LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: Marie.O on October 24, 2008, 11:04:47 am

Title: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Marie.O on October 24, 2008, 11:04:47 am
I wonder how many people are using the telecom (asterisk) part of LinuxMCE. How do you like it? Does your HDD fill up with all your old mailbox messages, or do you clean them out.

Inquisitive minds want to know.

Thanks

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: bulek on October 24, 2008, 01:05:15 pm
Hi,

I'm trying to use it daily, although have always a bit of hazardous expectation whether Asterisk will die or not (since I'm using Cisco 7970 this happens quite often)...

IMHO, call routing is a bit too complex for user to setup. I usually create two "dummy" users, Housephone and Doorphone and then reroute incoming calls to them and use only call routing for them...

What I spot is that voicemails are currently not sent by email and are also hard to delete... I have an separate plain old POTS line with telephone in parallel to Cisco 7970 and must admit that members of my family still like old phone more... Didn't figure it out why...

I do like possibility to connect to Asterisk from work and receive calls normally as being home...

Regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: samuelmukoti on October 24, 2008, 03:00:28 pm
I love the Asterisk/Telecom features that LMCE brings.  I immediately bought Grandstream GXW4104, and set it up for my analog calls (since i dont have VOIP service in my country) i also got a Broadvoice account all my international FREE calls.  I'm loving it.

Can't wait for my N810 to arrive so i can use it as a SIP Phone too...

I would love it if some things worked better, and whole experience was better, e.g. how incoming calls are handled when watching a movie etc..

But for now, i absolutely love having Asterisk bundled with LMCE!

Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: tschak909 on October 24, 2008, 03:58:46 pm
Right now,  certain features are only available with the SimplePhone on the media directors. Namely, since SimplePhone is a DCE device, it can emit DCE events to tell the system to pause a movie, etc. This is not currently possible with phones connected to the Asterisk DCE device. It's made more interesting by the fact that not all phones emit reliable off hook information in a vendor-neutral manner.

As of now, I attach a Phoenix Solo USB conference mic to each media director, and use that as my phone, dialing from the orbiter as appropriately.

-Thom
 
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: golgoj4 on October 24, 2008, 06:13:15 pm
1. Use broadvoice every day with a linksys ata, works great
2. I setup my pots line, but i dont use it, was more for testing

All in all, it works pretty well IMO, there are some small bugs but no deal breakers.

-golgoj4
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Marie.O on October 24, 2008, 06:20:15 pm
[..]As of now, I attach a Phoenix Solo USB conference mic to each media director, and use that as my phone, dialing from the orbiter as appropriately.

Did you modify the SimplePhone app to support the USB mic?

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: tschak909 on October 24, 2008, 06:23:26 pm
yeah, I still have some work to do to make it packageable for others, but yeah. :)

-Thom
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: golgoj4 on October 24, 2008, 07:50:08 pm
there was ONCE that i was able to use regular mic's connected to the 1/8 input that worked on md's but not the core/hybrid. Very odd...
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: bulek on October 24, 2008, 09:24:34 pm
...

As of now, I attach a Phoenix Solo USB conference mic to each media director, and use that as my phone, dialing from the orbiter as appropriately.

-Thom
 
Hi,

thanks for info. That reminded me also that I'm searching for the mic that could be attached under TV's MD and be usable for telephony. All ordinary micrs for only on max 1 m distance. Are there any other recomendable microphones that would pick your voice from couch approx 3m away at decent quality ? 

I remember reading about Crown PZM mics and doing speech recognition in smart home environment with them, but AFAIK, they we're connected to really expensive conference amplifier...

Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: tschak909 on October 24, 2008, 09:28:36 pm
As I said, now I am using a USB conference mic. In my case, the Phoenix Solo.

I still need to do a number of modifications to the SimplePhone to make it more hospitable for normal use, but it is possible.

-Thom
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: skeptic on October 24, 2008, 10:12:48 pm
I pretty much don't use my home phone (POTS), but keep it around for faxing.  I've been meaning to switch to asterisk/LMCE but it doesn't appear to be a simple 5 minute setup, and I've been distracted with MAME :) and possible UI stuff.

I guess I'm just posting because while I voted "don't use it" I am interested in it and I'll be following any new related threads.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: golgoj4 on October 24, 2008, 10:56:49 pm
I pretty much don't use my home phone (POTS), but keep it around for faxing.  I've been meaning to switch to asterisk/LMCE but it doesn't appear to be a simple 5 minute setup, and I've been distracted with MAME :) and possible UI stuff.

I guess I'm just posting because while I voted "don't use it" I am interested in it and I'll be following any new related threads.

if you have an ip phone, i would actually file it as a simple 5 min setup.
my linksys ata took no time to configure as an extension
my sip clients on computers took more time to install than setup.

A couple things i am interested in and have been trying to figure out on my own

1. How do i integrate faxes? Asterisk seems to be capable of this, but im learning it slowly as im doing a lot a once.
2. Changing the default message to one you record / upload. I have tried this multiple times, but it appears broken. Italics are there because im more than likely missing something.
3. Thom mentioned about the 'off hook' bit. Which really doesn't concern me terribly.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: skeptic on October 25, 2008, 03:42:05 am
hmmm...  Maybe i should take another look at it then.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Marie.O on October 25, 2008, 10:29:31 am
1. How do i integrate faxes? Asterisk seems to be capable of this, but im learning it slowly as im doing a lot a once.

There are a couple of ways. hylafax is one way, recvfax is another project tightly integrated with Asterisk. How ever, keep in mind, if you receive your calls over VoIP, you won't have much success with faxes.
Quote
2. Changing the default message to one you record / upload. I have tried this multiple times, but it appears broken. Italics are there because im more than likely missing something.

How did you try to record new greetings, and what greetings are these?

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: dlewis on October 25, 2008, 02:12:35 pm
I've seen many posts around the issue of having a second firewall layer (before the LinuxMCE firewall) and having issues with Asterisk. I've read a few docs on the net and I think I might have some up with a possible "solution"... (DISCLAIMER: I have not tried this myself since I don't have LinuxMCE currently set up. It might not work, so try at your own risk) Thanks goes to the voipcoop.org guys for supplying this information:

If you are behind a NAT firewall, you may need to open the following ports to your FreePBX box: For IAX protocol, UDP (NOT TCP) port 4569 (IAX). For SIP protocol, UDP (NOT TCP) port 5060 (SIP) AND ports 10001-20000 (RTP, must also be defined in /etc/asterisk/rtp.conf). All these ports are *UDP*, opening the *TCP* ports will NOT help anything and may expose your system needlessly.

If behind a NAT, create an /etc/asterisk/sip_nat.conf file with AT LEAST these three lines: 1) nat=yes 2) externip=your.external.IPaddess (or externhost=your.external.hostname) 3) localnet=192.168.0.0/24 (assuming your network uses 192.168.0.x addresses). Then "asterisk -rx sip reload" at the CLI.

For firewalls in general, go here: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+firewall+rules

This would seem to work for SIP, but I don't know about SCCP. Can anyone try this and let us know? Thanks!

-D
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Marie.O on October 25, 2008, 03:46:15 pm
dlewis,

thank you for your pointers. Especially the part with sip_nat.conf is clearly described in the wiki ;)

As this is ONLY relevant for calls leaving your network, and calls coming into your network, I don't think that SCCP is relevant here. At least I don't know an ITP providing SCCP services.

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: deffcon on October 26, 2008, 11:00:02 am
Hi,

Does someone has experience with orange livebox, what is h.323?

Dave
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: jeangot on October 29, 2008, 07:01:05 am
Hi,

I used asterisk before as the only phone service for my house (meaning i don't have a pots line anymore), and I now use Asterisk in linuxmce. It is very reliable and does not crash. I was able to setup emailing of voicemails via the Freepbx admin pannel. You can even tell it to email the voicemail and delete it from the mailbox. I was meaning to try and setup fax reception, which seems to be available in freepbx, but didn't get around to it yet.
There also seems to be a linuxmce event for receiving new voicemails and even one for when the mailbox is full, so it's possible to trigger certain events based on voicemail reception from within lmce (such as turning on a light somewhere for example).

The only problem  face is that when the phone rings while I am watching MythTV or a Video, the video or Tv will systematically stop and exit, instead of pausing, and simplephone will not display, which is very frustrating.
Other users do not seem to hav ethis problem and I did not find any difference with my system when comparing to other users in a thread a while ago. I was hoping that this may be fixed in 0810 when it comes out...

Dave: to answer your question, H323 is a different protocol for the transmission of voip calls, like sip or IAX. SIP and IAX are supported in Asterisk natively (hence also in Linuxmce) but H323 is not without special plugins. Also, less and less carriers are supporting H323, and while it is, in my opinion, a superior protocol from a telecom perspective, sip is better suited to deal with NAT situations of end users.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: bulek on October 29, 2008, 04:31:05 pm
Hi,

I used asterisk before as the only phone service for my house (meaning i don't have a pots line anymore), and I now use Asterisk in linuxmce. It is very reliable and does not crash. I was able to setup emailing of voicemails via the Freepbx admin pannel. You can even tell it to email the voicemail and delete it from the mailbox. I was meaning to try and setup fax reception, which seems to be available in freepbx, but didn't get around to it yet.
...

Hi,

can you please describe your procedure on Wiki, I'm sure it will ge helpful to other users. I was also considering to dig in to send voicemails on email, but didn't start yet. Your description would help a lot...

Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: samuelmukoti on October 30, 2008, 05:54:38 am
Hi,

I used asterisk before as the only phone service for my house (meaning i don't have a pots line anymore), and I now use Asterisk in linuxmce. It is very reliable and does not crash. I was able to setup emailing of voicemails via the Freepbx admin pannel. You can even tell it to email the voicemail and delete it from the mailbox. I was meaning to try and setup fax reception, which seems to be available in freepbx, but didn't get around to it yet.
...

Hi,

can you please describe your procedure on Wiki, I'm sure it will ge helpful to other users. I was also considering to dig in to send voicemails on email, but didn't start yet. Your description would help a lot...

Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.


The nice thing is that LMCE includes nice & mature technologies like Asterisk & FreePBX, so their well documented else where too.. Because of this the voicemail -> email setup - its quite easy and is on the "Extensions module"  when ever you create/edit currenly existing extensions you can define this kind of rules - natively supported by FreePBX.  For extensions that have been automagicaly been provisioned by LMCE, look for extensions start with "Px_xxx" (i think, away from my LMCE box ATM)

here's a link: http://www.freepbx.org/support/documentation/module-documentation/extensions

hope that helps,

Sam

Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: bulek on October 30, 2008, 10:58:47 am

The nice thing is that LMCE includes nice & mature technologies like Asterisk & FreePBX, so their well documented else where too.. Because of this the voicemail -> email setup - its quite easy and is on the "Extensions module"  when ever you create/edit currenly existing extensions you can define this kind of rules - natively supported by FreePBX.  For extensions that have been automagicaly been provisioned by LMCE, look for extensions start with "Px_xxx" (i think, away from my LMCE box ATM)

here's a link: http://www.freepbx.org/support/documentation/module-documentation/extensions

hope that helps,

Sam


Hi,

thanks for info... I know about FreePBX, but there is currently a bit of a problem to setup voicemail via email properly under LMCE (correct me if I'm wrong).  Of course, there is easy PBX of setting voicemail & email for existing extensions, but under LMCE only physical extensions appear under FreePBX and not extensions for users...

Under LMCE, every user gets its internal extension, that starts from 300... And those extensions don't appear in FreePBX. So when you try to use Call routing from Web-Admin, you can only select to go to voicemail for existing USERS (not extensions). So that's why I'm interested exactly what you did...

If you take a look at web-admin interface, then you'll see that each user has a tick for Email-Voicemail, but nowhere to specify email address. And in /etc/asterisk/voicemail.conf there are entries for each user, but no email address is specified - which is expected cause I cannot see where to enter it...

But what I tried is to add email address manually to /etc/asterisk/voicemail.conf and it doesn't work. So that's why I'm interested in your setup details...

Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: randomfeelings on October 30, 2008, 02:35:48 pm
I'm trying to use it daily, although have always a bit of hazardous expectation whether Asterisk will die or not (since I'm using Cisco 7970 this happens quite often)...

Oh, that's a shame, just bought a couple of 7970s so I could use them as orbiters also! Is anyone else experiencing this with 7970s, is there a known problem?
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: tschak909 on October 30, 2008, 02:37:32 pm
it doesn't happen very often, maybe for me once every couple of months, typically restarting asterisk fixes it. It has to do with a small bug in chan_sccp.

-Thom
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: hari on October 30, 2008, 05:52:28 pm
we should switch from sccp to sip...

best regards,
Hari
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: tschak909 on October 30, 2008, 06:12:48 pm
so long as we keep the feature set and orbiter push works, i'm game.

-Thom
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: hari on October 30, 2008, 06:27:55 pm
orbiter works on sip. I've tested that on 0704. There is only one difference, the phone cannot be provisoned with chan_sccp any more, so we have to create proper SEPxxx.cnf.xml files with the lines and such (like for the 7960).

We also have to use 7.0.2 SIP firmware iirc, as the newer ones had problems with asterisk.

best regards,
Hari
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Marie.O on October 30, 2008, 08:00:29 pm
I assume the user does not really care, if the phone runs SIP or SCCP, as long as it works.

I don't know, if it is the protocol, or the phone, but I have two phones on my desk. A Snom 360 running SIP and a Cisco 7970 running SCCP. The Cisco phone rings 1-2 seconds before the Snom. That's the only difference I have seen so far.

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: hari on October 30, 2008, 08:16:26 pm
i had no "speed" problems when using the 7970 with sip and asterisk :-)
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: cesarscav on November 03, 2008, 03:41:15 am
Does someone have it run it on 7.10 rc2 AMD64.?
no system recordings sounds. No voicemail answer, no music on hold, no IVR heard, no system sounds at all
any ideas on this?
every thing else works great phone calls in and out.

 
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: jeangot on November 03, 2008, 05:23:02 pm
Cesarscav,

I had the same problem on an AMD64. It had something to do with the way Asterisk uses ztdummy as a timer. My "solution" and I wouldn't call it a real solution was to rename:
/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/misc/ztdummy.ko
into
/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/misc/ztdummy.ko.noload
on the core, that way this library doesn't get automatically loaded by the system/asterisk anymore. Then reboot, and for me it worked, I had prompts in Asterisk.

I hope it helps you as well.

Bulek:
I'm not sure exactly if I understand your problem correctly. For me to enable email forwarding on my user voicemail, I simply click on Telecom/My Voicemail in the LinuxMCE admin, this brings up a freepbx page where I click on Settings. There you can enter an email address after checking the box "Email notification enable".
Does that not work for you?

Jean
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: bulek on November 03, 2008, 09:21:56 pm
...

Bulek:
I'm not sure exactly if I understand your problem correctly. For me to enable email forwarding on my user voicemail, I simply click on Telecom/My Voicemail in the LinuxMCE admin, this brings up a freepbx page where I click on Settings. There you can enter an email address after checking the box "Email notification enable".
Does that not work for you?

Jean
Hi,

thanks for info... Yeap, that did the trick. I was trying to setup voicemail in Advanced-Phone-Setup where it showed classic FreePBX setup screen, but none LMCE users are displayed there as extensions.... What you did is on Freepbx voicemail extension and I guess this way it works...

Thanks (will post this trick to Wiki)...

Regards,

Bulek.


Update: Have just checked and I have already defined email address and "Email notification enable" tick, but I'm getting no email... does anyone know how to debug ?
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: dlewis on November 03, 2008, 09:48:41 pm
Quote
Hi,

thanks for info... Yeap, that did the trick. I was trying to setup voicemail in Advanced-Phone-Setup where it showed classic FreePBX setup screen, but none LMCE users are displayed there as extensions.... What you did is on Freepbx voicemail extension and I guess this way it works...

Thanks (will post this trick to Wiki)...

Regards,

Bulek.


Update: Have just checked and I have already defined email address and "Email notification enable" tick, but I'm getting no email... does anyone know how to debug ?

Yea, I found that if you go into the FreePBX admin panel, you can make some changes that you normally wouldn't be able to in the regular telecom section. Be careful though, you can mess things up if you aren't sure what you're doing...
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: Crawtech on November 04, 2008, 03:15:54 am
Hi All
Bulek i fond i had to install a mail server on linuxmce  to send voice mail I used postfix apt-get install postfix you may need to change some setting in postfix to send mail out though your isp

hope this helps
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: cesarscav on November 04, 2008, 05:25:54 am
jeangot,
Thanks for the info it works for me!
I have sound recording!

I'll try to go deep on this because I want to implement a full IP-PBX for my house and office.
Thanks again your the best!

Cesar
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: dlewis on November 04, 2008, 02:44:00 pm
jeangot,
Thanks for the info it works for me!
I have sound recording!

I'll try to go deep on this because I want to implement a full IP-PBX for my house and office.
Thanks again your the best!

Cesar


If you've found good features for telecom or figured out how to do something, please update the wiki!!!
Title: Re: Usage of Telecom
Post by: jeangot on November 05, 2008, 07:24:58 am
Bulek,

about the mail server, another user asked me this already and I could have sworn that sendmail was already installed on the box and that I didn't have to add it.
In any case, if it doesn't work for you, you want to do a:
tail -f /var/log/mail.log
and see what's happening in the mailserver when it's trying to send that email out. It's very possible that wherever you;re sending the email to doesn't trust your IP address and doesn't accept your mail. In that case, you should probably setup sendmail (or postfix) to use a third party smtp server to send out the mail, probably the one from your ISP. Google should tell you how to do that depending on your particular situation.

Jean