Linksys SPA942 Busy Lamp Field with PiaF

Mark Berry November 15, 2011

A client has an old PBX in a Flash 1.3 installation running Asterisk 1.4.21.2. I’ve upgraded their Linksys SPA942 phones to the latest firmware, version 6.1.5(a). Can we get Busy Lamp Field (BLF) functionality to work on the empty line keys?

Get Asterisk to Use the G.729a Codec

Mark Berry November 4, 2011

I’m using Asterisk 1.8.5 under FreePBX 2.8.1.4. My endpoints (Polycom IP430 phone, SPA3102 ATA) and my ITSP all support the G.729a codec. I wanted to test audio quality using this compressed codec.

PowerEdge 1500SC: Bogus Memory and Linux Errors

Mark Berry November 1, 2010

Sometimes the trickiest errors are the ones you should ignore.

I’m running PBX in a Flash, based on CentOS 5.2, on a Dell PowerEdge 1500SC. Back in February, I got a segmentation fault error and after some discussion on the PBX in a Flash forum, concluded that I needed to replace the hardware or at least the memory. Now I’m not so sure.

Linux Daily Delete Job with Logwatch

Mark Berry June 7, 2010

I have PBX in a Flash set up to create a daily backup and FTP the file to a Windows server. But how do I get rid of the old backups on the Linux machine, which is running CentOS 5.2? A cron job can do the deletes, but I also want a list of the deleted files delivered with my daily Logwatch 7.3 report.

Here’s what I did:

PBX in a Flash as a Virtual Machine, Take 2: Hyper-V

Mark Berry February 16, 2010

Back in November 2008, I blogged  about Setting Up PBX in a Flash, Part 1: Configuring a Virtual Machine. That article discussed running PBX in a Flash (PiaF) under Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005. Within a couple weeks, I abandoned the virtual machine approach and published Moving PBX in a Flash from a Virtual to a Physical Machine.

Recently I’ve been testing Microsoft’s free bare-metal hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Especially now that Hyper-V supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux, could Hyper-V be the answer to virtualizing PiaF on a Microsoft platform?

Let’s try it and see what happens.

Using an APC UPS with PBX in a Flash

Mark Berry March 30, 2009

Today a client had a power outage. Although the PBX in a Flash (PiaF) server was on an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), the outage lasted long enough that the PiaF server crashed. Twice. Time to brave the waters of installing UPS monitoring software under Linux.

The version of PiaF that I’m using is based on CentOS 5.2, which is derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2. APC PowerChute Business Edition supports Linux if you are using their higher-end SmartUPS line, but there is no support for BackUPS-type UPSs.

Keeping Asterisk Traffic Inside the VPN

Mark Berry January 9, 2009

No DTMF

I’m setting up a new PBX in a Flash (PiaF) machine running Asterisk 1.4.21.2. I’m testing it by calling in with SJPhone across a VPN (the PiaF machine is at a client site). When I dial 7777, I get my top-level IVR, but when I press a number, nothing happens. If I dial into a voicemail box, the * and # keys have no effect. It seems PiaF is not hearing my DTMF tones at all.

Unexpected Public Traffic

Moving PBX in a Flash from a Virtual to a Physical Machine

Mark Berry November 24, 2008

After running PBX in a Flash (PiaF) in a virtual machine for a few days, I had a couple issues:

The system would generate an occasional message “TSC appears to be running slowly. Marking it as unstable.” This issue did not keep the PBX from running.

Voice quality was sometimes jittery. In a call, it would sometimes “cut out” (like a bad cell connection). In voicemail, even listening to the pre-recorded prompts, there was frequently some garbled-sounding audio.