asterisk users - Oct 2004 - Asterisk System Management User Interface

What kind of user interface is most common when managing an
Asterisk PBX?  If this question sounds odd, here is what I am after.

	As a computer user who happens to be blind, I see Linux and
FreeBSD as a real God-send as I do lea sure activities as well as my
job which is the feeding and care of several UNIX servers plus a lot
of scripting-type automation and some C programming.

	In UNIX, the X environment is not really ready for prime time
yet when it comes to speech synthesizers and other adaptations but the
text world is going great guns.  lynx is our browser of choice because
it handles html as long as there is no javascript.

	I tried looking at the archives for this list but it looks
like the site uses javascript in the search.  I typed in the search
terms and used the arrow keys as instructed and quickly realized that
nothing was going to happen except for a repaint of the screen, a very
javascriptish sort of failure mode.

	Basically if command and control of an Asterisc system can be
done with scripting or from the command line, that is good.  We all
know that the CLI is not always pretty, but it can get the job done
and no CLI sometimes means that certain automation is impractical.

	Most UNIX applications still keep the command line, but I have
run in to one or two that were poorly-transplanted Windows GUI's which
required X and had no CLI counterpart.  A certain enterprise backup
retrieval system we used to use here was built that way.

	I suspect that this is not the case with Asterisk.  I want to
hear your collective thoughts.

	Thank you.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Information Technology Division Network Operations Group

On Mon, 2004-10-18 at 13:58 -0500, Martin McCormick
wrote:
> 	What kind of user interface is most common when managing an
> Asterisk PBX?  If this question sounds odd, here is what I am after.
> 
Most all work is done in text files. Beyond that, some work has been
done to move the test conf files into database tables. 

As for scripting, if it gets to be too complicated for the extensions
logic, you can build AGI scripts that let you do more advanced work.
People such as Tilghman though are always making new applications for
asterisk so they don't have to shell out with AGI to get complicated
work done.

-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch@basesys.com>

On Oct 18, 2004, at 11:58 AM, Martin McCormick wrote:
> 	What kind of user interface is most common when managing an
> Asterisk PBX?  If this question sounds odd, here is what I am after.
Text config files and a command-line interface or two.  There are a 
couple GUIs around, but they're add-ons, not a native part of Asterisk.
> 	Most UNIX applications still keep the command line, but I have
> run in to one or two that were poorly-transplanted Windows GUI's which
> required X and had no CLI counterpart.  A certain enterprise backup
> retrieval system we used to use here was built that way.
For what it's worth, Legato Networker, while having a number of *other* 
drawbacks, at least used to support a full-featured CLI.


Scott

Hello Martin,

--On Monday, October 18, 2004 13:58 -0500 Martin McCormick 
<martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> wrote:
> 	What kind of user interface is most common when managing an
> Asterisk PBX?  If this question sounds odd, here is what I am after.
CLI and config file editing with your editor of choice.

> 	I tried looking at the archives for this list but it looks
> like the site uses javascript in the search.  I typed in the search
> terms and used the arrow keys as instructed and quickly realized that
> nothing was going to happen except for a repaint of the screen, a very
> javascriptish sort of failure mode.
I'm not sure what archives you were looking at but the ones for this list 
do not have search capability.  In order to search the list archives here 
your best bet is to use Google and enter in a restriction with 
"site:lists.digium.com" followed by your search terms.  The official 
archive URL is listed at the bottom of each message.
> 	Basically if command and control of an Asterisc system can be
> done with scripting or from the command line, that is good.  We all
> know that the CLI is not always pretty, but it can get the job done
> and no CLI sometimes means that certain automation is impractical.
Yup there is a full CLI available, commands can be executed interactively 
or directly via the shell command line using a combination of -r and -x 
flags to the asterisk command.  There's also a more powerful sockets based 
'manager API' that allows a written application to have more control,
and
do more, as well as listen to events happening inside of Asterisk.

> 	I suspect that this is not the case with Asterisk.  I want to
> hear your collective thoughts.
Nope, it most certainly is not.  There are a few GUI apps out there, and 
asterisk I think even offers a Gnome or KDE UI as an option -- not sure on 
those though, never used them, my pbxen have never even had an X server.

HTH!

That is what I wanted to know.  Thanks to everyone of you who
replied.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Information Technology Division Network Operations Group