Xorcom Astribank

[kenn10]

This is not necessarily a bug but I find that by converting to CentOS 5, the hotplug application has been removed. Has anyone been able to make their Astribank work on CentOS 5?

 

[tzafrir]

Generally the functionality of hotplug has been replaced by udev. udev has its own configuration format and is generally more capable than hotplug. The Astribank can use either for firmware loading.

However, the package hotplug in RHEL4 (and Fedora versions up to FC5) contained an extra program called fxload that is used to load firmware files to EZ-USB devices. We use it as a first-stage firmware loader to load the USB firmware.

fxload is, sadly, no longer part of RHEL5 and later FC versions. There is a long-standing bug to include it into Fedora. Anyway, we provide our own package at http://updates.xorcom.com/astribank/fxload/ .

So basically just run:

rpm -Uvh http://updates.xorcom.com/astribank/fxload/fxload-2002_04_11-5xr.i386.rpm

and fxload will be installed.

Also, when contacting us with such matters, it is best to provide the output of zaptel_hardware and lszaptel .

--
Tzafrir Cohen
{mailto,jabber}:[email protected]

 

[walterwerner]

Has anyone been able to get the Astribank to work with PBX in a Flash? We purchased one, and after a couple days of email exchages and several changes to our system, one of which totally scrwed up the configuration of a Sangoma PRI interface, I was told the Astribank does not support PBX in a Flash. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[tzafrir]

It seems that this distribution does not build Zaptel with usb development libraries. As a result, kernel/xpp/utils/fpga_load does not get generated.

Fix:

yum install libusb-devel
# and in the zaptel source directory
./configure
# 'make; make install' should have came here, but let's reduce impact:
make -C kernel/xpp/utils install

The Astribank should work fully well on such a system. If it doesn't work yet, please provide details.

For starters:

zaptel_hardware -v
lszaptel

 

[darmock]

Hi Tzafrir

Good to see some of the asterisk guys around finally. So this library has been added to the 1.3 version coming out RSN. Anything else you would like to see added?

Not sure how many people use the astribank so I am a little unsure if it would benefit the majority of people if I pushed this out in update-fixes. Any idea how many people actually are using astribank?

Tom

 

[kenn10]

Walter, I've been running Astribank-8 on current PBIF with great success since getting help in December. Once you have the proper libraries loaded (use TZAFRIR's fixes above) it is as stable as a rock.

I was an early adopter of Astribank under Trixbox and then with PBIF because it was less expensive than Digium cards and it didn't create interrupt problems for me like the TDM400 cards. It may be quirky to set up initially, but it is a great device for analog extensions once installed.

I've found Xorcom support to be extremely responsive when needed.

 

[wardmundy]

I was told the Astribank does not support PBX in a Flash.

I always chuckle when I read a comment like this. PBX in a Flash is the **ONLY** distribution in which Asterisk is built from source. When we know about a library that someone needs, we include it. If you need something else, all you have to do is ask OR recompile the source yourself.

Bottom Line: If a hardware product doesn't support PBX in a Flash, then it doesn't support Asterisk either.

 

[tzafrir]

I was hoping zaptel 1.4.12 to be released by now. It should fix the issue with kernel of centos 5.2 (http://svn.digium.com/view/zaptel?view=rev&revision=4426). It also includes some other relevant fixes. E.g. http://svn.digium.com/view/zaptel?view=rev&revision=4348 and http://svn.digium.com/view/zaptel?view=rev&revision=4353 .

You can also apply those changes manually on a zaptel 1.4.11 source tree. See the link to the specific change, and from there, to the "Patch".

We were used to the monthly release cycle, but it seems that the release of DAHDI has delayed things a bit.

 

[tzafrir]

Practically every Linux distribution is a source distribution.

Debian:

debcheckout zaptel
./debian/rules get-orig-source

patch and build.

or:

apt-get source zaptel
cd zaptel-1.4-whatever
debuild

CentOS/Fedora:

yum still misses a convinince "get source" . But you just grab a source rpm, extract it with rpmbuild -bp, see what you hve to fix, and then complete the cycle with rpm -ba zaptel.spec

And there are the less known ones: Gentoo is a mostly source-based distribution. While you could get along there with binary packages, rebuilding is the way of life there.

You could define there using build flags some common options. e.g. for Zaptel: if you want the bristuff modules (and if you want the florz patch on top of it), and what echo canceller to use.

Another distribution worth mentioning here is rPath. It is built not only on top of "sources" Rather, on top of a version control system. You can easily checkout various branches of the sources of the package and rebuild them to working conary packages.

And that was only a short list of Linux distributions. There are also the BSDs (Blue Screens of, err... derivatives of the Berkeley Software Dsitribution).

 

[wardmundy]

I should have been more clear. By distribution, I meant a turnkey LAMP distro with Asterisk source support. Our build times typically are in the 30-60 minute range to have a functional system. The exception is the Everex gPC2 hardware platform ($199) where the complete install takes about 15 minutes until you plug in your phones. We're happy to race anybody, any time.

 

[KLGIT]

refresh this thread?

OK, can I get an update to this thread with regards to what currently is the procedure to install and configure an Astribank on today's 1.4 version of PIAF?

Anyone?

 

[tzafrir]

Is there a problem?

AFAIK there are no problem. Please let me and/or [email protected] know if you run into any issues.

I'll note, though, that ever since Zaptel was frozen we updated it a number of times. Last time was actually about an hour ago. Although we generally move active development / maintinance focus to DAHDI .

 

[KLGIT]

No problem...yet

It's not that there's a problem, but that I want to install and set it up in a PIAF friendly way.
IE I don't want to screw up the automated update process of PIAF (update-scripts, update-source, etc.) by editing the wrong thing etc.

So far, I've only added the fxload package and re-run genzaptelconf -svdM and rebooted.
The device shows up in lszaptel and I think it's running OK.
Anything else?

Also, how do I refer to the channels on the astribank?
ie Digium is Zap/g0 for the extension and zap/1 for the trunk

 

[tzafrir]

Also, how do I refer to the channels on the astribank?
ie Digium is Zap/g0 for the extension and zap/1 for the trunk

Yes. The channels created by the Astribank are standard Zaptel (DAHDI) channels.

 

[KLGIT]

For some dumb reason I assumed it wouldn't be that easy. ;')

So far so good. The Astribank seems to work well and the setup is pretty automated. Nice.
In fact all I really had to do was install the FXload RPM from Xorcom's site and voila.

Now I just have to wire all those lines!
Oh well....

 

[KLGIT]

Hmmm....easier even than the first time.

So now that I've got all my hardware here and the system is getting ready to go live, I wiped the Asterisk box and installed fresh from the PIAF 1.4 ISO CD. I ran updates on everything. scripts, fixes, source, etc. And 101 reboots later, I went to start getting the Astribank installed. But I was surprised to find it was already working. Without installing the FXLoad RPM or anything. Hmmm...
My guess is that RH/CentOS fixed the module loading for this module to work with the newer kernel methods, or Ward (or someone on the PIAF team) compensated for it in the PIAF install.

Either way, it works great and the Astribank seems like an awesome piece of equipment. I don't see going back to PCI cards ever.

Thanks all...

 

[tzafrir]

If the firmware is already loaded, there's no need to re-load it.

Unless you e.g. disconnect the Astribank from the power (and reconnect it)

 

[KLGIT]

Ahhh...good to know.

I better get that FXLoad installed then or the next power failure's gonna be a big problem. Thanks.

 

[Nate731]

New Install of 1.4 32bit PIAF and New Astribank XR0004 (8FXO/8FXS). I've got he FXLoad rpm installed without a problem. The Firmware doesn't load and therefore the XPP driver never finds the unit. Just for grins, I loaded the LiveCD that came with the unit to verify it wasn't a dud and noted that it initialized perfectly. After a reboot of the server (not the Astribank) it's recognized by Zaptel perfectly as well. I understand that the firmware is only resident until power loss so... How do we get the Firmware loaded on PIAF boot?

 

[tzafrir]

Firmware not loaded? What is the output of: dahdi_hardware -v