ViciBox v.11.0 Beta roadmap

[Kumba]

I've got a working ViciBox v.11.0 Beta that I'll likely be releasing over the weekend. ViciBox v.11.0 should be ready to release when OpenSuSE v.15.5 goes general availability (GA) on June 7th.

Things done :
- Built on OpenSuSE v.15.5 (while it's new too!)
- Re-worked vicibox-ssl creates a "VICIphone" webRTC template that 'should' work across a cluster for all servers
- vicibox-ssl now looks for an OS-provided acme.sh, otherwise it uses the bundled one
- created a standalone acme.sh package so that updating it doesn't need to update vicibox-ssl (and OpenSuSE was missing a current one)
- Asterisk 16.30.0 is default now (Sorry, no downgrade scripts planned)
- Disabled CPU mitigations by default (Free performance!)
- Bit the bullet and built perl-Net-SFTP in home:vicidial so that it's reliably available
- Removed devel:languages:perl from OBS repos as it was problematic during package builds
- Update dahdi-linux package to follow network:telephony and use the osmocom fork of dahdi-linux

Work in Progress : (Things to do before release)
- Migrate the ViciBox documentation to github and a read-the-docs template at http://www.vicibox.com/docs/ (It's live! But it's only preliminarly setup)
- Polish vicibox-ssl integration
- Verify any lingering vicibox-install clustering issues
- Trying to get Amfletec to update their driver to work with Kernel 5.14, might have to happen later

Things to do: (After release)
- Re-work how slave databases are setup in ViciBox (always been problematic)
- Integrate the bug fix notes into the docs under an "Errata" section
- Make submission guidelines for the new ViciBox Docs website

Once I get a preliminary structure/outline of the new ViciBox Docs website I'll post a separate thread on it. The goal with moving the documentation to GitHub using ReadTheDocs is to allow anyone to contribute to the documentation in a more literal and productive way. I'm trying to logically lay out the documentation files in a way that makes it easy for someone else to add their own entries to it. The structure will be that the 'head' is always the documentation for the current Major.Minor release of ViciBox (I.E. 11.0, 11.1, 12.0, etc). Whenever the next version of ViciBox gets released the current head will be branched (I.E. branch v.11.0) for maintenance. So going forward the community will be able to maintain ViciBox v.11.0 documentation separate from whatever the next current head is.

I'm not sure what kind of submissions I'll accept to the new ViciBox docs website just yet. What I don't want to happen is a bunch of submissions that are more or less shameless plugs and advertising. If you want to submit something to the docs that goes over how to do a basic installation or setup of something that should be fine. For example, submitting a page to the docs that show what to put into the Admin --> Carriers section for Carrier "XYZ" to work should be fine. Having anything that even vaguely looks or feels like marketing would not be accepted. I will be making some submission guidelines for the docs this week so that it's more clearly defined.

So start making a list of things that ViciBox or it's documentation needs. Once you see me make a post asking for feedback feel free to let loose. Thanks!

[martinch]

Thanks for the update @Kumba appreciate all your work on the ViCiBox side of things. I really like the new Docs site. Very clean, very modern and it looks great on mobile too. I look forward to contributing documentation there too I got a tonne of ViCi knowledge that I hope may be useful to some other person who is looking for the answer...just like I was years ago

I mean, do you think there is going to be any noticeable differences between the openSUSE 15.5 release candidate and the final version?

My box ready and waiting for ViCiBox 11

Thanks again.

[Kumba]

I really like the new Docs site. Very clean, very modern and it looks great on mobile too.

Yeah, that's one reason I went that direction. It works good on mobile and desktop. When I'm done there should be a way to also export it as PDF and ePUB.

I mean, do you think there is going to be any noticeable differences between the openSUSE 15.5 release candidate and the final version?

It's already a 'Gold Master' according to their roadmap. It's basically the release version pending QA testing and any last-minute security/CVE updates. Feature freeze happened back in April.

As far as ViciBox it's 99% there. I just need to go through the vicibox-ssl changes a couple more times to make sure it's working.

[martinch]

I really like the new Docs site. Very clean, very modern and it looks great on mobile too.

Yeah, that's one reason I went that direction. It works good on mobile and desktop. When I'm done there should be a way to also export it as PDF and ePUB.

I mean, do you think there is going to be any noticeable differences between the openSUSE 15.5 release candidate and the final version?

It's already a 'Gold Master' according to their roadmap. It's basically the release version pending QA testing and any last-minute security/CVE updates. Feature freeze happened back in April.

As far as ViciBox it's 99% there. I just need to go through the vicibox-ssl changes a couple more times to make sure it's working.

Awesome. Thank you for the updates Kumba. Can't wait to try the release when it arrives. Thanks a lot.

Also, I can see a lot of Chris' stuff being eligible to be included in this wiki...provided he is willing to donate it. Couple that with ViCi's documentation and the whole wiki is pretty written! lol Hopefully Chris will donate some stuff...The Cyberdial stuff should be mirrored or something and it would be cool to see it in an official capacity.

[carpenox]

I create it for the community, anything I have is free for the taking/use

[Kumba]

Really the only thing prohibited from the docs website is shameless plugs and advertising. Everyone is welcome to write up instructions on whatever integration or carrier or setup they want. The idea is for it to be community contributed so that way it's not just me maintaining it.

[dspaan]

Hi Kumba, thanks for doing this!

And maybe a silly question after all these years but how does your work and Vicibox relate to the Vicidial group? I can't find this anywhwere, is Vicibox separated or do you work for Vicidial group?

[roger.milligan]

Thanks so much Kumba

We're about to build a new 500 agent Vici cluster and will seriously consider going the ViciBox 11 route.

Only issue that I see may be:

Trying to get Amfletec to update their driver to work with Kernel 5.14, might have to happen later

Is there any update on this?

Actually we have done recent extensive testing on NOT using a timing device. With the way that we configure our Vici clusters here (typically fewer large physical servers as Diallers - Dell R450s or similar, with up to 120 concurrent agents per server) we find that the Dialler server Load Averages (and not CPU %) go up exponentially when we push the agent counts over 100 per server. Looks like we are getting some sort of a bottleneck on the interrupt for the USB timing device (Amfeltec). When we setup Diallers on VMs or physical tin with no USB timer (only Dhadi Dummy) we are not seeing the Load Average spiking as we push the agent count up. We've yet to get any audio quality issues when not using a timer. I would be interested if anyone has experienced the same thing. (Currently the above are on ViciBox 9 & 10 sites.)

Roger

[Kumba]

I've emailed Amfletec a couple of times. I was told it was sent to their Linux driver guy but haven't heard back. I'll try to ping them again.

As you've already noted, the dahdi_dummy driver is good enough for most uses. It's not like it was 10 years ago.

[roger.milligan]

Hello Kumba

Do you have any further news on the Amfeltec drives for OpenSuse 15.5? See my post here:https://www.vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41877&p=152245#p152245

If I can help chase this up, please let me know.

Roger