asterisk users - Aug 2005 - yet another Asterisk and VMware question

I looked through this forum and other lists trying to get a definitive
answer to the VMware question...

 

I have a Windows 2003 Server box that is my development machine. It is fully
loaded with many s/w packages, dev tools, etc. It's not very feasible to
convert this box to Linux without losing an awful lot of stuff.

 

On it, I'm running VMware GSX 3.1.0. Under VMware, I have a virtual machine
running Red Hat Line Enterprise Server 3.0. Under this VM Linux I've
installed, compiled, and configured all of the latest cvs Asterisk and
associated software. This is a sandbox installation that I just want to test
various features of Asterisk. It by no means is (or ever will be) a
production machine.

 

I've purchased a TDM11B card and have installed it in the box. Windows sees
it as a PCI Simple Communications board. A Linux "lspci" doesn't
show
anything even vaguely resembling this card. This troubles me.

 

When I do the "modprobe wctdm" (as prescribed in
http://www.digium.com/index.php?menu=configuration#TDM11B
<http://www.digium.com/index.php?menu=configuration#TDM11B> , I have all
my
conf files configured per this site), I get:

 

[root@atg-sandbox-rh root]# modprobe zaptel

[root@atg-sandbox-rh root]# modprobe wctdm

/lib/modules/2.4.21-27.ELsmp/misc/wctdm.o: init_module: No such device

Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including
invalid IO or IRQ parameters

You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

/lib/modules/2.4.21-27.ELsmp/misc/wctdm.o: insmod
/lib/modules/2.4.21-27.ELsmp/misc/wctdm.o failed

/lib/modules/2.4.21-27.ELsmp/misc/wctdm.o: wctdm failed

 

Am I banging my head against at Windows/VMware/Linux/Asterisk
incompatibility? Or can this work and I'm just doing something stupid
(always a possibility with me). 

 

With a great amount of effort, I can drum up a spare machine, but I REALLY
don't want to do this and would much prefer the VMware setup. Any advice
will be welcomed.

 

Thanks,

Bruce

 

 

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Bruce Leetch wrote:
> 
> I've purchased a TDM11B card and have installed it in the box. Windows 
> sees it as a PCI Simple Communications board. A Linux "lspci"
doesn't
> show anything even vaguely resembling this card. This troubles me.
VMWare is a virtual machine and has nothing to do with the physical 
layout of the box (which is why you can migrate vmware images across 
machines for example).

If you want to run Asterisk under Linux setup a box to run it.

Tony

On 8/12/05, Bruce Leetch <leetch_bruce@emc.com>
wrote:
> I've purchased a TDM11B card and have installed it in the box. Windows
sees
> it as a PCI Simple Communications board. A Linux "lspci"
doesn't show
> anything even vaguely resembling this card. This troubles me. 
> 
You can run asterisk in a VMWare machine, but cannot use any hardware.
VMWare simply doesn't give direct hardware access.

Similar to video cards -- no matter what you have as physical
hardware, your virtual machine always sees a standardized video device
and for best performance, you use VMWare's drivers.

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005, Bruce Leetch wrote:
> Am I banging my head against at Windows/VMware/Linux/Asterisk
> incompatibility? Or can this work and I'm just doing something stupid
> (always a possibility with me). 
It's not going to work. Vmware presents a complete Virtual PC, so unless 
EMC / Vmware release drivers to specifically connect the Virtual PC to the 
real PC hardware, you are in trouble. The do a pass-through w/ USB, Serial 
and Paralell, but those are a different story.
> With a great amount of effort, I can drum up a spare machine, but I REALLY
> don't want to do this and would much prefer the VMware setup. Any
advice
> will be welcomed.
I'm afraid that under any Virtual platform (CoLinux, Vmware, MS Virutal 
PC) you are SOL as far as real access to hardware on the host PCI bus 
w/out special drivers written specifically for that purpose. On the other 
hand, I'm sure that Vmware would be happy to help you out if you gave them 
a couple of million bucks! ;)

-- 
    Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company
         http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place!
                             KP-216-121-ST

This works. I've done it on occasion for testing. However, because
virtual 
PCs rarely operate on a real-time clock, mostly emulating these
features, 
you will find that anything that read/writes to disk will suck badly.
For 
example, it is nearly impossible to use the Voicemail features of
Asterisk 
under Vmware, CoLinux or UserMode Linux. Believe me, I've tried! ;)

This is one of the main reasons that AstWind has stagnated. The timing 
granularity of the virtual machines is not acceptable for doing anything

IO related.

Just since I am curious, what version of VMWare did you use and what kind of
box where you running on?

I've just moved my * box to a VM on ESX server and didn't play with
voicemail until you mentioned it - now Allison's voice cuts in and out.
Sounds like I am going to have to go back to the box I was running on
previously. My original box is a P3 500 desktop while my VMWare ESX box is a
dual P3 1.4GHz HP Proliant server.

Rick

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I did find this on the VMware wish list re Asterisk and PCI slots. I'm not
holding my breath.

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=7839&messageID=65462

I guess I'll drum up an PC from spares.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Boehnlein [mailto:damin@nacs.net] 
Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 5:24 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] yet another Asterisk and VMware question

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005, Bruce Leetch wrote:
> Am I banging my head against at Windows/VMware/Linux/Asterisk
> incompatibility? Or can this work and I'm just doing something stupid
> (always a possibility with me). 
It's not going to work. Vmware presents a complete Virtual PC, so unless 
EMC / Vmware release drivers to specifically connect the Virtual PC to the 
real PC hardware, you are in trouble. The do a pass-through w/ USB, Serial 
and Paralell, but those are a different story.
> With a great amount of effort, I can drum up a spare machine, but I REALLY
> don't want to do this and would much prefer the VMware setup. Any
advice
> will be welcomed.
I'm afraid that under any Virtual platform (CoLinux, Vmware, MS Virutal 
PC) you are SOL as far as real access to hardware on the host PCI bus 
w/out special drivers written specifically for that purpose. On the other 
hand, I'm sure that Vmware would be happy to help you out if you gave them 
a couple of million bucks! ;)

-- 
    Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company
         http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place!
                             KP-216-121-ST



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