Thoughts, ramblings and rants…
We’ve put some time aside over the last week to do a major UI overhaul on ViMbAdmin – specifically incorporating Twitter’s superb Bootstrap framework. The before an after’s tell a lot about this.
Over a Open Solutions, we’ve put some time aside over the last week to do a major UI overhaul on ViMbAdmin – specifically incorporating Twitter’s superb Bootstrap framework. The before an after’s tell a lot about this. Here’s how it was:
And here’s the new improved look:
We’ve also closed a lot of bugs, improved the functionality and navigation and added a couple of small features.
Let us know what you think!
A howto on installing Asterisk with SS7 supported via libss7 on Sangoma hardware along with support for ISUP SAM messages.
After much head banging in bringing up an SS7 link with SAM support, I am documented what worked here.
Firstly, what is SAM support? One end of an SS7 link initialises a new call by sending an Initial Address Message (IAM). All SS7 software stacks support this and usually it’s enough. One case where it’s not enough is when one wants to address a phone number with more than the E.164 standard max length of 16 Â (usually to pass additional information tacked on the start, end of or even replacing an A or B number). In this scenario, SS7 uses a Subsequent Address Message (SAM)Â to send the additional digits. Most / all mainstream Asterisk SS7 software stacks do not support this.
The platform and software used is as follows:
Yes, I know some of the above are obsolete. Unfortunately it’s what’s required for everything to play nicely together. And, guess what, it works!
Ensure you have all the necessary packages for building the packages:
apt-get install build-essential libnewt-dev subversion \ libsqlite3-dev libsnmp-dev bison libtool flex \ autoconf2.13 libmysqlclient-dev
You can assume the working directory is /usr/local/src in the following.
Download and extract dahdi-linux-complete into /usr/local/src. Then, in the same directory, create some symbolic links:
ln -s dahdi-linux-complete-2.4.0+2.4.0/linux dahdi-linux ln -s dahdi-linux-complete-2.4.0+2.4.0/tools dahdi-tools
Now build dahdi-linux:
cd dahdi-linux make make install
Now move onto dahdi-tools:
cd dahdi-tools ./configure make menuconfig # (and select tools or accept defaults) make make install make config
There is a patched version of Digium’s libss7 referred to as Attila’s libss7 available via SVN. Download and install it:
svn co https://observer.router.hu/repos_pub/libss7/trunk alibss7 cd alibss7 make make install
Download and extract the Asterisk 1.6.0.28 package reference above.
cd asterisk-1.6.0.28
Now this next bit is very important and easy to miss – you also need a patched version of chan_dahdi.c that is compatible with the patched version of libss7. This is also available from SVN:
svn co https://observer.router.hu/repos_pub/chan_dahdi/trunk achan_dahdi
Then copy it to your Asterisk source:
cp achan_dahdi/chan_dahdi.c asterisk-1.6.0.28/channels/chan_dahdi.c
Now continue with the Asterisk installation:
./configure make menuconfig make make install make samples make config
Download and unpack the above referenced add ons package and build and install:
cd asterisk-addons-1.6.0.6 ./configure make menuconfig make make install make samples
I’m using one of Sangoma’s E1 / T1 interface cards and so I need Wanpipe also. I’m using version 3.5.24 and preceed as follows after unpacking:
cd wanpipe-3.5.24./Setup install
During the install, follow these prompts:
We now need to set various options in Wanpipe, Dahdi and Asterisk for SS7 as it’s PRI/ISDN by default.
Edit all /etc/wanpipe/wanpipeX.conf files as necessary and change:
 TDMV_DCHAN        = 16
to
TDMV_DCHAN Â Â Â Â Â Â Â = 0
Now edit /etc/dahdi/system.conf and change (for example):
span=1,1,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4 bchan=1-15,17-31 echocanceller=mg2,1-15,17-31 hardhdlc=16
to
span=1,1,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4 bchan=2-31 echocanceller=mg2,2-31 mtp2=1
which of course assumes signalling is on channel 1. If you have voice only links, you might need something like:
span=1,0,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4bchan=1-31 echocanceller=mg2,2-31
Lastly, we need to configure Asterisk. Replace lines such as:
;Sangoma A102 port 1 [slot:4 bus:5 span:1] switchtype=national context=from-pstn group=0 echocancel=yes signalling=pri_cpe channel =>1-15,17-31
with an appropriate configuration. Mine follows below with some edits and some important notes at the end:
;Sangoma A102 port 1 [slot:4 bus:5 span:1] switchtype=national context=from-pstn group=0 echocancel=yes signaling=ss7 ss7type=itu ss7_called_nai=dynamic ss7_calling_nai=dynamic ss7_internationalprefix=00 ss7_nationalprefix=0 ss7_subscriberprefix= ss7_unknownprefix= linkset=1 pointcode=1 adjpointcode=2 defaultdpc=3 networkindicator=national_spare cicbeginswith=2 channel=2-31 sigchan=1
Now start wanrouter (/etc/init.d/wanrouter start); dahdi (/etc/init.d/dahdi start); and Asterisk (/etc/init.d/asterisk start). You should see your link come up via logs available with the dmesg command. Launch the Asterisk console and check the status of your links:
ast-deg1-1*CLI> ss7 show cics 1
CIC DPC DAHDI STATE BLOCKING
2 3 2 Idle
3 3 3 Idle
4 3 4 Idle
5 3 5 Idle
6 3 6 Idle
7 3 7 Idle
8 3 8 Idle
9 3 9 Idle
10 3 10 Idle
11 3 11 Idle
12 3 12 Idle
13 3 13 Idle
14 3 14 Idle
15 3 15 Idle
16 3 16 Idle
17 3 17 Idle
18 3 18 Idle
19 3 19 Idle
20 3 20 Idle
21 3 21 Idle
22 3 22 Idle
23 3 23 Idle
24 3 24 Idle
25 3 25 Idle
26 3 26 Idle
27 3 27 Idle
28 3 28 Idle
29 3 29 Idle
30 3 30 Idle
31 3 31 Idle
You should now be okay to make test calls.
While I will try to respond to comments and questions on this blog, I don’t have the time to provide one on one assistance pro-bono. Professional consultancy on Asterisk and SS7 is available worldwide through my company, Open Solutions with contact details here.
For posterity, I have added Domjan Attila patched libss7 and chan_dahdi to GitHub:
We create a lot of Nagios installations for our own systems over, for customer systems which we manage and as a service over at Open Solutions. We’ve written a lot of custom Nagios plugins over the years as part of this process.
We are now making a concerted effort to find them, clean them, maintain them centrally and release them for the good of others.
To that end, we have created a repository on GitHub for the task with a detailed readme file:
They main goal of Nagios plugins that we write and release are:
--verbose on new kit. This will provide an inventory of what it finds as well as show anything that is being skipped. OIDs searched for by the script but reported as not supported on the target device should really be skipped via various --skip-xxx options.--help or -?Over the past ten years I have left many many new and hacked Nagios plugins on many servers around the globe. I’m now making a concerted effort to find them, clean them, maintain them centrally and release them.
To that end, I have created a repository on GitHub for the task with a detailed readme file:
As a starting point, there are four plugins available now:
…and I’m bloody delighted.Â
The straw finally came when Nick forced my hand for a project we wanted to release through our work in INEX. I was pushing for Google Code but he had his heart set on GitHub. Now, in fairness, GitHub has some SVN bindings but after some research, I decided to dive right in.
Now, there’s both a steep learning curve but also a complete change of mindset required from centralised source code management (SCM) with SVN to the distributed model of Git. In the end, most projects will decide on a canonical Git repository anyway which pushes you slightly back towards centralised but there’s still a world of a difference.
So, what’s so good about Git? Well, lots. But first and foremost is it’s exceptionally powerful yet simple branching and merging that just works. And works fast – remember, with Git everything is local.
One work flow that used to kill me in SVN was that you’d be implementing feature X but someone needed bug Y fixed immediately involving some of the same code. Getting just the fix for Y in was tough and complicated. And branching in SVN isn’t quick or simple. In Git, I branch from the main development branch for every new feature, bug fix, etc and then merge what I need between them and back into develop when they’re ready to be pushed back to the agreed canonical repository.
I’ve been so impressed with Git that I’ve moved an open source project we created in Open Solutions over to Github: ViMbAdmin. I’ve also forced the rest of my team in Open Solutions over to Git and migrated a number of customer projects already. And we’re reaping productivity rewards!
How we work Git for projects was taken from this excellent post which I would fully recommend:Â A successful Git branching model.
About two weeks ago, my company released an internal software project, ViMbAdmin, as open source under a GPL3 license. So far the reception has been great for a project we just put out there. We have over ten third party installs and are getting good feedback and activity on the Google Code platform where we host it.
ViMbAdmin (pronounced vim-be-admin) is essentially a modern replacement for PostfixAdmin – a web based interface which will allow you to manage virtual mailboxes, virtual domains and aliases.
We have a live demo which you can access here. You can also browse screenshots by clicking the image on this page.
ViMbAdmin was written in PHP using our own web application framework which includes the Zend Framework, the Doctrine ORM and the Smarty templating system with JQuery on the frontend.
The decision to use Smarty, Doctrine and Zend unfortunately adds a bit of overhead for someone installing the product as they will also need to locate these third party libraries. Fortunately:
ViMbAdmin can work as a slot in replacement for Postfix Admin with a few MySQL ALTER statements.
We hope it’s of use to you!
We’ve just published the first in a serious of hidden treasures articles from our ViMbAdmin application over on the company blog:
In this first of a serious of articles where we delve into some of the hidden treasures in our ViMbAdmin application, we look at how to integrate Doctrine ORM with Zend – and specifically Zend_Application and Zend_Controller.
As all the code is available with the GPL license online, I didn’t over explain the set-up but I’d love some feedback on whether I’ve been too obscure for the article to be useful at all.
In this first of a serious of articles where we delve into some of the hidden treasures in our ViMbAdmin application, we look at how to integrate Doctrine ORM with Zend – and specifically Zend_Application and Zend_Controller.
In this article we delve into our ViMbAdmin application and we look at how to integrate Doctrine ORM with Zend – and specifically Zend_Application and Zend_Controller.
The first assumption (and requirement) we are going to make is that you are using Zend_Application. If you want to see a working application set up and configured for this, please checkout or browse our ViMbAdmin source code – which we’ll reference throughout this document.
Zend Application has a resource framework which allows us to bootstrap various resources on demand. We have created a Doctrine resource for this very purpose which you can download from here (and you may need to edit the class name and change the plugin path in the config code below to match your setup). Our implementation does many things:
We the add various configuration parameters to the application.ini file:
Or the following where $application is the instance of Zend_Application:
$application->getBootstrap()->bootstrap( 'doctrine' );
From that, you can use Doctrine to your hearts content!
We also have a Doctrine CLI script which works from the same resource. See:
http://code.google.com/p/vimbadmin/source/browse/trunk/bin/doctrine-cli.php
Open Solutions are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our latest free and open source web application, ViMbAdmin, a web based interface which will allow you to manage mailboxes, virtual domains and aliases.
Open Solutions are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our latest free and open source web application, ViMbAdmin (vim-be-admin). ViMbAdmin is a web based interface which will allow you to manage mailboxes, virtual domains and aliases.
ViMbAdmin is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3, or (at your option) any later version.
ViMbAdmin was entirely funded by Open Solutions and developed by our staff. If you find this application of value, please consider making a donation to our chosen charity.
Do you want to see it in action? We have a live demo which you can access here. You can also browse screenshots by clicking the image on this page.
ViMbAdmin was written in PHP using our own web application framework which includes the Zend Framework, the Doctrine ORM and the Smarty templating system with JQuery on the frontend.
ViMbAdmin is hosted on its own Google Code project page where you can find documentation, browse the source code and access our Subversion repository. We have set up a Google Groups discussion group and you can read our ViMbAdmin blog posts.
ViMbAdmin can work as a slot in replacement for Postfix Admin with a few MySQL ALTER statements.
I always find it difficult to find a good reference for RANCID debugging strategies and, after spending the afternoon on doing same on one installation, put together my own list.
I always find it difficult to find a good reference for RANCID debugging strategies and, after spending the afternoon on doing same on one installation, put together my own list.
Note that in the following, I use clogin and rancid which assumes a Cisco device. Change to the appropriate variations if you’re not trying to work with a Cisco.
> clogin rtr1.example.com
> clogin -t 90 -c"show version" rtr1.example.com
> clogin -t 90 -c"show version;show calendar" rtr1.example.com
> rancid -d rtr1.example.com
If the above throws some errors (especially a list of missed commands, and if you’re using TACACS, ensure you have authorisation to run all the commands RANCID tries but logging into the router as the RANCID user and executing them one at a time.
> setenv NOPIPE YES > rancid -d rtr1.example.com
and then complete output can be found in the file:Â rtr1.example.com.raw (in this example).
> /usr/local/bin/rancid-run [tree]
> /usr/local/bin/rancid-run