I am wanting to front-end a legacy PBX with an asterisk box. I have done plenty of asterisk work over the last 6 months to PRI circuits, but not with a PBX being involved. I know I can use asterisk and digium cards in this manner, but do I need separate cards for the PRI -> Asterisk side to the Asterisk -> PBX side, or will a 4-port PRI card do the job? (I already have a spare one of these). In other words, can I use SPAN 1 as a timing source, then provide timing to the PBX connected to SPAN 2 of the same card? Any advice, or sample configs, would be greatly appreciated.
Rod Bacon wrote:> I am wanting to front-end a legacy PBX with an asterisk box. I have done > plenty of asterisk work over the last 6 months to PRI circuits, but not > with a PBX being involved. > > I know I can use asterisk and digium cards in this manner, but do I need > separate cards for the PRI -> Asterisk side to the Asterisk -> PBX side, > or will a 4-port PRI card do the job? (I already have a spare one of > these). >Short -- yes, can be done. We just did one install with two incoming E1s connected to ports 1 and 2 on a Sangoma A104, and ports 3 and 4 were outgoing to an Avaya PABX.> In other words, can I use SPAN 1 as a timing source, then provide timing > to the PBX connected to SPAN 2 of the same card? >That should do it. You'd just need to configure zaptel.conf properly. There's an example somewhere on the Wiki about integrating Asterisk with legacy systems. Cheers, Flynn
On 9/6/05, Rod Bacon <rod.bacon@empoweredcomms.com.au> wrote:> I am wanting to front-end a legacy PBX with an asterisk box. I have done plenty > of asterisk work over the last 6 months to PRI circuits, but not with a PBX > being involved. > > I know I can use asterisk and digium cards in this manner, but do I need > separate cards for the PRI -> Asterisk side to the Asterisk -> PBX side, or will > a 4-port PRI card do the job? (I already have a spare one of these).Yeah, it's always better to use a single quad card then a pair of single cards.> > In other words, can I use SPAN 1 as a timing source, then provide timing to the > PBX connected to SPAN 2 of the same card? >Exactly. Also set up the following (this is from a working example that I have between an Avaya and asterisk and the provider, like this Avaya <> Asterisk <> provider, span 1 is to provider, ans span 2 to Avaya): /etc/zaptel.conf setup your spans, with just the timing changed like you mention, and set bchan=1-23 dchan=24 span 2 goes here then: bchan=25-47 dchan=48 everythting else is the same. /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf the only difference between the first set of channels (1-23) and the second set of channels (25-47) is: signalling=pri_net group=1 context = fromprovider channel => 1-23 signalling = pri_cpe group=2 context=fromavaya channel=25-47 /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf ;this is for a system where I get 2500 thru 2599 as DIDs from the provider whenever I move over a DID from the old system (avaya) to the new (asterisk) I add a line in the maindid context with the new extension, otherwise it just goes to the avaya, when a call comes from avayay it means that someone is making an outgoing call so I just pass it on to the providers span (group1) [fromprovider] include => maindid include => otherdid ;make sure it's in the above order, otherwise it will always be handled by the old system [fromavaya] exten => _X.,1,Dial(Zap/g1/${EXTEN}) [maindid] exten => 2500,1,Goto(somecontext,${EXTEN},1) ;since 2500 already exists on this asterisk system just go there [otherdid] exten => _25XX,1,Dial(Zap/g2/${EXTEN}) ;if I don't exist under maindid then I am still on the old avaya you should also make sure to create t and i extensions. Hope this helps.
It DOES help, thanks. Except for this....> the only difference between the first set of channels (1-23) and the > second set of channels (25-47) is: > signalling=pri_net > group=1 > context = fromprovider > channel => 1-23 > signalling = pri_cpe > group=2 > context=fromavaya > channel=25-47I thought the signalling setting was from the perspective of the * server, not the other side. For example, my PRIs to my provider are configured as pri_cpe, as I am the CPE. Your example seems to suggest the other way around.
> I am wanting to front-end a legacy PBX with an asterisk box. I have done plenty > of asterisk work over the last 6 months to PRI circuits, but not with a PBX > being involved. > > I know I can use asterisk and digium cards in this manner, but do I need > separate cards for the PRI -> Asterisk side to the Asterisk -> PBX side, or will > a 4-port PRI card do the job? (I already have a spare one of these).The 4-port card will work just fine.> In other words, can I use SPAN 1 as a timing source, then provide timing to the > PBX connected to SPAN 2 of the same card?Yes. In fact, the 4-port card will be a slight advantage over two single port cards as all ports on the 4-port card will have their clocks in sync with your external timing source. Keep in mind that all T1/E1 spans having timing embedded in their transmit legs; you can't turn that off even if you tried. The clock timing source is always an engineering decision as to chosing which "receive leg" to use for clock sync. (Obviously, the span from the pstn would be your timing source and not the span to the pbx. If you already are using the PRI with the PBX, then no changes required on the PBX side for clock sync.) The config examples in zapata.conf and the wiki are good. Not much to configure really. You will probably want to focus more on options that your pstn provider can/will impact such as the number of digits to be sent from them to you, which channel is the d channel, the digits they expect from you for each call (whether prefixed with "1", "0" or whatever), etc. As sort of a side note, the 4-port card gives you another slight advantage from an ongoing support perspective. The third (or forth) port could be connected to a "test" asterisk box on which you can stage/test future asterisk code before moving it into the production box. Think about reserving a couple of DID numbers for the test box if you'll be using DID.
Sorry my mistake. The span to provider is pri_cpe, and the span to the avaya is pri_net. On 9/7/05, Rod Bacon <rod.bacon@empoweredcomms.com.au> wrote:> It DOES help, thanks. > > Except for this.... > > > > the only difference between the first set of channels (1-23) and the > > second set of channels (25-47) is: > > signalling=pri_net > > group=1 > > context = fromprovider > > channel => 1-23 > > signalling = pri_cpe > > group=2 > > context=fromavaya > > channel=25-47 > > I thought the signalling setting was from the perspective of the * server, not > the other side. For example, my PRIs to my provider are configured as pri_cpe, > as I am the CPE. > > Your example seems to suggest the other way around. > >