asterisk users - Aug 2006 - IAX call drops, recent instability

Hi all

I've had a number of servers, all generally running Asterisk 1.0.9-1.0.11.1,
with TDM cards for analog lines.  They have been in production use for many
months, handling incoming calls, and also allowing daily inter-server calls
over IAX (transfers, extension calls etc)

All of a sudden, in the last 3-4 weeks, with little to no changes to any
config or setup on the servers -- a large number of IAX-IAX calls are
dropping.  It is driving me nuts because I can't pinpoint any change in the
system that might be a catalyst ... nor rectify with any modifications to
iax.conf, zapata.conf etc....

All servers are iax.conf 'friend' entries.......... standardized with
disallow=all, allow=gsm, and allow=ulaw
jitterbuffer=off
trunk=yes

I have explored a number of theories and none seem to be really helping the
situation.  The call drops are not consistent, so it is hard to say.

One thing I have considered is shared IRQs on some of the servers --- BUT
while I know this can affect TDM installations -- these machines have been
in production with no drops for months!

So does anyone have any suggestions as to why all of a sudden IAX calls and
my asterisk network would become so unstable?

Any suggestions appreciated

--
Chris Earle

In article <ed42pl$2va$1@sea.gmane.org>, Chris Earle
<cearle@cbltech.ca> wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I've had a number of servers, all generally running Asterisk
1.0.9-1.0.11.1,
> with TDM cards for analog lines.  They have been in production use for many
> months, handling incoming calls, and also allowing daily inter-server calls
> over IAX (transfers, extension calls etc)
> 
> All of a sudden, in the last 3-4 weeks, with little to no changes to any
> config or setup on the servers -- a large number of IAX-IAX calls are
> dropping.  It is driving me nuts because I can't pinpoint any change in
the
> system that might be a catalyst ... nor rectify with any modifications to
> iax.conf, zapata.conf etc....
> 
> All servers are iax.conf 'friend' entries.......... standardized
with
> disallow=all, allow=gsm, and allow=ulaw
> jitterbuffer=off
> trunk=yes
> 
> I have explored a number of theories and none seem to be really helping the
> situation.  The call drops are not consistent, so it is hard to say.
> 
> One thing I have considered is shared IRQs on some of the servers --- BUT
> while I know this can affect TDM installations -- these machines have been
> in production with no drops for months!
> 
> So does anyone have any suggestions as to why all of a sudden IAX calls and
> my asterisk network would become so unstable?
Is it a private network, or used by other machines and traffic? Could it be
that the network has started getting overloaded with broadcast or multicast
traffic or something?

Just a thought.

Do the asterisk logs give any clues about why they are dropping the calls?

Cheers
Tony
-- 
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org