all have *years* worth of
updates rather than months.
(Please read these comments as own opinion, and not necessarily being
officially endorsed by my employer.)
--
Jared Smith
Training Manager
Digium, Inc.
_______________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:28 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 01:32:58PM -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
There are over 100 open items on the Digium board related to DAHDI.
Which is because people use it. I wonder which of those are actually
regressions from before the DAHDI times (not that others are less
serious. But this is what i relevant to your argument)
Quote:
I'm
sure quite a few are "chair-to-keyboard" issues, but here are two real ones:
1. DAHDI will not look for a connection when dialing, so if I make a call
and play a file, X percent of the file plays before the person actually (if
ever) answers the phone.
Bug number?
I can think of a number of reasons why such a thing should happen (for
good reasons).
Quote:
2. DAHDI (IMO and IME) is more difficult to tune than Zaptel.
Please be more specific. Any examples?
The only usability regression I can think of is that you have to
explicitly add 'echocancel' lines to /etc/dahdi/system.conf for every
channel, whereas in Zaptel there was one hardwired EC. I tried to give a
reasonable workaround for those who use dahdi_genconf .
Quote:
I'm certain that DAHDI will be solid and great in a few years; It just
doesn't seem to be yet.
Zaptel isn't the "end all" either; I upgraded to 1.4.25-rc1 because I
couldn't get zaptel to tune sufficiently on 1.4.21.2. We use POTS for our
outgoing service and haven't gotten satisfactory results with DAHDI or
Zaptel on TDM400 and TDM410.
Asterisk 1.4.x should work well with Zaptel. If it doesn't, it's a bug.
At the moment I can't think of any such issues in 1.4.25-rc1 or later.
Could you please be more specific?
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
There are actually 793 items, so I guess a lot of folks are using it. The
bug number for #1 is 14935. I developed a similar app that was working
great in the 1.4.21/Zaptel environment, but is now iffy at best in the
1.4.25/1.6 environment.
I'll tune my asterisk for 2-3 days, then turn my users loose and within 2-3
days have to shut down again because some customer can't talk to my boss
from his cell or a landline. I don't have $2K and 3 days to go to
Huntsville to figure this out.
-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Tzafrir Cohen
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:22 PM
To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 01:32:58PM -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
There are over 100 open items on the Digium board related to DAHDI.
Which is because people use it. I wonder which of those are actually
regressions from before the DAHDI times (not that others are less
serious. But this is what i relevant to your argument)
Quote:
I'm
sure quite a few are "chair-to-keyboard" issues, but here are two real
ones:
Quote:
1. DAHDI will not look for a connection when dialing, so if I make a call
and play a file, X percent of the file plays before the person actually
(if
Quote:
ever) answers the phone.
Bug number?
I can think of a number of reasons why such a thing should happen (for
good reasons).
Quote:
2. DAHDI (IMO and IME) is more difficult to tune than Zaptel.
Please be more specific. Any examples?
The only usability regression I can think of is that you have to
explicitly add 'echocancel' lines to /etc/dahdi/system.conf for every
channel, whereas in Zaptel there was one hardwired EC. I tried to give a
reasonable workaround for those who use dahdi_genconf .
Quote:
I'm certain that DAHDI will be solid and great in a few years; It just
doesn't seem to be yet.
Zaptel isn't the "end all" either; I upgraded to 1.4.25-rc1 because I
couldn't get zaptel to tune sufficiently on 1.4.21.2. We use POTS for our
outgoing service and haven't gotten satisfactory results with DAHDI or
Zaptel on TDM400 and TDM410.
Asterisk 1.4.x should work well with Zaptel. If it doesn't, it's a bug.
At the moment I can't think of any such issues in 1.4.25-rc1 or later.
Could you please be more specific?
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 8:40 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 14:47 -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
The bug number for #1 is 14935. I developed a similar app that was working
great in the 1.4.21/Zaptel environment, but is now iffy at best in the
1.4.25/1.6 environment.
If this is an analog line connected to an FXO port, then Asterisk has no
way of telling whether or not the remote party has answered the call or
not. This is entirely due to the way analog signaling works, and works
exactly the same under both Zaptel and DAHDI.
--
Jared Smith
Training Manager
Digium, Inc.
_______________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 9:17 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
Clearly the problem is related to option #1. Change confuses some people. :-)
Quote:
It continues to amaze me when I hear this, as there really isn't much
difference between Zaptel and DAHDI. In fact, the only two differences
I know about are:
1) The name change
2) Making software echo can modules able to be loaded on a per-channel
basis
3) DAHDI will continue to be developed, Zaptel will not
Quote:
Best Regards,
Dave Walker
DAMC Consulting
(866) 598-4352
(602) 410-3210
Microsoft MCTS SQL 2005, MCSA, MCSE, MCDBA, Cisco CCNA, .NET+, A+, Security+, Linux+, Dell Certified
http://www.dogatemycomputer.com
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 1:28 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
I beg to differ with you Jared. Since I don't have your email, I'll post
this here. Create this call file.
Channel: DAHDI/g1/5551212
CallerID: SIP/104
MaxRetries: 1
WaitTime: 60
retryTime: 5
Application: playback
Data: /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/you-sound-cute
On my "test" machine using a TDM400P, the playback would occur in a manner
such that the user would only get 50-70 percent of the message.
Changing 5551212 to a cell phone number would create another 5 to 10 percent
loss of message.
Changing DAHDI/g1/5551212 to a local SIP extension would deliver the message
in its entirety.
On my "live" machine (TDM410P), the DAHDI call actually waits for a
connection, then plays the message after a 1/2 second pause, so I STAND
CORRECTED, AT LEAST SORT OF. The bug is reproducible on the TDM400P but not
TDM410P.
Here is dahdi_cfg from test box
DAHDI Tools Version - 2.1.0.2
Setting echocan for channel 1 to mg2
Setting echocan for channel 2 to mg2
Setting echocan for channel 3 to mg2
I'll stand down on this one and await your feedback.
-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 4:34 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 14:47 -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
The bug number for #1 is 14935. I developed a similar app that was
working
Quote:
great in the 1.4.21/Zaptel environment, but is now iffy at best in the
1.4.25/1.6 environment.
If this is an analog line connected to an FXO port, then Asterisk has no
way of telling whether or not the remote party has answered the call or
not. This is entirely due to the way analog signaling works, and works
exactly the same under both Zaptel and DAHDI.
--
Jared Smith
Training Manager
Digium, Inc.
_______________________________________________
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 4:04 pm Post subject: [asterisk-users] Best Current Release for Long Term Use
On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 09:24:02AM -0500, Danny Nicholas wrote:
Quote:
I beg to differ with you Jared. Since I don't have your email, I'll post
this here. Create this call file.
Channel: DAHDI/g1/5551212
CallerID: SIP/104
MaxRetries: 1
WaitTime: 60
retryTime: 5
Application: playback
Data: /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/you-sound-cute
On my "test" machine using a TDM400P, the playback would occur in a manner
such that the user would only get 50-70 percent of the message.
Changing 5551212 to a cell phone number would create another 5 to 10 percent
loss of message.
Changing DAHDI/g1/5551212 to a local SIP extension would deliver the message
in its entirety.
On my "live" machine (TDM410P), the DAHDI call actually waits for a
connection, then plays the message after a 1/2 second pause, so I STAND
CORRECTED, AT LEAST SORT OF. The bug is reproducible on the TDM400P but not
TDM410P.
Here is dahdi_cfg from test box
DAHDI Tools Version - 2.1.0.2
Is this a regression from the past (some version of Zaptel)?
This is not merely a matter of casting the blame. If it is a regression,
it should be interesting to trace where is the exact point of
regression, which should help fix the problem.
It is aparantly a bug in the wctdm driver (TDM410P uses wctdm24xxp). Do
you have a "good" and a "bad" sample to compare alongside? It should be
interesting.
A good start would be to enable full debugging at Asterisk. This should
include all events sent from Zaptel/DAHDI to chan_zap / chan_dahdi.
Comparing the "good" and the "bad" should give a useful insight.
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