Remote Support Installations / Best Practices question

[mchapman]

Hi mflorell,

How do you handle remote installations of your base server? I am thinking about building a VICIDIAL server (small one) with a T1 card installed in it. I have spoken with a sales firm that may be willing to help market the server, but this seems fraught with peril. I am mainly concerned with the T1 line.

What's your method of connecting to the VICIDIAL box to set it up remotely. SSH?

Hope this doesn't sound stupid, I am just trying to come up with a decent methodology to perform remote installs. Any advice is welcome!

Thank you for VICIDIAL!

Mike

[mflorell]

Yes, I usually require SSH, Web and IAX ports to be open(or forwarded) so that I can test everything(ports 22, 80 and 4569). With those open you can do everything to install and test VICIDIAL remotely.

As for T1s, they can be difficult even if you are on-site, the record for me is 6 hours for a T1 install(The tech at the carrier didn't know what the heck he was doing) and I was on-site. For remote installs with a T1 you can easily see circuit status with zttool and you can use pridebug in Asterisk CLI for debug info on PRI T1 circuits.