asterisk users - Dec 2007 - Using XML for configuration management, single-source-of-truth, etc.

I'm starting work on some provisioning tools to simplify plugging in and 
configuring hard SIP handsets and conference bridges (maybe eventually 
MPEG-4 PoE video cameras that speak SIP as well).

Issue is that I'd like to glean as much information out of the 
configuration files...  but don't want to write a whole new parser to do 
it (especially not one that understands templates and macros).

For instance, from the voicemail.conf, extensions.conf, and sip.conf 
files, I should be able to generate 90% of the configuration state 
needed for provisioning an out-of-the-box Sipura SPA941...  if only 
those files were in some more parsable format, like XML.

How much effort would it be to add an application that traverses the 
configuration state and writes it out as an XML flat file?

Or perhaps at some point in the future, Asterisk's configuration files 
could be represented as XML natively (did someone in the back row just 
show "gconf"???).

I'm a relative newbie, so if I'm missing something obvious or
there's
been a religious war on the subject in the past, apologies...

-Philip

You can store most of the configurations in a database which may be more
accessable to you.

Perl can also parse these configurations quickly enough if you know how
to use the input record seperator ($/) properly.

The only thing Asterisk will not store which you would probably need is
the actual MAC address of the phones themselves. This may be done easily
enough as comments in the users sip.conf section.

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Philip
Prindeville
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 13:51
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] Using XML for configuration
management,single-source-of-truth, etc.

I'm starting work on some provisioning tools to simplify plugging in and

configuring hard SIP handsets and conference bridges (maybe eventually 
MPEG-4 PoE video cameras that speak SIP as well).

Issue is that I'd like to glean as much information out of the 
configuration files...  but don't want to write a whole new parser to do

it (especially not one that understands templates and macros).

For instance, from the voicemail.conf, extensions.conf, and sip.conf 
files, I should be able to generate 90% of the configuration state 
needed for provisioning an out-of-the-box Sipura SPA941...  if only 
those files were in some more parsable format, like XML.

How much effort would it be to add an application that traverses the 
configuration state and writes it out as an XML flat file?

Or perhaps at some point in the future, Asterisk's configuration files 
could be represented as XML natively (did someone in the back row just 
show "gconf"???).

I'm a relative newbie, so if I'm missing something obvious or
there's
been a religious war on the subject in the past, apologies...

-Philip


_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com--

asterisk-users mailing list
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

> Tilghman Lesher wrote:
>> On Friday 07 December 2007 20:12:12 Philip Prindeville wrote:
>>
>>> Darryl Dunkin wrote:
>>>
>>>> You can store most of the configurations in a database which
may be
>>>> more
>>>> accessable to you.
>>>>
>>>> Perl can also parse these configurations quickly enough if you
know
>>>> how
>>>> to use the input record seperator ($/) properly.
>>>>
>>>> The only thing Asterisk will not store which you would probably
need
>>>> is
>>>> the actual MAC address of the phones themselves. This may be
done
>>>> easily
>>>> enough as comments in the users sip.conf section.
>>>>
>>> That's sort of my point:  that you have to reinvent it, and
it's easy
>>> to
>>> get wrong.
>>>
>>
>> XML wouldn't make it any less wrong.  There's a difference
between
>> parsing
>> it syntactically (which XML fixes) and parsing it semantically (which
>> XML does
>> not).
>>
>> In fact, I find the configuration files, as they are now are much
EASIER
>> to
>> parse than XML.  With XML, you need to load up a whole state engine to
>> ensure
>> the config is properly formatted.  At the simplest level, the config
>> file
>> as-is is simply a set of key/value pairs, which syntactically is very
>> easy to
>> parse.
>>
>> Part of the allure of the current format is also that it is human
>> readable,
>> which assists in manual editing.  I'm not sure what part of the
universe
>> you
>> have be from to make XML human readable (or more importantly,
>> human-editable),
>> but I am quite sure it is not from this planet.
>>
>>
>
> Well, after hand-coding HTML and SGML for 15+ years, XML isn't all that
> much of a stretch.
>
> More to the point though, there are some excellent schema-driven
> configuration managers for XML, so you wouldn't have to edit the files
> by hand.
>
> -Philip
>
Can these configuration managers run from a command line? Or do they
require  a graphical environment?

On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 09:31:28PM +0100, Per Jessen
wrote:
> Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> 
> > And finally, another person has already made the point that most XML
> > editors are graphical in nature.  A great many Asterisk installations
> > are installed in locations where a graphical front end is not
> > practical.  
> 
> "ssh -X" will deal with that. 
it does not survive a reconnect. screen helps me with that.

It also has a huge bandwidth requirement. Oh, and you need tons of extra
softwares actually installed, and running on your Asterisk server.

-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755              jabber:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406           mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com  iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir