asterisk users - Oct 2003 - Confuson on iax calls (register or not?)

Think I'm a little confused on registering an iax connection; could
someone enlighten me?

I guess the real question is... when two * machines are going to rely
on an iax link (each with their own dial plan), do both machines have
to register with each other (eg, both need a 'register' statement)?

Or, will a single machine doing the registering cause the opposite
machine to recognize the registration, and allow calls to be originated
in both directions?
If so, assume machine "B" registers with machine "A"
(machine B has the
register statement). Then, in machine A's extensions.conf dial plan,
what would the statement similar to
 exten => _6X.,1,Dial(IAX/npi-off:mypassword@205.122.192.89/${EXTEN-1})
look like? (I'm assuming the above might use the context for which
machine B registered with?)

Rich Adamson wrote:
>Think I'm a little confused on registering an iax connection; could
>someone enlighten me?
>
>I guess the real question is... when two * machines are going to rely
>on an iax link (each with their own dial plan), do both machines have
>to register with each other (eg, both need a 'register' statement)?
>
>Or, will a single machine doing the registering cause the opposite
>machine to recognize the registration, and allow calls to be originated
>in both directions?
>If so, assume machine "B" registers with machine "A"
(machine B has the
>register statement). Then, in machine A's extensions.conf dial plan,
>what would the statement similar to
> exten => _6X.,1,Dial(IAX/npi-off:mypassword@205.122.192.89/${EXTEN-1})
>look like? (I'm assuming the above might use the context for which
>machine B registered with?)
>  
>
AFAIK a register directive is only required when one of the servers has 
a dynamic IP address which cannot be resolved from the outside or is 
behind NAT..

So if both your servers are on the open internet then you probably don't 
need to have any register directives set..

Later..

Hi!
> >Think I'm a little confused on registering an iax connection; could
> >someone enlighten me?
Not so long ago I had the same question - I guess a slight change of 
explanation in iax.conf might help to prevent this.
> >I guess the real question is... when two * machines are going to rely
> >on an iax link (each with their own dial plan), do both machines have
> >to register with each other (eg, both need a 'register'
statement)?
> 
> AFAIK a register directive is only required when one of the servers has 
> a dynamic IP address which cannot be resolved from the outside or is 
> behind NAT..
Indeed. A couple of more related hints (as you can see I have been 
through this):

- only "type=peer" can register at the other side (maybe also
"friends")
- registration only (!) works if that peer has been set to
"host=dynamic"

- use "iax show registry" to learn about my (the servers') own 
registration (status column: see "qualify" below)

- while you can DIAL using the username (in place of the hostname) of the 
remote peer that registered at your server you cannot register vice-versa 
using his username, even if he already registered with you (i.e. you 
won't be able to tie two * together that way)

- take a look at "qualify=yes" to have the fixed-IP * run regular 
presence checks on the dynamic *. Note that it might (?) be wise to NOT 
use qualify because if the host appears (!) to be down/too slowly 
connected then * will refuse to direct calls to it via IAX. 
I still have an unsolved issue where I get UNKOWN as status with 
qualify=yes ALTHOUGH the other server is actually up and alive (and I 
even have a standing SSH working nicely). However, maybe this is linked 
to the other reports on the list about the current CVS breaking IAX 
calls...?

- in iax.conf you enter only one port, i.e. you need to choose between 
IAX and IAX2. Still registration will try to register using both ports - 
still I repeatedly see cases where only 5036 worked and IAX2 didn't (same 
server,s same setup).

Greetings, Philipp