asterisk users - Jan 2006 - Cisco 801 and rcapi

(This is an extension of an email I sent earlier, but I'm not sure if it
made it to the list or not.... I never saw it!)

We seem to be accumulating Cisco 8XX series ISDN routers as DSL becomes
more and more available in Australia and our clients upgrade.

Does anyone know if those routers can make the ISDN channels available
in a way that can be used by Asterisk? Preferably in a fairly raw form,
eg not SIP.

Further investigation reveals that the 801 can be a server for something
called rcapi, net-capi, or ISDN-DCP, from RCS-COM (which I think is a
company or product that uses it). This doesn't appear compatible with
any of the existing remote capi solutions available for Linux. Can
anyone elaborate? Details of the ISDN-DCP protocol seem a bit hard to
find...

Thanks

James

Okay then... next question... if I were to come up with a driver for
asterisk (either as hack in chan_capi, an extension to libcapi20, or a
driver for the kernel) to use the rcapi functionality of the cisco (and
other) isdn ta's, would anyone care to try it?

Thanks

James

(ps. Would I get flamed if I crossposted to asterisk-dev?)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of James Harper
> Sent: Sunday, 8 January 2006 23:23
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Cisco 801 and rcapi
> 
> (This is an extension of an email I sent earlier, but I'm not sure if
it
> made it to the list or not.... I never saw it!)
> 
> We seem to be accumulating Cisco 8XX series ISDN routers as DSL
becomes
> more and more available in Australia and our clients upgrade.
> 
> Does anyone know if those routers can make the ISDN channels available
> in a way that can be used by Asterisk? Preferably in a fairly raw
form,
> eg not SIP.
> 
> Further investigation reveals that the 801 can be a server for
something
> called rcapi, net-capi, or ISDN-DCP, from RCS-COM (which I think is a
> company or product that uses it). This doesn't appear compatible with
> any of the existing remote capi solutions available for Linux. Can
> anyone elaborate? Details of the ISDN-DCP protocol seem a bit hard to
> find...
> 
> Thanks
> 
> James
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> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

I would have thought that if the 8XX would send the ISDN channels over as
SIP, that would be the easiest solution...

PaulH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Harper" <james.harper@bendigoit.com.au>
To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"
<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2006 11:22 PM
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Cisco 801 and rcapi

> (This is an extension of an email I sent earlier, but I'm not sure if
it
> made it to the list or not.... I never saw it!)
>
> We seem to be accumulating Cisco 8XX series ISDN routers as DSL becomes
> more and more available in Australia and our clients upgrade.
>
> Does anyone know if those routers can make the ISDN channels available
> in a way that can be used by Asterisk? Preferably in a fairly raw form,
> eg not SIP.
>
> Further investigation reveals that the 801 can be a server for something
> called rcapi, net-capi, or ISDN-DCP, from RCS-COM (which I think is a
> company or product that uses it). This doesn't appear compatible with
> any of the existing remote capi solutions available for Linux. Can
> anyone elaborate? Details of the ISDN-DCP protocol seem a bit hard to
> find...
>
> Thanks
>
> James
> _______________________________________________
> --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com --
>
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>
>

> 
> I would suggest extend the libcapi20. I already did such an extension
to
> libcapi20 to support the bintec remote-capi. This means with that
> libcapi20,
> each program (including chan_capi) can do remote-capi without any
> change...
> 
That was my preferred option. It sounds like you did most of the work
already. Are you patches in libcapi20 or otherwise available? I'm having
trouble finding details on the protocol rvs-com uses to talk to the
netcapi server... rvs-com's website appears mostly broken and I can't
even get a trial version of the software to play with :(

James

> 
> I would suggest extend the libcapi20. I already did such an extension
to
> libcapi20 to support the bintec remote-capi. This means with that
> libcapi20,
> each program (including chan_capi) can do remote-capi without any
> change...
> 
The more I look, the more I think that the bintec protocol might be the
one required to talk to the Cisco anyway. Do you have those patches
somewhere?

Thanks

James

>
>The more I look, the more I think that the bintec protocol might be the
>one required to talk to the Cisco anyway. Do you have those patches
>somewhere?
According to the lists 
http://www.c10.com.au/web/Products/ISDN/RVSCOM_Compatible_Routers.pdf
the CISCOs support the DCP of RVS-COM ... But if the BINTEC-RCAPI works , 
then you are lucky ... In a German ISDN/VOIP list from last year they are 
saying that it does NOT work ...

-Juergen

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Peer Oliver Schmidt wrote:
> Hi Armin,
> 
> > You can also use one Linux Server running CAPI cards with rcapid and
have
> > your Asterisk/OpenPBX with chan_capi on another maschine...
> 
> Did you ever try something like that?
I just tried it. But I never really used it longer.
> What kind of implication had the remote
> CAPI with regards to sound quality?
I think that depends on the connection between the rcapi-server and the 
libcapi20 client...

Armin

> >
> > The more I look, the more I think that the bintec protocol might be
the
> > one required to talk to the Cisco anyway. Do you have those patches
> > somewhere?
> 
> I have placed the patched libcapi20 sources (libcapi20.tgz) on the
public
> ftp server ftp://isdn4linux.org/pub/capi4linux
Thanks!
> It works pretty good with the rcapid (bintec-router emulator) on the
> remote
> side. I never tested it with a real bintec router, because I don't
have
> one.
> Maybe it will not work with the real hardware, because the
> authentification
> is not implemented yet.
> This libcapi20 support normal /dev/capi20 and the remote version, just
> create a file ~/.capi20rc to set the remote station. See README.
I've had a quick look at it... can you use local (kernel) capi devices
and remote devices on the one machine?
> 
> You can also use one Linux Server running CAPI cards with rcapid and
have
> your Asterisk/OpenPBX with chan_capi on another maschine...
I assume you've tried that configuration then... can you comment on the
performance and reliability? How does the system as a whole cope if the
rcapi server goes down?

Thanks

James

> 
> I Have a lot of 8xx ciscos too, i would try it too.
> 
ISDN-DCP, which looked pretty straightforward at first glance, isn't.
Rather than a simple wrapper around the CAPI messages it seems to
provide a similar but not even closely compatible message structure,
such that my libcapi20 code is going to need to do a heap of
manipulation.

So I'm working on it, but slowly.

James