Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:17 am Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
making do with an older machine that has lost use of
it's hard drive.
Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
every few years is starting to make me think, who
needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:49 am Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
I'm just getting onto a similar path - although not with Asterisk.
When you say diskless, do you mean booting from a read-only device, or do you
mean netbooting of some sort.
The big question, is what do you have available for storage?
There are lots of nice ways to make asterisk get configuration from a network,
and return logs and CDRs there. Are you doing everything on a local CF card?
If that be the case, perhaps a file-backed ram disk for things like CDR and
voicemail data. This could be set up to periodically write back to the flash
memory. You could make it save the data on shutdown, but an unclean shutdown
would cause you to lose voicemail and CDR information.
Either way, lots of ram is important.
If you are doing this on a scrap computer, you can pick up an IDE to CF card
adaptor pretty cheap (around $20) and build it on a CF card. Then when you
do get that Soekris machine, just move the card over.
Good luck with it!
-Tim
On Sunday 06 April 2008 22:08, Frank Griffith wrote:
Quote:
Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
making do with an older machine that has lost use of
it's hard drive.
Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
every few years is starting to make me think, who
needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
___________________________________________________________________________
_________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of
Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:19 am Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
look at the askozia project for 1. the 2nd is you can extend the life of your
drive by turning off cacheing in the kernel and not using a swap partition on
you system. 3rd is a minimal kerney and software. to lessen seek times.
askozia does this for the most point. and it boot off a cf/sd/micro/usb hd.
On Sunday 06 April 2008 19:08:03 Frank Griffith wrote:
Quote:
Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
making do with an older machine that has lost use of
it's hard drive.
Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
every few years is starting to make me think, who
needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
___________________________________________________________________________
_________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of
Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 8:18 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
"Tim St. Pierre" <tim@communicatefreely.net> wrote:
Quote:
I'm just getting onto a similar path - although not with Asterisk.
When you say diskless, do you mean booting from a read-only device, or do you
mean netbooting of some sort.
The big question, is what do you have available for storage?
There are lots of nice ways to make asterisk get configuration from a network,
and return logs and CDRs there. Are you doing everything on a local CF card?
If that be the case, perhaps a file-backed ram disk for things like CDR and
voicemail data. This could be set up to periodically write back to the flash
memory. You could make it save the data on shutdown, but an unclean shutdown
would cause you to lose voicemail and CDR information.
Either way, lots of ram is important.
If you are doing this on a scrap computer, you can pick up an IDE to CF card
adaptor pretty cheap (around $20) and build it on a CF card. Then when you
do get that Soekris machine, just move the card over.
Good luck with it!
-Tim
On Sunday 06 April 2008 22:08, Frank Griffith wrote:
Quote:
Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
making do with an older machine that has lost use of
it's hard drive.
Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
every few years is starting to make me think, who
needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
___________________________________________________________________________
_________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of
Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
I'm doing this via pxeboot over my LAN. The root-path is stored on a machine with several big hard drives so finding the space for Asterisk to write it's files to is not an issue. Except I haven't advanced the bootless process to get past the read-only stage. Setting up a read-write partition is no problem, but getting the diskless machine to read-write to is is not as eazy as I first thought. Still I believe it is possible as so many other people say they've done it. So I keep slugging through the docs and testing and hacking. I really want to do this without any drive or flash cards. This way my * box does not need to worry about spinning a hard drive 24/7 just to be able to answer my phone calls.
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:39 am Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
Asterisk can get / write nearly all it's dynamic data from a database, making
a read-only partition quite useable.
You can do voicemail using ODBC last i checked. CDRs can be written to a
database easily. Your root partition does not have to be writeable - you
could mount an NFS share once things were up and running, and put your
voicemail there (probably easier than DB storage of voicemail.
On Tuesday 08 April 2008 17:12, Frank Griffith wrote:
Quote:
"Tim St. Pierre" <tim@communicatefreely.net> wrote: I'm just getting onto
a similar path - although not with Asterisk.
When you say diskless, do you mean booting from a read-only device, or do
you mean netbooting of some sort.
The big question, is what do you have available for storage?
There are lots of nice ways to make asterisk get configuration from a
network, and return logs and CDRs there. Are you doing everything on a
local CF card?
If that be the case, perhaps a file-backed ram disk for things like CDR and
voicemail data. This could be set up to periodically write back to the
flash memory. You could make it save the data on shutdown, but an unclean
shutdown would cause you to lose voicemail and CDR information.
Either way, lots of ram is important.
If you are doing this on a scrap computer, you can pick up an IDE to CF
card adaptor pretty cheap (around $20) and build it on a CF card. Then when
you do get that Soekris machine, just move the card over.
Good luck with it!
-Tim
On Sunday 06 April 2008 22:08, Frank Griffith wrote:
> Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
> did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
> past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
> and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
> got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
> advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
> to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
>
> Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
> machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
> after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
> making do with an older machine that has lost use of
> it's hard drive.
>
> Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
> advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
> system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
> every few years is starting to make me think, who
> needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
>__ _________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of
> Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
> http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> Asterisk-BSD mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-bsd
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
Hi Frank,
On 4/6/08, Frank Griffith <glassdude45@yahoo.com> wrote:
Quote:
Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
I'm actually very interested in this work, as I did have a working setup at
one time, but have been thinking about going back and setting this up again.
Quote:
Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
making do with an older machine that has lost use of
it's hard drive.
Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
every few years is starting to make me think, who
needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
There are two things that you need to consider.
First is configuration. Diskless, in one way or another, means that
you will only
have scarce local storage. I used to use floppies for this, as they were cheap
easy to deploy. Nowadays I'd think about USB sticks. You woldn't need much
for configs, considering that 512MB seems to be the smallest they are selling
now.
The other thing is things generated from processes, like logfiles and voicemail
and CDR's. If these aren't important, then you can even forgo them. You might
want them, and someone else mentioned a database, but you could even
do it with a network mount of some sort. I used NFS in my deployments,
but SAMBA is also an option nowadays (if locking can be done
properly).
I'd love to help/contribute and test. Let me know if you'd like to
co-ordinate efforts.
Thanks,
Gerald.
_______________________________________________
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
asterisk has not been tested on 8.0 and we are just testing on 7.0.
On Wednesday 09 April 2008 14:02:46 Gerald A wrote:
Quote:
Hi Frank,
On 4/6/08, Frank Griffith <glassdude45@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but I
> did loads of experimenting with diskless setup this
> past week. Getting past all the outdates docs, typos
> and bad information was difficult, but this weekend I
> got the diskless client to boot and got some of the
> advanced configuration done with it. And I even got it
> to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
I'm actually very interested in this work, as I did have a working setup at
one time, but have been thinking about going back and setting this up
again.
> Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
> machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough left
> after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so I'm
> making do with an older machine that has lost use of
> it's hard drive.
>
> Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
> advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
> system but the thought of having to buy hard drives
> every few years is starting to make me think, who
> needs them when the diskless process could take their place.
There are two things that you need to consider.
First is configuration. Diskless, in one way or another, means that
you will only
have scarce local storage. I used to use floppies for this, as they were
cheap easy to deploy. Nowadays I'd think about USB sticks. You woldn't need
much for configs, considering that 512MB seems to be the smallest they are
selling now.
The other thing is things generated from processes, like logfiles and
voicemail and CDR's. If these aren't important, then you can even forgo
them. You might want them, and someone else mentioned a database, but you
could even do it with a network mount of some sort. I used NFS in my
deployments, but SAMBA is also an option nowadays (if locking can be done
properly).
I'd love to help/contribute and test. Let me know if you'd like to
co-ordinate efforts.
Thanks,
Gerald.
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
--- Gerald A <geraldablists@gmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
Hi Frank,
On 4/6/08, Frank Griffith <glassdude45@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but
I
> did loads of experimenting with diskless setup
this
> past week. Getting past all the outdates docs,
typos
> and bad information was difficult, but this
weekend I
> got the diskless client to boot and got some of
the
> advanced configuration done with it. And I even
got it
> to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
I'm actually very interested in this work, as I did
have a working setup at
one time, but have been thinking about going back
and setting this up again.
> Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
> machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough
left
> after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so
I'm
> making do with an older machine that has lost use
of
> it's hard drive.
>
> Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
> advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
> system but the thought of having to buy hard
drives
> every few years is starting to make me think, who
> needs them when the diskless process could take
their place.
There are two things that you need to consider.
First is configuration. Diskless, in one way or
another, means that
you will only
have scarce local storage. I used to use floppies
for this, as they were cheap
easy to deploy. Nowadays I'd think about USB sticks.
You woldn't need much
for configs, considering that 512MB seems to be the
smallest they are selling
now.
The other thing is things generated from processes,
like logfiles and voicemail
and CDR's. If these aren't important, then you can
even forgo them. You might
want them, and someone else mentioned a database,
but you could even
do it with a network mount of some sort. I used NFS
in my deployments,
but SAMBA is also an option nowadays (if locking can
be done
properly).
I'd love to help/contribute and test. Let me know if
you'd like to
co-ordinate efforts.
Thanks,
Gerald.
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by
http://www.api-digital.com--
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To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
Thanks for your replie everyone. This is something
I've been trying for quite a while and need a little
more technical advice to get working.
First off, Richard is right, 8.0-CURRENT is not the
test bed we should be using. It's running quite well
on my main server doing dhcpd, apache, etc...it also
it doing a nice job playing mp3's and soothing my work
hours using an FM radio card. The only thing I've
noticed so far with 8.0-CURRENT is the pesky debug
messages that keep coming up, but that's the way the
developers get input for help. I recompiled the kernel
for the diskless machine with debugging turned off but
if we do this then I have no problem building a
7.0-RELEASE or -STABLE machine.
Gerald, yes I would be glad to colaborate with you and
lets see how far we can get it. I'm in the * chat room
on freenode once in a while. Let's set up a time to
meet there and then start talking about how to
proceed. I will wager that Richard and some others
will be willing to offer seasoned advice.
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Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:23 pm Post subject: [Asterisk-bsd] Diskless Asterisk Server
--- Gerald A <geraldablists@gmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
Hi Frank,
On 4/6/08, Frank Griffith <glassdude45@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Okay, I know I'm probably pushing the envelope but
I
> did loads of experimenting with diskless setup
this
> past week. Getting past all the outdates docs,
typos
> and bad information was difficult, but this
weekend I
> got the diskless client to boot and got some of
the
> advanced configuration done with it. And I even
got it
> to work with 8.0-CURRENT.
I'm actually very interested in this work, as I did
have a working setup at
one time, but have been thinking about going back
and setting this up again.
> Of course, now I would like to setup a diskless
> machine to run Asterisk. I don't have any dough
left
> after paying my income tax to buy a Soekris box so
I'm
> making do with an older machine that has lost use
of
> it's hard drive.
>
> Can anyone offer me some pointers on how I could
> advance this process. I like asterisk as my phone
> system but the thought of having to buy hard
drives
> every few years is starting to make me think, who
> needs them when the diskless process could take
their place.
There are two things that you need to consider.
First is configuration. Diskless, in one way or
another, means that
you will only
have scarce local storage. I used to use floppies
for this, as they were cheap
easy to deploy. Nowadays I'd think about USB sticks.
You woldn't need much
for configs, considering that 512MB seems to be the
smallest they are selling
now.
The other thing is things generated from processes,
like logfiles and voicemail
and CDR's. If these aren't important, then you can
even forgo them. You might
want them, and someone else mentioned a database,
but you could even
do it with a network mount of some sort. I used NFS
in my deployments,
but SAMBA is also an option nowadays (if locking can
be done
properly).
I'd love to help/contribute and test. Let me know if
you'd like to
co-ordinate efforts.
Thanks,
Gerald.
_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by
http://www.api-digital.com--
Asterisk-BSD mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
Oh yes, the reason I mentioned the FM radio card is
that our office has local FM radio stations running
for their moh but we don't use *. I'm eventually after
an * server that will use the sound card as it's
source for moh...and guess what I'm piping through my
sound card right now...my favorite local FM radio
stations. I've read about how someone did this with *
using Linux. Perhaps it can be done with FreeBSD too.
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