ViciBox v.4.0 Beta released

[Kumba]

Here is the initial Beta. This still has to be tested and documentation created but it is available for those who want to start experimenting with it.

I do NOT recommend you use this in production if you are not well versed in Linux and OpenSuSE. It more then likely still has bugs in it that I haven't squashed yet.

When you boot from the CD, if you hit F3 and change to "Text Mode", it will automatically install the OS without using a video mode. This alleviates the nomodeset fix that had to be set before. The system will now automatically try to determine if you have a timer module installed and set it up for you. The SVN mechanism was reworked so that you can tell it to install specific versions of SVN which will help when adding servers to a cluster. phpMyAdmin and the redirection page are now options for you to set. vicibox-express does install the redirect but not phpMyAdmin. VTiger was removed as it hasn't been maintained by us in quite some time and there wasn't much demand for it.

Short list of major software components:
OpenSuSE v.12.1
Asterisk v.1.4.44-vici
DAHDI v.2.5.0.2
Wanpipe v.3.5.25.4
VoiceTime v.1.0.13
VoiceSync v.1.2.4
OpenR2 v.1.3.2
libPRI v.1.4.12
ViciDial v.2.4 + SVN
MegaCli Beta for Kernel v.3.0+

Things to be added:
Sangoma Transcoder Support
Slave DB Support with warm fail-over
Documentation in the form of an ACTUAL manual (yeah, I know)

Things under consideration:
Backup restore to wipe out a server and install it from a previous backup
Some sort of menu-based installer instead of the wizard
Some sort of semi-automated ViciDial upgrade program

Differences and enhancements:
Simplified installer, some things are now auto-detected
Ability to choose SVN revision to install
SVN update and OS update are now independent of each other
Added a script called 'driver-scan' to detect DAHDI, Voicetime, and Voicesync devices and tell vicidial to load the drivers (does not configure them)


Here's the links:
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta1.iso
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta1.md5
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta1.iso
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta1.md5

[williamconley]

We have devised a fairly functional upgrade method for the Quality Control add-on that could be useful for auto-upgrade. Let me know if you have interest in using this method (or a modified form of it) for auto-upgrading Vicidial.

[GaD]

This looks awesome! I will install and see how it perofrms... Any chance you could add Bristuff to the package? I'm no programmer, but if there is anything I can help with..., let me know...

[Kumba]

All the instructions say BRIStuff is for Zaptel. It also seems to break PRI support which we get requests for all the time. We get almost no requests for BRI since you only get 2 channels with it.

[GaD]

Oh really...? I fifn't know all that much. I don't have BRIs myself, I have a couple of PRIs, but they are attached to our tepe[hony server (another Asterisk) to which Vici attaches when calling outside the company. Reason why I ask is because I have problems generating tones when manually dialing. Supposedly bristuff helps even if you're not talking BRI. I've tried to compile it for my setup but it is not wanting to compile. I've heard that GoAutodial has the module as part of their installation but never cared too much to find out.. No worries..., I'll cross my fingers and hope I can compile in my currently installed versions...

Thanks!

[rrb555]

anyone tried this and experienced problem? I am planning to install this to my new client due to Vicibox 3.1.15 repo home:vicidial/openSUSE (http://download.opensuse.org/repositori ... l/openSUSE) is down.

or any news for an updated beta version? thankssss

[williamconley]

3.1.15 repo is not down according to those who tested it recently. it WAS down, but is back up and has been for about a week.

[Kumba]

Further beta changes:
Changed the default editor to 'pico -w' which properly handles numpad and home/end keys.
Fixed extra fi in vicibox-express
Added support for installing a limited number of slave servers (4) from a single master in a semi-automated way

I would build and release another beta, but unfortunately the Repos are all shot to hell. Have been for the past day or so. Some sort of SAN issue where they are located. They are supposedly coming back up.

[rsaaris]

Do you have any time frame when the non-beta version of ViciBox v. 4.0 is ready? I am currently building a multi server installation for our production enviroment and using the quite old OpenSUSE 11.3 is not an optimal solution...

[Kumba]

Here is the Beta2. It's been pretty thoroughly tested and should work. I am still adding some MySQL recovery features to it.

What's new and improved in this version:
- Changed the default editor to 'pico -w' which properly handles numpad and home/end keys.
- Fixed extra fi in vicibox-express
- Added support for installing a limited number of slave servers (4) from a single master in a semi-automated way
- Changed MySQL to use MyISAM for default table type in MySQL 5.5
- Added updated mysql-tuning script to handle MySQL 5.5

Here's the links:
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta2.iso
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta2.md5
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta2.iso
http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta2.md5


All I am going to add from here is a vicibox-db-repair script which will automatically kill off all vicidial processes, shut down MySQL, run a full myisamchk rebuild on the vicidial database, and start everything back up. This is to help those who have a DB crash. Although, it should be noted, that if you are having DB crashes that something else has gone horribly wrong anyways.

I will be doing documentation this week and finishing the testing, then we will be going GA with v.4.0.0 ViciBox Server. Also have ViciBox Demo v.4.0.0 going to be released this week as well.

[rrb555]

Hi Kumba,

Just wondering I am now downloading the beta2 release and somewhat noticed that the live cd name is ViciBox_Redux.i686-4.0.beta1.iso using this link http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta1.iso

I edited the link and come up with this one http://download.vicidial.com/iso/vicibo ... .beta2.iso with live cd name of ViciBox_Redux.i686-4.0.beta2.iso

which is the latest one?

thanks

[Kumba]

Thanks for the heads up. Links are fixed.

We ran into an issue doing testing on the database. Will probably have to delay the release while we check into it. Will post here once we figure it out and have a fix.

[rrb555]

Hi Kumba,

Whats the update of the new Vicibox installer?

[Kumba]

There is an issue that I haven't identified where the web interface will report lagged when you go into auto-dial mode.

Haven't figured out where it is coming from. The telephony portions do not have any issues connecting to the DB and working. It's the Web side that has issues.

The distro is ready to go except for this glaring bug. If anyone is very well versed in LAMP and knows anything specific to look at I am all ears. At this moment I am still drawing a blank.

[Trying]

Hi Kumba

Have you considered the following from William?:

We have devised a fairly functional upgrade method for the Quality Control add-on that could be useful for auto-upgrade. Let me know if you have interest in using this method (or a modified form of it) for auto-upgrading Vicidial.

I will also put the manual in the issue tracker. I really think this feature will benefit everybody hugely.

[indreias]

Things under consideration:
Backup restore to wipe out a server and install it from a previous backup

Have you considered mondorescue [1] for this task? We have used it in several Asterisk installations and been happy with it.

[1] http://www.mondorescue.org/

[vishal144]

Is it a safe bet to put this in production now ?

Thanks,
Vishal

[marcoe]

Hello,

I just downloaded this beta and tried on a virtual machine. I noticed 2 things to be improved:
1 - After running 'os-install' on VMware Workstations's console the screen gets all messed up, I had to cancel and run from ssh client, maybe this is only a VMware thing. (I selected Text Mode from the initial screen)
2 - The ploticus graph utility is still being referenced from the AST_server_performance.php as it would be in '/usr/local/bin/pl' and it is actually in '/usr/bin/pl' this should solve the problem: 'ln -s /usr/bin/pl /usr/local/bin/pl'

Thanks a lot for this new version, I see a lot of improvement. Keep up the good work Kumba.