Sunday Aug 16 BTIP meeting - in person? & online 10a-6p; + SWFreedomDay Sept 19, Posters, FreeSwitchVOIP Server
john_re
Jack - would you be interested in hosting a similar meeting this Sunday, say like last time, 12N-3P, where we could work on the VOIP conference server? I'm thinking it could be useful in monitoring & developing & (hopefully unnecessary! - debugging) the new server sw install?
I think it would be great to try to install & use the FreeSwitch sw.
==
Everyone - Certainly an online voip meeting Aug 16. Maybe also an in person meeting 12N-3PM, depending on if Jack is up to it. FreeSpeech cafe is closed for end of summer break.
UCB classes start Wed Aug 26.
== Global Software Freedom Day, Sept 19
Would you like to assist having a table out at UCB demoing Freedom SW, & giving away cd's? I mentioned this at the last meeting, & suggested it would be better to do this on a weekday - more students around. JackD said it would be great to do this in conjunction with other local groups - BUUG, BLUG, CSUA, etc. I think that's a great idea. I'm just quick mentioning this here. i'll make a separate post about it later. I'll email the other groups soon, hopefully.
http://softwarefreedomday.org/
== Installfest at beginning of semester
It would be a great idea to have an actual installfest, where we put posters up at least before, around UCB, so students would know about it. maybe that can be on the SWFDay?
== Posters up at UCB about BTIP for all semester.
One big step forward for BTIP will be to get about 50 posters up in about 25 buildings around campus. They will list the BTIP meeting days for the semester, & have info that BTIP is a friendly group for people to learn & do any free sw hw or culture stuff. They should mention the SWFDay, & Installfest. I'll have more info later. I'll work on making the poster - Would you help put a few up?
==
Any thoughts from you?
Shawn Adams
I installed Freeswitch the other day.
In a word - not really impressive. I'm sure the experiences vary.
local SIP it does by default. That is about it. Not sure what the
advantage might be - could be fun to compare. If possible, and given
time, i'd like to work with Windsor and Jack, et al to get SIP working
on the present asterisk box.
Best regards,
Shawn Adams
shawn...@web.de
AOL AIM field64
Yahoo field_1964
Jabber fie...@jabber.org
googletalk fie...@gmail.com
john_re
On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:33:17 +0200, "Shawn Adams" <Shawn...@web.de> said:
>
> John
>
> I installed Freeswitch the other day.
good work! :)
>
> In a word - not really impressive. I'm sure the experiences vary.
What are your main criteria for "impressive" here? What things would have made you regard it as impressive??
How long did it take to set up? On what Distro? How'd you install it (apt, rpm, source,...)?
>
> local SIP it does by default. That is about it. Not sure what the
> advantage might be - could be fun to compare.
See my last few posts to this list, where I note the comments of FS vs *, from its creator, where he says it is a better design, & gives higher performance. That link there is a great informative read - I'm thinking of forwarding the entire thing to this list so everyone gets a copy to read.
I'm happy with diversity - IMO it's fine that we install & try both FS & *, & compare them, & let anyone work on whichever of them they desire, & we'll all work together & use whatever seems best.
My preference would be that we try to learn about FS & try to use it primarily.
> If possible, and given
> time, I'd like to work with Windsor and Jack, et al to get SIP working
> on the present asterisk box.
That sounds great to me, Shawn. Jack, W & I all have accounts on the box, and any of us can set you (or anyone who so desires) up an account so that you can work/investigate to your hearts content.
Shawn: email me & J & W a separate message with a login name you'd like, and whoever of us gets to it first will set you up an account.
I'm trying to get time to do some admin on the box soon, maybe even today, but I've got many higher personal priorities, and don't know exactly when I'll be able to get around to it.
=========
J&W: will you please set up Shawn an account, if you have the opportunity & I haven't done it yet?
[We also should follow, from day 1, some minimal "good/proper" security precautions. I don't want us to go overboard, but perhaps make a 16 random character password, & communicate it by two different means to the person - maybe the 1st 8 digits by email, & the 2nd 8 digits via a voip connection? Maybe InstantMessage? Maybe IRC? It's not so important as to require VOIP=(non text method) for a non root account.]
As we discussed at the last meeting, we need to figure out a method & policy for enabling accounts to have sufficient resources for their relevant accomplishments. How can we accomplish this in a moderately fine grained way? Is it possible to set up two groups "Asterisk" & "Freeswitch", & then give out some permissions for accounts that will have access to work on those installations? Group somethings??? How could this best be done? Point is make group management easy & un-timeconsuming, but also powerful enough to enable effective power for the volunteers/workers/admins/...
For safety purposes, we can always start with small privileges & escalate them as necessary. AFAIconcerned, Shawn is a long term & valuable contributor to BTIP, & at the current stage of BTIP minimal stuff on the box, it wouldn't be a problem to give Shawn full access to all VOIP related tasks.
** We should also write up some minimal formal policy about accounts on BTIP related stuff, & put it on the BTIP website. Just a few sentences, something along the lines of:
"Given the current small scale operation of the BTIP group, here is the minimal BTIP server rules & regulations: Since improper use of the shared BTIP servers/system/equipment could in some ways harm the BTIP community, everyone with accounts agrees by logging into the system that they will act responsibly so as to maintain the well being of the BTIP community."
- That's my suggestion for a simple, plain language, IANAL, administrative agreement. Thoughts??
=========
Shawn: Thanks again for your effort in Freedom SW & your offer to contribute to the BTIP & FSW communities. :)
PS: A tiny tip: It could be beneficial to trim the message you are replying to of unnecessary "replied to" text. ;)
Also, I'll set you up a login to the BTIP website on google, so you can update anything there you like, such as perhaps something about the btip voip stuff.
=====
Any thoughts/comments on any of this by anyone are welcome. :)
Shawn Adams
John,
#1 thanks for the tip on the "replied to".
#2 my criteria was:
- install docs found, clear to understand, actually work (the quick
start was easy to find, and worked, but beyond that not much)
- supports ISDN
(only uses ZAPTEL as far as I could see)
- supports both IAX and SIP (freeswitch IAX appears an afterthought -see
outbound IAX)
- clear, easy config files (I think the asterisk coders are great, but
it appears the 60's were very, very good to them when one reads the
config syntax and file organization)
Uses XML - some coders I'm sure are thrilled, not me. for me - this is a
huge minus, I'm too old and impatient to vi through so much punctuation.
- compiles "out of the box" ?
yes
- good debug logs
took at bit of digging as to how to enable things
- easy admin - console, web html admin, etc...
the console is not as easy as others I've seen.
- ability to select packet marking
never found it
#3 how long did it take ? about 2 hours
i installed from source, on openSuse 10.3 kernel 2.6.22.19-0.3-default
From performance, I also read the articles, indeed informative, and it
makes sense, no doubt it's pound-for-pound very efficient and scalable.
any such "fork-off" you originally strip back to efficient code, then
bloat it as time goes on. :)
So - good that it works, but impressive would have been that it did
something other SW does not, or done the same thing more easily, or is
more clearly documented.
As for SIP on the current server - I'll work with Windsor/Jack via
secure comms and look at it.
Best regards,
Windsor Schmidt
I'm sure that Asterisk and Freeswitch are both great pieces of software, but personally my interest in this situation was to provide a means for BTIP menbers to use voice conferencing during meetings. Asterisk has proven effective for this, so I'm not going to invest much more of my time on either system. Reliability and accessibility of the VOIP server are more important at this point IMO, and to that end I think the following action items are in order:
1. Modify the BTIP group website to show a matrix of tested-and-working VOIP clients showing which protocol was used (SIP or IAX2). BTIP members can post to the list and I will modify the matrix accordingly. This will be useful for new members who want to join the conferences quickly.
2. Configure and test the SIP channel on Asterisk. Shawn, after you have an account, I'm guessing you might want to handle this. If not, let me know.
-Windsor
Windsor Schmidt
I'm pretty confident that noone will be masquerading as you via e-mail, so unless anyone else has a problem with this, go ahead and send me your GPG public key, unless you have another idea for getting some login info to you. I'll mail you a log-in on the Asterisk (Freeswitch?) test server.
FYI my GPG key is here: http://windsorschmidt.com/public.key
-Windsor