The rants and raves of a technogeek
Posts tagged TrixBox
Thinking of using DELL with Asterisk – DON’T!
Oct 19th
So, you want to replace your office PBX system with an Asterisk server – CONGRATULATIONS!
Now, before you go about downloading AsteriskNOW, installing your newly purchased Digium hardware and going about starting your work – take a moment to consider the hardware you’re about to use. Over the course of the past 5 years, I’ve conducted hundreds of Asterisk installations, utilizing various brands.
No matter what brand I used, be it generic Intel’s, HP or IBM, I always got similar results. There was only one brand that always stood out with non-similar results. And it’s not only that the results were not similar to the other brands, I’ve had different results when using 2 machines of the same model – even when sourcing the two units at the same time. The vendor is DELL, I guess that DELL believes in the model that says: “No two computer are made alike” – and indeed, no DELL computer is ever similar to another DELL computer. Two people can purchase the same server from DELL, and each server will be completely different from the other – how can you manage an infrastructure when the hardware vendor keeps changing the spec and implementation?
Just to give a small example, the same customer that I was talking about before had to have the entire motherboard and raiser board changed, 2 times, before Asterisk started running smoothly on the DELL 2950 server that they had purchased. Motherboard, we’re talking about motherboard, raiser boards, power supplies, the only thing that remained from the Original server was just the chassis and the CD-ROM – how funky is that.
So, if you really like brands and you want to use Asterisk, make sure you’re using an IBM or an HP, at least these companies don’t cut corners like DELL – and makes each server unique, by saving a couple of bucks here and there. No wonder Fonality/TrixBox teams up with DELL, DELL wants to say: “We’re compatible with Asterisk!”, so they teamed up with the crew that closed a configuration that works on some measly server, and now, they are pushing this garbage to people over the Internet – Way To Go DELL!
TrixBox shows its support (or lack of it)
Sep 22nd
Well, it’s quite common to get a flame here and there on any Internet technical maling list, but the following really caught my eye. Here’s an extract from the TrixBox forum:
———————- CUT HERE ———————-
Subject: SS7 on Sangoma a101D
Why are you trying to do
Sat, 09/20/2008 – 9:47am
Why are you trying to do this? Is your goal to terminate SS-7 trunks to an Asterisk box at some point?
Your exercise sounds academic, ISDN User Part is essentially SS-7 and besides who trunks Asterisk with PRI’s
The last guy that asked these questions was working on a University project, if this is what you are doing then do your own homework. If not please explain your application so I can make a few suggestions.
aka “Skyking”
———————- CUT HERE ———————-
Ok, putting aside the discussion of Digium vs. Sangoma (It’s a well known fact I’m a Digium fan), I think I hadn’t seen any remark on any Asterisk forum which was rude as this one. The fact that TrixBox is not something you would naturally use for SS7, the fact that it’s Asterisk based simply makes it possible. Why does the responder care “Why the user wants SS7?” – it doesn’t matter one bit, he wants to do it, he has his reasons – just give the guy an answer and help him out.
Our responder says: “… and besides who trunks Asterisk with PRI’s …” – well, I can number multiple situations when Asterisk was required to be trunked with PRI circuits. For one, security measures sometime insist that you interconnect Asterisk with PRI circuits and not over IP. For example, one of my customers, a company in the defense industry required a secured VoIP connection to a provider, without exposing it’s internal network on the physical layer – the only way to do it was to interconnect Asterisk via a PRI circuit.
“… if this is what you are doing then do your own homework …” – That’s even worse than saying RTFM. In the Asterisk world, and especially in the SS7 world, nothing is straight forward and usually, things are slightly more complex than anticipated. Saying something like: “Do your homework” is like saying, “I know how to help you, it’s complex, but I won’t tell you”.
The good old saying says: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” – it applies well to mailing lists and forums.
I admit, I had been known to throw a flame or two here and there – however, it is always related to a specific issue, and is usually related to non-technical issues being published on a technical list.
Will Fonality fork Asterisk too?
Jul 24th
We’ve recently learned that Fonality had forked FreePBX into its own version, to better serve the TrixBox community. Judging from what we’ve learned about Fonality/TrixBox/KG over the past few months, it is my personal belief that this is just another from of spin on the “TrixBox calls home” feature, simply doing something to hide it better – most probably will be somewhere in the management code now.
However, it led me to an interesting discussion with a friend – “will Fonality fork Asterisk?”
It is fairly clear that Fonality is doing all in its power to go about and distinguish itself from the rest of the community and the Asterisk eco system, by simply creating a product that is completely seperated from Asterisk. The amount of patches and modifications going into the TrixBox distribution, makes the running Asterisk on TrixBox a completely different one than the one running on AsteriskNOW, Elastix or pbx-in-a-flash. Is it stable? that is a good question, I’d like to believe that it is. After all, if it wouldn’t have been stable, Fonality would have been out of business. Fonality also goes to great deal to make sure that their TrixBox resellers can’t replicate their appliance easily. For example, over the course of the past 12 months, Fonality had changed the insides of their TrixBox appliance a few times, each time with a different motherboard, a different set of distribution packages and so on.
In the same fashion, it is only common sense for Fonality to fork Asterisk to their own product. My assumption is that Fonality at some point will either fork Asterisk, migrate their code to FreeSwitch or more probably CallWeaver, take over one of these projects like they took over TrixBox/AAH and completely distinguish themselves from the Asterisk community and product line. Will it do good for them? time will tell – if it happens. Will it be good for Asterisk/Digium? – in general terms that answer will be yes, as it will make Fonality/TrixBox automatically distinguishable from Asterisk. Which when asked what is the different between TrixBox and Asterisk, the immediate answer would be: “These are two completely different products!”.
It is my belief that by Q4 2010 we are to see some major shifts in the Open Source Telecom arena. My projection is that by Q4 2010 Digium will be in a position for either an IPO or an M&A. While my personal belief is that Digium prefers an IPO, an M&A proposition from a major vendor (Cisco/Nortel/Avaya) will come before the IPO option. I also believe that by the Q4 2010 Fonality will either fork Asterisk, adopt FreeSwitch or CallWeaver and distinguish themselves.
It is also my belief that by Q4 2010 Sangoma will try to acquire an Open Source PBX/Switch project. Although they recently acquired a SIP PBX company, I believe that this acquiry is nothing more than a small publicity stunt to keep Sangoma in the investor’s mind, making sure that Sangoma progresses in some form. The recent news about Sangoma integrating their signalling stacks to FreeSwitch makes me believe that the most likely candidate will be FreeSwitch – the Asterisk nemesis.
In any case, stay tuned for 2009… here we come…
Say No To TrixBox Campaign – Update
Jun 23rd
As some of you noticed, I’ve started a “Say No To TrixBox” campaign. In order toPL go about and monitor the usage of the banner, and it’s deployment across the net, I’ve installed an OpenX ad server to support the campaign. I guess that I didn’t realize what the little campaign would do!
Current statistics show that the banner had been deployed to over 300 different websites across the world, had been viewed over 60,000 times and had been clicked on for about 800 times. Not a bad CTR ratio for a little community oriented campaign.
If you are an Asterisk user, and you are fed up with the way Fonality/TrixBox had been conducting their business over the past 3 years, it’s time to show your support and put this banner on your website. If you have a blog, a company website, an Asterisk oriented business, show your support to FreePBX and other Open Source Asterisk oriented projects and website by showing the world that the community has power.
I am all for competition, as a healthy competition always keeps us on our toes and makes sure we always progress and improve – but Fonality/TrixBox’s actions must be denounced and rejected.
SAY NO TO TRIXBOX !!!
Jun 15th
A recent post on the FreePBX forum suggests that Fonality and Kerry Garrison are utilizing various unlawful techniques to discourage people from using FreePBX/Elastix/PBX-in-a-flash while promoting the TrixBox brand. These actions are currently under investigation by the FreePBX website maintainers, but they had published their initial findings of these actions.
While the possibility of NAT/PAT firewall from Fonality network is possible, it is clear that the tactics used are promoted by Fonality (Maybe by Kerry himself, but this has not been proved yet).
If you believe that the actions by Fonality are of negative origin and targeted at discouraging other Open Source projects, please put the following banner on your website:
The banner code follows below:
<!--/* OpenX Image Tag v2.4.5 */-->
<a href='http://ads.asterisk.org.il/delivery/ck.php?n=a299919b'
target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.asterisk.org.il/delivery/avw.php? zoneid=7&n=a299919b' border='0' alt='' />
</a>
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hello
i have a two running trixbox server with sangoma a101D cards in them. i want to connect these two servers with each other over a SS7 link. i have installed wanpipe utilities and using T1 cross over cable. both card are showing green light and also there is no alarm in the system. now i am trying to install some ss7 library in the system. i have tried both chan_ss7 and libss7. chan_ss7 didnt work in any way.
so i am trying to use libss7.
with new asterisk 1.6 and libss7, digium says it will supports mtp2 signalling. just need to add command
signalling=mtp2. but they also said that only digium card will support this feature. can i use direct mtp2 signalling on sangoma cards or is there is any other way around???????