vicidial.org

What would you recommend for a production environment install?...lets say stable, error free, less buggy

If answer is from scratch install, based on what Linux distro?..

There are Redux weekly revisions going out, or paid supported goautodial, but what about doing a clean & updated from scratch install.

There was the famous ubuntu 8.0.4 based install, but why not use latest linux server kernels?...

Well this is just a doubt that I have since I found that keepeng track to Vici project changes and bug fixes demand too much of my working hours.

My costumers needs are getting hard to accomplish, as I try to give a rock solid install.

Vicibox Redux latest one. Recent "fixes" have been to fix "irregularities" that are generally experienced by only specific people using specific hardware or features. But the installation is stable (very much so).

Remember that ANY scratch install will only be tested by ... those on that particular OS. Each Linux Distro has its own repositories, they are NOT all synched across distros ... so versions alter, technical issues arise, etc. (in fact, that's what a lot of the redux changes are about, simple packages change and Kumba has to chase it all down and fix it for us).

We changed from our own Gentoo distro for this very reason. I still say gentoo is superior from a performance standpoint if you "strip it down" to have only necessary features. But this is about "catch all" installation. Using a standardized OpenSuSE base to allow installation on virtually any hardware and Kumba is the 24 hour watch making sure freaky package mods don't stop the system from running.

Stability and reliability always rely on the person (team/admins/people) who is maintaining the system. The system is good as the person maintaining it. A supposedly rock solid system won't be rock solid in the hands of someone who do not know what they're doing.

That being said, GoAutoDial and Vicibox are proven stable systems under capable hands. They're both running in many call centers around the world. In my personal opinion doing a scratch install is the last option. Unless you're well versed in Linux, Asterisk, Mysql, Vicidial and other open source components that make up the whole system.

And it depends on what you mean by a stable system.

do you mean one with the least downtime?

do you mean one with no errors in any of the logs?

do you mean one requiring the least reboots? (run for 6 months at a time?)

or do you mean one that can handle the highest number of simultaneous calls/agents for specific hardware (without bad events)?

in all cases the "build" makes a difference. in some of those, personal modifications are required to "stabilize" because I do not think either Kumba or Gardo specifically killed "ALL" errors in ALL logs and screens throughout the entire system.

But I know that Vicibox Redux and GoAutoDial have bugs, and that Vicibox Redux has gone through 15 releases in recent history to answer to those bugs. And that GoAutoDial just came out with a new release a couple months ago. Both are considered "Stable", but once in a while there is incompatible hardware found for each. So if your hardware is compatible ... you have to decide what your "stability goal" is for a real answer.

I have 300 servers running on ubuntu 8.10 x64, 50 of which have been upgraded to vicidial 2.4 version, with asterisk 1.4.21 and zaptel, so far no problems

Just a minor correction. GoAutoDial started as VicidialNOW more than 3 years ago with an average of 2 to 3 release cycles per year. VicidialNOW is the first open source predictive dialer Linux distribution. It was rebranded to GoAutoDial a couple of moths ago. Just an FYI.

But I know that Vicibox Redux and GoAutoDial have bugs, and that Vicibox Redux has gone through 15 releases in recent history to answer to those bugs. And that GoAutoDial just came out with a new release a couple months ago. Both are considered "Stable", but once in a while there is incompatible hardware found for each. So if your hardware is compatible ... you have to decide what your "stability goal" is for a real answer.

gardo wrote:Just a minor correction. GoAutoDial started as VicidialNOW more than 3 years ago with an average of 2 to 3 release cycles per year. VicidialNOW is the first open source predictive dialer Linux distribution. It was rebranded to GoAutoDial a couple of moths ago. Just an FYI.

But I know that Vicibox Redux and GoAutoDial have bugs, and that Vicibox Redux has gone through 15 releases in recent history to answer to those bugs. And that GoAutoDial just came out with a new release a couple months ago. Both are considered "Stable", but once in a while there is incompatible hardware found for each. So if your hardware is compatible ... you have to decide what your "stability goal" is for a real answer.

What was incorrect?

Make it an FYI. The VicidialNOW/GoAutoDial installer doesn't really have that many bugs since it was released more than 3 years ago. Since it's based on CentOS and the installer being Anaconda, most major releases were almost bug free. All the features listed work out of the box.

Riiiight. There were no bugs. I'll read through the VicidialNOW/GoAutoDial/Vicibox Install forums and be sure that none of the "challenging features" in there say "bug".

I'm not trying say "Gardo Screwed Up" in my statement that they have bugs.

It's just a fact that various installer-related and OS-related (which is tied to the installer) "Issues" have arisen post-release that have caused ... concerned users to panic and ask for help.

Maybe you don't want to categorize that as a bug. Perhaps technically it isn't a bug if someone tries to install a two-year-old OS on a 3-week-old motherboard and it doesn't work. Dunno. But no matter how you skin it, none of these releases are "bug-free" to the extent that one could be called "the most stable, reliable install environment" above the others.

We all know VICIDIAL has bugs, and we all try to help eradicate them. And since Vicidial is *IN* all these releases, by inclusion they have bugs.

I will say, though, that VicidialNOW HAS proven extremely resilient in that fashion. Even at its present age it still has fresh installs that work. But on newer motherboards, network cards, drive controllers ... well.

How often do you expect to "re-release" the GoAutoDial installer (even if all you do is include the newer drivers it would be a life-saver for some of your clients and lurkers!)

All software have bugs, its just a matter of handling it. Besides this is open source, the beauty of it is we can just look at the code and do fixing to make it work our way

The design goal of ViciBox was to be as versatile as possible. Under that guise we focus more on a rapid release cycle instead of a longer bug-free cycle. This means that issues get handled quicker, and that the potential for a major bug to be installed over and over is minimized. Packages in v.3.1 have helped to mitigate this some as I can just simply issue updates to the packages that will patch older versions as well.

so when you update the packages ... then a zypper up and install.pl is all that's needed? right?