asterisk users - Dec 2007 - Upgrade to Asterisk 1.4 - it's one year's old!

Friends in the Asterisk community,

I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2  
and 1.4 there's been a lot of
important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.

I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but we've  
spent one year polishing it,
working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is  
very different from the young
and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.  
Testing, testing, testing
and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality  
is now much
more grown-up and mature :-)

I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.

- Bugs that are still open?
- Bugs that are not reported?
- Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
- Just a bad karma for 1.4

When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after  
release, so I'm
not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming release. We need to  
make a released
product stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.

Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled  
our revenues
in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels" or  
"Asterisk 1.4
gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of  
the coffee in our
vending machine". Anything.

Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new  
feature in 1.4.
I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send  
feedback to the
list or in a private e-mail to me directly.

Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home systems  
to large
scale carrier platforms!

/Olle

---
* Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
* Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/

Hi,
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
Just my 2 cents ....

I have more than 70 running servers installed with 1.2, we also
built our custom interface around it, our custom linux/asterisk distro
has been polished over the years and now finally we are earning the profit of
all the work we did in the past.

We just decided to open a new project with 1.4, but it will take us
more than one year, i think, to release the first usable version.

So, in the end, my opinion is that is just a matter of time.

Hope it helps, have a nice Christmas everyone!


-- 
I migliori saluti,                        Scrivi a:
 Alessio                                afoc at interconnessioni.it

Hello everybody,

Since 1.4 release our company installed more then 200 Asterisk servers using
Asterisk 1.4 version.

At start we had several bugs with SIP channel and CDR handling but starting from
1.4.6 or something it works without problems.

We are really happy with 1.4 and thank you for your great job!


Mindaugas Kezys
http://www.kolmisoft.com
MOR - Advanced Billing for Asterisk PBX


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces
at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Johansson Olle E
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 12:57 PM
To: Asterisk Non-Commercial Discussion Users Mailing List -
Subject: [asterisk-users] Upgrade to Asterisk 1.4 - it's one year's old!

Friends in the Asterisk community,

I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2  
and 1.4 there's been a lot of
important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.

I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but we've  
spent one year polishing it,
working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is  
very different from the young
and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.  
Testing, testing, testing
and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality  
is now much
more grown-up and mature :-)

I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.

- Bugs that are still open?
- Bugs that are not reported?
- Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
- Just a bad karma for 1.4

When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after  
release, so I'm
not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming release. We need to  
make a released
product stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.

Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled  
our revenues
in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels" or  
"Asterisk 1.4
gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of  
the coffee in our
vending machine". Anything.

Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new  
feature in 1.4.
I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send  
feedback to the
list or in a private e-mail to me directly.

Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home systems  
to large
scale carrier platforms!

/Olle

---
* Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
* Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/




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Johansson Olle E wrote:
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
>
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
>
> I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but
we've
> spent one year polishing it,
> working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is  
> very different from the young
> and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.  
> Testing, testing, testing
> and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality  
> is now much
> more grown-up and mature :-)
>
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
>
> - Bugs that are still open?
> - Bugs that are not reported?
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
>
> When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after  
> release, so I'm
> not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming release. We need to
> make a released
> product stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.
>
> Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled  
> our revenues
> in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels" or  
> "Asterisk 1.4
> gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of  
> the coffee in our
> vending machine". Anything.
>
> Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new  
> feature in 1.4.
> I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send  
> feedback to the
> list or in a private e-mail to me directly.
>
> Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home
systems
> to large
> scale carrier platforms!
>
> /Olle
>
> ---
> * Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
> * Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/
>
>   
When Digium starts using 1.4 in ABE then I would consider using it in a 
production environment.  All I ever hear is "soon", and I have heard 
that for months if not the whole year.  Until Digium itself is 
comfortable selling and supporting this version, then neither am I.

Thanks,
Steve Totaro

Hello All ,

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, Johansson Olle E wrote:
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
>
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
>
> I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but
we've
> spent one year polishing it,
> working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is
> very different from the young
> and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.
> Testing, testing, testing
> and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality
> is now much
> more grown-up and mature :-)
>
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
>
> - Bugs that are still open?
> - Bugs that are not reported?
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
>
> When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after
> release, so I'm
> not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming release. We need to
> make a released
> product stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.
>
> Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled
> our revenues
> in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels" or
> "Asterisk 1.4
> gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of
> the coffee in our
> vending machine". Anything.
>
> Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new
> feature in 1.4.
> I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send
> feedback to the
> list or in a private e-mail to me directly.
>
> Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home
systems
> to large
> scale carrier platforms!
>
> /Olle
>
> ---
> * Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
> * Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/
 	The one item mentioned in some of the responses to the thread that this 
message started is the modification of commands (dialplan & others) , 
variables
and such .

 	Tilghman mentioned these changes are collected in UPGRADE.txt .

 	But (I have to admit IMO) ,  The procedure necessary to follow to get a 
system running 1.4 is not a upgrade path .  It is a migration .
 	ie: duplicate the system(s) running 1.2 successfully today onto 
seperate hardware & make the changes necessary to create a (near as
possible)
functioning system as the present systems & then swap them .

 	If this path was more of a true upgrade path then 1.4 would probably be 
used far more than 1.2 .

 		Hth ,  JimL
-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| James   W.   Laferriere | System    Techniques | Give me VMS     |
| Network&System Engineer | 2133    McCullam Ave |  Give me Linux  |
| babydr at baby-dragons.com | Fairbanks, AK. 99701 |   only  on  AXP |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+

Johansson Olle E wrote:
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
> 
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
> 
> I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but
we've
> spent one year polishing it,
> working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is  
> very different from the young
> and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.  
> Testing, testing, testing
> and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality  
> is now much
> more grown-up and mature :-)
> 
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
> 
Olle,

I can explain why *we* haven't upgraded our customers yet: fear and lack of
necessity.

1. Fear of new bugs (as we encountered during the 1.2 lifecycle). It will
    be a *lot* of work to test any and all feature our customers use before we
    install it on their premises.
2. Fear that we will find out the hard way that the UPGRADE.txt file maybe was
    correct and complete when 1.4.0 came out, but is now lagging behind.
3. Fear that we will find out the hard way why Digium is not supporting it
    yet commercially.
4. I have been following all developer fixes since 1.4.0. Lately I have been
    too busy to read them, but there were - to my taste - far too many fixes
    for crashes or otherwise important bugs. I'll wait until the stream of
    fixes per month slows down to a trickle.
5. Lack of necessity. Not enough features that will convince our customers
    to pay for the upgrade.

Other people have mentioned the upgrade path. I can imagine that is an important
point as well, but not for us, as our customers can upgrade their system
with a yum upgrade. This saves our support people a lot of time, and thus
the customers a lot of money.

How can the uptake for 1.4 be improved? No it's not the bugs. I'd
suggest
some marketing. Create a section on the website on the upgrade from 1.2 to 1.4
with:

- short list of most important features
- an extensive guaranteed-to-be-complete categorized list of all changes.
- some explanations on stability (I mean the amount and type of fixes that
   went into the releases since 1.4.0, and how it is dying down now)

And of course Digium could create a lot of trust by commercially supporting 1.4.

Thanks,
Ron Arts
NeoNova

> - Bugs that are still open?
> - Bugs that are not reported?
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
> 
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The only reason I am not upgrading to 1.4 is because out-of-the-tar it just
won't build on my Fedora Core 4 machine. 
http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=9643

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
> Johansson Olle E
> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 05:57
> To: Asterisk Non-Commercial Discussion Users Mailing List -
> Subject: [asterisk-users] Upgrade to Asterisk 1.4 - it's one 
> year's old!
> 
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
> 
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. 
> Between 1.2 and 1.4 there's been a lot of important 
> development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
> 
> I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, 
> but we've spent one year polishing it, working hard with bug 
> fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is very different 
> from the young and immature product that was release before 
> Christmas in 2006.  
> Testing, testing, testing
> and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 
> personality is now much more grown-up and mature :-)
> 
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
> 
> - Bugs that are still open?
> - Bugs that are not reported?
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
> 
> When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 
> 1.4 after release, so I'm not looking for a wishlist - that's 
> for the coming release. We need to make a released product 
> stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.
> 
> Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 
> doubled our revenues in a month and gave us 200% more quality 
> in the voice channels" or "Asterisk 1.4 gave us more reliable 
> pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of the coffee 
> in our vending machine". Anything.
> 
> Also, I would like input on what you consider the most 
> important new feature in 1.4.
> I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to 
> send feedback to the list or in a private e-mail to me directly.
> 
> Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small 
> home systems to large scale carrier platforms!
> 
> /Olle
> 
> ---
> * Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
> * Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> --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
>

I have not made the switch from 1.2 to 1.4 yet due to operating a ITSP
Asterisk Cluster.  I cannot upgrade any one machine without upgrading
all.  Basically I need to build a duplicate cluster with 1.4, debug it
then roll traffic to it.  This is a pretty gargantuan effort that I'm
currently planning and will hopefully accomplish within Jan-Feb 08.
I'm looking forward to the upgrade and having some of the new features
1.4 has like multi threading IAX2.

JR
-- 
JR Richardson
Engineering for the Masses

On Dec 15, 2007 11:57 AM, Johansson Olle E <oej at edvina.net> wrote:
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
>>>> SNIP
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
Hi Olle,

It's very simple in my case. I did the install very recently on our
company pbx. When asterisk runs, I get a segfault I was not able to
debug. It doesnt seem to happen in the same place in the startup each
time. If it was after a line that loaded some module, sure, but this
didn't seem to be the case. I have no time or knowledge to chase
issues like this, so I immediately went back to the latest 1.2.

> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
My reasons for not moving to 1.4 :
- fear of possible instability problems, my 1.2 servers are rock solid
- fear of goofing up with the new way you have to configure asterisk
   at install time (tell it which modules to build or not build)
- no real new functionality i really, REALLY need

One feature that would immediately draw attention and would greatly 
enhance upgrade enthusiasm for a new release would be better fax support.

chan_mobile looks nice, would be nifty to be able to use gsm phones, i 
will probably look into that

Just my $0.02 :)

My reasons for not yet upgrading to 1.4:

- I have a lot of customisations to app_meetme, which I will need to port
  to 1.4. I have procrastinated about doing so because of all the SLA
  stuff that got grafted into app_meetme during the early 1.4 versions.
  If I had developed the SLA code, I would have made a separate app_sla or
  res_sla with copies of only those parts of app_meetme that were actually
  needed (e.g. leaving out DTMF menus, participant announcements, etc.),
  and left app_meetme to do only "real" conferencing.

- Scare stories about IAX-related lockups in 1.4, due to the new
  multi-threaded implementation. It looks like the latest versions
  should have got this sorted, especially with the use of astobj2, but
  I haven't had time to try it out yet.

- So far, 1.2 is doing everything we need, and has been rock solid.

Another problem is, when I do move to 1.4, any customisations or new
features I do create would still need to be ported to trunk before they
would have any chance of making it into Asterisk. This takes time, which
is always in short supply, and means that some cool features remain mine
only :-(

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

Hello

As a person who is somewhat a "newbie" to Asterisk, I have been given
the task of preparing our 1.2 installation for upgrade.  The thing that
has slowed me down is some of the gaps in information on the upgrade
process.  What's on the Wiki might make complete sense to both
experienced Linux users, and Asterisk users but as someone who is
feeling there way through - it's a bit daunting!

Considering how important a phone system is to a business, I'm loathed
to rush the upgrade through and have instead opted to install 1.4 on a
different box, and "port" our existing setup over to it.  This is a
time
consuming process and has taken quite a low priority.  As Olle says -
1.2 works just fine.

Personally speaking, the upgrade process has to be even easier if people
are going to jump for it. 

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Johansson
Olle E
Sent: 15 December 2007 10:57
To: Asterisk Non-Commercial Discussion Users Mailing List -
Subject: [asterisk-users] Upgrade to Asterisk 1.4 - it's one year's old!

Friends in the Asterisk community,

I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
and 1.4 there's been a lot of important development. New code cleanups,
optimization, new functions.

I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but we've
spent one year polishing it, working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that
is in distribution now is very different from the young and immature
product that was release before Christmas in 2006.  
Testing, testing, testing
and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality
is now much more grown-up and mature :-)

I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.

- Bugs that are still open?
- Bugs that are not reported?
- Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
- Just a bad karma for 1.4

When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after
release, so I'm not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming
release. We need to make a released product stable, not add new features
and potential scary bugs.

Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled our
revenues in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels"
or "Asterisk 1.4 gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed
the bad taste of the coffee in our vending machine". Anything.

Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new
feature in 1.4.
I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send
feedback to the list or in a private e-mail to me directly.

Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home systems
to large scale carrier platforms!

/Olle

---
* Olle E. Johansson - oej at edvina.net
* Asterisk Training http://edvina.net/training/




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Johansson Olle E wrote:
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
> 
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
For Asterisk users in countries that use the MFC/R2 protocol on E1
channels, it took a couple of months so we could start testing/using 1.4
because the lack of "official" support for MFC/R2.

But thanks to some users/developers the UniCall channel driver was
ported to 1.4 and there are many using it now with Digium cards.

Today, there are E1 cards available that have native MFC/R2 support from
some companies like DigiVoice (http://www.digivoice.com.br/english.php)
  , so many users are simply avoiding Digium cards/UniCall and buying
this cards. We hope that when 1.6 comes up the company that make the
card and maintains the channel driver update it quickly so their users
can upgrade faster.

So, it's not a problem with 1.4 at all, sometimes the reason is that
users just depend on external code.

  Leonardo

> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well - Just
> a bad karma for 1.4
Funny, but my results have been different.  I was running on 1.2.17 (and on to
22) for a year and had all sorts of lockups.  For me, when I switched to 1.4.5
these things went away.

I did find some bugs and switched to branch/1.4 in SVN.  While some have
considered this bleeding edge, I figure since there is no NEW code development,
these are all bug fixes.  So far, I have yet to find something that broke since
I polled SVN every week.  I do review the changes and implement as needed.  I
have yet to have a major problem with the server that was not caused because of
my config.

Our site might be small in number of connections in real time, but it is much
more stable since 1.4

I think if you polled the 1.2 community, not everyone is running 1.2.25.  I
think that the bugs you know are the bugs you love.  I don't know if it is
just 1.4 but I think that anything past version 1.2.X is considered dangerous. 
I also wonder if because 1.2 had such success, that there are many who use this
code who are not programmers and have trouble diagnosing Open Source bugs.  Not
that they need to be, but if that were me, it would change my opinion of the
code and the support given if I didn't know how to debug a C program.  Just
some thoughts.

Thanks to the team for their hard work on 1.4.  My experience with 1.4 makes me
hunger for 1.6 a short time after release.

On 12/15/07, Johansson Olle E <oej at edvina.net>
wrote:
> Friends in the Asterisk community,
>
> I'm kind of interested in the slow uptake of Asterisk 1.4. Between 1.2
> and 1.4 there's been a lot of
> important development. New code cleanups, optimization, new functions.
>
> I realize that 1.4 at release time wasn't ready for release, but
we've
> spent one year polishing it,
> working hard with bug fixes. The 1.4 that is in distribution now is
> very different from the young
> and immature product that was release before Christmas in 2006.
> Testing, testing, testing
> and hard work from developers has changed this and the 1.4 personality
> is now much
> more grown-up and mature :-)
>
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
>
> - Bugs that are still open?
> - Bugs that are not reported?
> - Not enough reasons to upgrade, since 1.2 really works well
> - Just a bad karma for 1.4
>
> When responding, remember that we don't add new features to 1.4 after
> release, so I'm
> not looking for a wishlist - that's for the coming release. We need to
> make a released
> product stable, not add new features and potential scary bugs.
>
> Success stories with 1.4 are also welcome. "Upgrading to 1.4 doubled
> our revenues
> in a month and gave us 200% more quality in the voice channels" or
> "Asterisk 1.4
> gave us more reliable pizza deliveries and also fixed the bad taste of
> the coffee in our
> vending machine". Anything.
>
> Also, I would like input on what you consider the most important new
> feature in 1.4.
> I will try to make a list based on the feedback. Feel free to send
> feedback to the
> list or in a private e-mail to me directly.
>
> Let's make 1.4 the choice for everyone's PBX - from small home
systems
> to large
> scale carrier platforms!
We have switched to 1.4 some half year ago, and main motivation was some
stability issues with 1.2 (and few new features), so having 1.4 for us
means - we're actually having support - we can post bugs to Mantis, and
got them solved. Our migration is not yet completely over, last step is
getting rid of AgentCallbackLogin, that we plan to do in beginning of
next year.

However 1.4 since release have had some serious changes that blocked our
planned upgrades - for example some memory corruption that raised
between 1.4.10 and 1.4.12 that was very hard to track down. This shows
that having 1.4 in bugfix-only state is not actually working that good -
we have to test each new release very carefully.

In total 1.4 have helped us to get rid of twice-per-week crashes we
experienced on 1.2, so i would call it more stable than 1.2.

Regards,
Atis

-- 
Atis Lezdins
VoIP Developer,
IQ Labs Inc.
atis at iq-labs.net
Skype: atis.lezdins
Cell Phone: +371 28806004
Work phone: +1 800 7502835

On Mon, 2007-12-17 at 12:00 -0800, shadowym wrote:
> I do wish Digium or whoever tests this stuff had a more reliable way of
> testing software releases rather than relying on feedback from the
> community.  Fonality, for example use what they call a "hammer"
which sounds
> to me like a bunch of servers running various stress tests on the software
> to try break it.
This "hammer" of which you speak is a commercial program from
Empririx,
part of their Hammer line of VoIP testing products.[1]  Just to be fair
and honest, Digium has a copy of the Empirix Hammer software and uses it
to test Asterisk.  They also spend countless hours testing Asterisk in
other ways as well.  Part of the problem of testing comes from high
number of combinations of different components that must be tested.
Just testing calls between the three most common channel drivers (SIP,
IAX2, and Zap) involves nine tests at a minimum:

SIP->SIP
SIP->Zap
SIP->IAX2
IAX2->IAX2
IAX2->SIP
IAX2->Zap
Zap->Zap
Zap->SIP
Zap->IAX2

Obviously, within each of those tests, there are lots of different
options that could be tested as well (such as methods for sending
DTMF). 

I've offered to start pulling together a community-driven set of tests
that we can automate and run against Asterisk on a regular basis, but so
far nobody has offered up any help in this regard, and I've been busy
with other things (like teaching Asterisk training classes) that I
haven't had any time to devote to it myself.  I'm hoping to be able to
start working on a testing framework sometime in January, as long as I
don't get too many other things put on my plate between now and then.

[1] http://www.empirix.com/products-services/voip_and_ims.asp
---
Jared Smith
Community Relations Manager
Digium, Inc.

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, Johansson Olle E wrote:
> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.
How about the change from a bad command line interface to a really bad 
command line interface?

I mean, Seriously? (in a Grey's Anatomy kind of way...)

The old syntax was inconsistent -- "show manager command" vs "sip
show
channels" and just plain bad -- for example "sip reload" should
have been
"reload sip."

The new syntax continues down the noun-verb path instead of correcting 
itself and using verb-noun like most other applications (MySQL, GDB, 
Oracle, etc.)

Then, just to make it worse, now I have to learn which commands somebody 
(arbitrarily) decided are "core" and which are not -- for what
benefit?
Certainly doesn't make MY job easier!

Approach the command line like a noob. I want Asterisk to show me 
something so I'll start the command line with "show." I'm not
quite sure
what I'm doing, so I'll press <TAB> to see what I can show. Oh,
"channel"
looks like what I want. Hmm, too much. Maybe I should have qualified what 
kind of channel I'm looking for BEFORE the word "channel."

Here's a suggestion -- stop thinking like a parser and start thinking like 
a person :)

Which makes more sense (at least in English)?

 	1) show black dogs -- show sip channels
 	2) black show dogs -- sip show channels
 	3) dogs black show -- channels sip show
 	4) show dogs black -- show channels sip
 	5) black dogs show -- sip channels show
 	6) dogs show black -- channels show sip

Is it too late to fix this for 1.6?

Thanks in advance,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Edwards      sedwards at sedwards.com      Voice: +1-760-468-3867 PST
Newline                                             Fax: +1-760-731-3000

> I wonder if there are any major obstacles for upgrading.

Just tried an in-place upgrade on my home box :

make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/asterisk-addons-1.4.5'
for x in app_addon_sql_mysql.so app_saycountpl.so cdr_addon_mysql.so 
res_config_mysql.so; do /usr/bin/install -c -m 755 $x 
/usr/lib/asterisk/modules ; done
/usr/bin/install: cannot stat `app_addon_sql_mysql.so': No such file or 
directory
/usr/bin/install: cannot stat `cdr_addon_mysql.so': No such file or 
directory
/usr/bin/install: cannot stat `res_config_mysql.so': No such file or 
directory
make: *** [install] Error 1


And the asterisk console is flooded with these errors :

[Dec 21 10:10:58] WARNING[22897]: chan_sip.c:6707 
determine_firstline_parts: Bad request protocol Packet
[Dec 21 10:10:58] WARNING[22897]: chan_sip.c:6707 
determine_firstline_parts: Bad request protocol Packet

So for the next time to come i'll turn back to 1.2 :)