The Suretec Blog - Asterisk

Zimbra do listen

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:35:00 +0100

Suretec have now been using Zimbra OSS^[?] Edition for 2 weeks now and have hooked in Funambol OSS Edition using the Zimbra Funambol Connector. Mighty impressive and saves a lot of time and has a great business benefits.

It also uses OpenLDAP! Time to test the Asterisk Zimlet (which will need development work for the UK).

Have a feature request for Zimbra or bug report? Well, they do listen.

Asterisk RealTime LDAP Driver Guide

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:25:18 +0100

W. Michael Petullo has published a very detailed article for Red Hat Magazine about using the Asterisk RealTime LDAP^[?] Driver and Fedora Directory Server.

It's well written and a good read, but just so you know, OpenLDAP can easily be used and should have been the first choice as I'm sure our partners in crime Symas would point out too

But hey, it's a Red Hat Magazine so you can't blame them really...

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has emerged as a popular technology for modern voice communications. Many organizations have replaced their analog or proprietary digital telephone systems with VoIP-based solutions. This allows the consolidation of telephone services into an existing IP infrastructure. In addition, using IP to host voice services lets the organization leverage existing expertise–while retaining all of the network’s management advantages. Though not without its disadvantages, VoIP provides a compelling option to those looking for a telephone solution.

This article will present a simple VoIP solution using Asterisk, an open source private branch exchange (PBX) product. It will show you how to install Asterisk, configure it using its LDAP backend, and connect to it using the Ekiga software VoIP client and a Cisco 7900 Series VoIP telephone to make calls.

The first comment about the article is right though:

In general experienced users from the Asterisk community advise against purchasing Cisco phones for business deployment with Asterisk and recommend Polycom, Aastra or Snom instead. Cisco phones are very expensive, difficult to setup, technical documentation is not easily accessible for the end-user, their SIP firmware has some nasty surprises and as far as I know that cheap SmartNet contract is still quite difficult to get.

The LDIF Schema and normal LDAP schema are available in non-FDS format and are contributed to the Asterisk Project by Suretec and maintained by Suretec.

Thanks,

Gavin.

LDAP, Mark Spencer and Asterisk

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:13:37 +0100

In Interview With Asterisk Founder, Mark Spencer:

3) What improvements would you personally like to see in any upcoming releases? Perhaps Active Directory or LDAP^[?] integration?

LDAP, Clustering Events, and Video are three areas I'm especially interested in in terms of the core of the software. I'm also interested in ways to make Asterisk even more approachable for new developers of either core functionality or new systems utilizing Asterisk.

Suretec agree and are trying to help.

[...]I think a low-cost Asterisk unified communications solution is a perfect opportunity for Digium. Thus, perhaps something called Asterisk UC Edition might be a good name. Your thoughts on this idea?

[....]we want the core of Asterisk to remain Open Source and as such encourage the development of Open Source technologies wherever possible. I believe it would be foolish to attempt to make Asterisk's innovation only available as a proprietary product when clearly it is its Open Source foundation that made it so successful and continues to do so[...]

Excellent to hear!

[...]Mark didn't take my idea of offering a "premium" UC (closed) version of Asterisk, that I felt would give Digium a potentially strong revenue source, I found it very fascinating that Mark continues to hold the "open source" mantra flag high. This only re-confirms Mark's (& Digium's) strong commitment to keeping Asterisk 100% open source that Mark stressed to me[...]

Of course, as it should.

I have to commend Digium for sticking to their 100% open source guns, but honestly, I don't think anyone would begrudge them if they copied the SugarCRM/MySQL/Movable Type model where they offered an open source version and a premium (closed) version. Ok, maybe some open source zealots would.

Suretec would, as would everyone else. Keep it 100% Open Source.

[asterisk-biz] Open letter to digium, asterisk developers and consultants

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:39:06 +0100

There an interesting thread going on just now over on the Asterisk Business List:

I am writing this letter to Digium and all those that use or develop
software for Asterisk. Asterisk is released under a dual license, the
one I will focus on is the GPL license.

Digium maintains a trademark on the word Asterisk, along with other
words. The trademark policy they have forbids marketing a product with
the asterisk word if it is not "Genuine Digium Software". If you modify
software, apply a patch, add 3rd party modules, this trademark policy
prevents you from distributing that software saying that its based on
asterisk, or even using the name asterisk within the program.

The most interesting part is that there is an unofficial response from Digium's john Todd and an official one coming:

I would agree that we have failed to make this as obvious as we
should, and that will be a topic of discussion and possibly
clarification in the document. Our intention has never been to lock
the word "Asterisk" so that it is impossible to use - that is not our
goal, nor is it possible legally. If you are a consultant who works
with Asterisk, by all means please put that on your website and in
your CV! We encourage that type of use; it broadens the Asterisk
ecosystem. Using the word "Asterisk" in a statement of factual use
is not prohibited - you can say "My company works on developing code
and systems which utilize Asterisk." However, when it becomes used
as a descriptive term such as "Asterisk Enabled" then that does seem
like it is an infringing use. More on this in the follow-up reply to
this soon to come.

We'll keep you posted on just how you can use the word Asterisk^®

Progress with Asterisk Realtime LDAP Driver

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:31:32 +0100

More bugs being fixed.

Old news I know - Zaptel project being renamed to DAHDI

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:29:21 +0100

What's in a name?

Asterisk LDAP Realtime Schema Updates

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:28:40 +0100

New versions (3.1.5) at:

asterisk.ldif
asterisk.schema

Asterisk LDAP Realtime Schema Updates

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:10:46 +0000

There's now a new section at Asterisk LDAP^[?] Realtime on voip-info

It's prompted me to do an Asterisk LDAP Schema update for asterisk.schema and asterisk.ldif

Asterisk 1.6.0-beta5 Now Available

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:02:54 +0000

The Asterisk.org development team has released Asterisk 1.6.0-beta5. As of this
beta of 1.6.0, 1.6.0 is now feature frozen.

Complete changes since 1.4

I'm really looking forward to mainstream LDAP^[?] Realtime Driver support for Asterisk!

Asterisk 1.6.0-beta2 has an LDAP RealTime Driver!

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:05:09 +0000

Asterisk 1.6.0-beta2 now has a LDAP^[?] Realtime Driver.

See the Changelog for more.

Gavin.

LDAP Realtime Driver gets merged with Asterisk 1.6 branch

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:59:52 +0000

After a wee push in the right direction and some complaining, there is now an LDAP^[?] Realtime Driver in the 1.6 branch of Asterisk!!

Excellent news and even better that the LDAP Schema file and LDIF that Suretec did got merged too!

Asterisk 1.6 Beta Released (with no LDAP Realtime Driver)

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:38:58 +0000

So, it's been a few days, but we thought this was worth commenting on.

Asterisk 1.6 beta brings many new changes and exciting features, but one very disappointing thing missing was the LDAP^[?] Realtime Driver.

This is mainly down to the code not being moved forward for the 1.6 branch, as it was written for the 1.4 branch and testing.

For those of you out there that would love to see Asterisk integrated with your enterprise directory server, we urge you to subscribe to the tracker and help test.

Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) Review

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:59:51 +0100

Tom Keating does a nice review of it over at:

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/microsoft/microsoft-ocs-2007-review.asp

Another "tightly" integrated solution, which is apparently a monster to install.

Who said Asterisk® was hard to install.

Gavin.

Article Ideas

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:03:39 +0100

I'm thinking of getting more articles out there. Either on the Suretec site, or a community site like Symas did with their OpenLDAP article. Ideas include:

Asterisk Realtime with OpenLDAP

Configure OpenLDAP over LDAP^[?]

Working with Firewalls and OpenLDAP Replication

OpenLDAP 2.4 - Best of breed LDAP

Browsing your OpenLDAP directory with Catalyst and Dojo

The real power of OpenLDAP: Overlays and Backends

One Place to Rule them All: OpenLDAP with Jabber, VoIP, SCM, Samba.....

Securing OpenLDAP

Enterprise OpenLDAP Deployments

OpenLDAP with a PostgreSQL Backend

How big can your Directory get?

Program your OpenLDAP Directory with Perl

LDAP Schema Design

OpenLDAP Fundamentals

OpenLDAP ACLs

I can think of many more, but I have the normal project docs to finish

Gavin.