asterisk users - Nov 2005 - Forward Voicemail to remote server?

Hi - 

I've read through the various posts to this list regarding this, but I
haven't really seen an answer.

We have a user (our CEO) who has phones in two different offices, and we'd
like him to be able to get all his VM in either office, regardless of which
office was originally called.

We currently have this set up with IAX forwards in the dial plan.  Only one
server really stores the voicemails - the other server just calls to the
"central" server to receive VM.

This setup doesn't work very well, though.  Our internet connections are
notoriously unreliable.  We'd like to have our CEO be able to get all his VM
even if an internet connection is down.  Likewise, We'd like callers to be
able to leave him voicemails even if an internet connection is down.

I've thought of rsyncing together the VM directories on each server.  What
happens, though, when both servers have new messages named msg000.*?  Does
the older one get overwritten?

My idea instead is to use externnotify to run some kind of script to forward
the vm to another server.  I'm sort of at a loss as to where to start,
though.  I guess I could rsync the VM files to the other server, and run a
name check to rename the VM files if there's a duplicate name.  The one
problem there are that my coding skills are seriously bad.

Anybody have any ideas or done something similar?


Thanks!
Noah Miller

Could he not get his voicemail forwarded to his email account?

On Nov 18, 2005, at 2:37 PM, Noah Miller wrote:
> Hi -
>
> I've read through the various posts to this list regarding this, but I
> haven't really seen an answer.
>
> We have a user (our CEO) who has phones in two different offices, and 
> we'd
> like him to be able to get all his VM in either office, regardless of 
> which
> office was originally called.
>
> We currently have this set up with IAX forwards in the dial plan.? 
> Only one
> server really stores the voicemails - the other server just calls to 
> the
> "central" server to receive VM.
>
> This setup doesn't work very well, though.? Our internet connections 
> are
> notoriously unreliable.? We'd like to have our CEO be able to get all 
> his VM
> even if an internet connection is down.? Likewise, We'd like callers 
> to be
> able to leave him voicemails even if an internet connection is down.
>
> I've thought of rsyncing together the VM directories on each server.? 
> What
> happens, though, when both servers have new messages named msg000.*?? 
> Does
> the older one get overwritten?
>
> My idea instead is to use externnotify to run some kind of script to 
> forward
> the vm to another server.? I'm sort of at a loss as to where to start,
> though.? I guess I could rsync the VM files to the other server, and 
> run a
> name check to rename the VM files if there's a duplicate name.? The one
> problem there are that my coding skills are seriously bad.
>
> Anybody have any ideas or done something similar?
>
>
> Thanks!
> Noah Miller
>
>
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Hi Anthony -
>> We have a user (our CEO) who has phones in two different offices, and 
>> we'd like him to be able to get all his VM in either office,
regardless of
>> which office was originally called.
>>
>> My idea instead is to use externnotify to run some kind of script to 
>> forward the vm to another server.  I'm sort of at a loss as to
where to start,
>> though.  I guess I could rsync the VM files to the other server, and 
>> run a name check to rename the VM files if there's a duplicate
name.  The one
>> problem there are that my coding skills are seriously bad. 
>
> Could he not get his voicemail forwarded to his email account?
I guess I should have mentioned that I did offer this option for him.  He
doesn't like it, though.  He gets 200-400 emails a day, and he has a hard
enough time keeping them straight.  He also is often forced to get his emails
over slow links, so attaching the  voicemails is not the best option.

I also just thought of maybe using a call file to somehow send the VM messages
on to the remote server.  I'm not sure how I would go from a wav file to a
an iax call, though.  I really need an asterisk app like
"ForwardAsVM(soundfile)".

Of course, what I really want is an asterisk VM system where user accounts are
transparent across many servers, and VM's can be shuffled around between the
servers as a configuration option in voicemail.conf.  I wish I could code and
knew Objective-C!  Maybe I should submit a feature request.

I'm still hoping some resourceful asterisk guru has figured out a workaround
for this.

Thanks!
Noah

Hi Are and Matt -
>>>> We have a user (our CEO) who has phones in two different
offices, and
>>>> we'd like him to be able to get all his VM in either
office,
>>>> regardless of which office was originally called.
>>>>
>>>> My idea instead is to use externnotify to run some kind of
script to
>>>> forward the vm to another server.  I'm sort of at a loss as
to where
>>>> to start,
>>>> though.  I guess I could rsync the VM files to the other
server, and
>>>> run a name check to rename the VM files if there's a
duplicate name.
>>>> The one
>>>> problem there are that my coding skills are seriously bad.
>>>
>>> Of course, what I really want is an asterisk VM system where user
>>> accounts are transparent across many servers, and VM's can be
shuffled
>>> around between the servers as a configuration option in
voicemail.conf.
>>> I wish I could code and knew Objective-C!  Maybe I should submit a
>>> feature request.
>>
>> Why don't you use realtime voicemail with the thing for storing
messages
>> as blobs?
Well that's just plain... Well... Logical ;-)

I guess I was being lazy and trying to avoid implementing realtime across
all our servers just to satisfy the whims of one user.  Since that user does
happen to be our CEO, and since it would help realize my dream of
transparent users across all our servers, well heck, you've talked me into
it.

> Matt Riddell is right again. (He always is) :-)
It does seem that way!  Thanks Matt.

 
> You just add MySQL replication. It is easy to set up and allows you to have
> voicemail in as many locations you want.
> 
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replication-howto.html
Ahh.  I would have been fumbling around trying to do this the wrong way for
a long time. Thanks Are!


Thanks,
Noah Miller

I believe the odbcstorage variable in voicemail.conf needs to be set to the
name of the connection in res_odbc.conf not the dsn.  So in your example,
you would need:  odbcstorage=MySQL

Regards,
- Brad

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Noah Miller
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 6:01 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Forward Voicemail to remote server?


Hi All -
 
>>>> Of course, what I really want is an asterisk VM system where
user
>>>> accounts are transparent across many servers, and VM's can
be
>>>> shuffled around between the servers as a configuration option
in
>>>> voicemail.conf. I wish I could code and knew Objective-C! 
Maybe I
>>>> should submit a feature request.
>>> 
>>> Why don't you use realtime voicemail with the thing for storing
>>> messages as blobs?
Well, so I'm trying to get this set up, and I'm a little stuck.  I think
I've got at least two separate problems.  Asterisk (1.2 from tarball) shows
this warning:

Nov 22 16:57:54 WARNING[8150]: app_voicemail.c:2065 messagecount: Failed to
obtain database object for 'asterisk'!

It also says it's still recording to a file spool:

    -- Recording the message
    -- x=0, open writing:
/var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/default/68/INBOX/msg0000 format: wav49,
0x81afdc8


I've got the voicemessages table set up in mysql (database name
'asterisk').
My res_odbc.conf looks like this:

[MySQL]
dsn => asterisk
username => asterisk
password => secret
pre-connect => yes


And my voicemail.conf (relevant portion) looks like this:

[general]
odbcstorage=asterisk
odbctable=voicemessages


I don't know if it makes a difference, but the only thing in my
extconfig.conf is:

voicemail => mysql,asterisk,voicemail_users


My odbc.ini looks like this:
[MySQL]
Description = MySQL test database
Trace       = Off
TraceFile   = stderr
Driver      = MySQL
SERVER      = 127.0.0.1
USER        = asterisk
PASSWORD    = secret
PORT        = 3306
DATABASE    = asterisk


Anybody know what I've bungled?

Thanks!
Noah Miller



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Hi Brad -

>>> >>>> Of course, what I really want is an asterisk VM
system where user
>>> >>>> accounts are transparent across many servers, and
VM's can be
>>> >>>> shuffled around between the servers as a
configuration option in
>>> >>>> voicemail.conf. I wish I could code and knew
Objective-C!  Maybe I
>>> >>>> should submit a feature request.
>>>       
>> >>> 
>> >>> Why don't you use realtime voicemail with the thing
for storing
>> >>> messages as blobs?
>>     
> Well, so I'm trying to get this set up, and I'm a little stuck.  I
think
> I've got at least two separate problems.  Asterisk (1.2 from tarball)
shows
> this warning:
>
> Nov 22 16:57:54 WARNING[8150]: app_voicemail.c:2065 messagecount: Failed to
> obtain database object for 'asterisk'!
>   
> I believe the odbcstorage variable in voicemail.conf needs to 
> be set to the name of the connection in res_odbc.conf not the 
> dsn.  So in your example, you would need:  odbcstorage=MySQL

Yeah, that's what I took the comments on the wiki to mean, but when I try it
like that, I get the following warning:

Nov 22 20:15:16 WARNING[9362]: app_voicemail.c:2000 messagecount: SQL Alloc
Handle failed!


To me, this looks like it is not able to connect to the db at all.  Maybe
I'm wrong?


Thanks!
Noah