asterisk users - Jun 2009 - PrivacyManager no longer working properly

Hi all,

Previously, I had the PrivacyManager working for me exactly as would  
be expected, but after upgrading the OS to Debian lenny and Asterisk  
to v1.4.21.2 that's no longer the case. Anonymous callers are still  
confronted with the PrivacyManager, but now no matter what I set the  
minlength value to, e.g.:

         exten => jaap,n,PrivacyManager(1,1)

... (I'm not using a privacy.conf file), the submitted caller ID is  
always considered invalid.

Does anyone recognize this problem? Does the PrivacyManager have a new  
parameter that I'm missing?

Thanks,

Jaap

Quoting Jaap Winius <jwinius at umrk.to>:
> Previously, I had the PrivacyManager working for me exactly as would
> be expected, but after upgrading the OS to Debian lenny and Asterisk
> to v1.4.21.2 that's no longer the case. Anonymous callers are still
> confronted with the PrivacyManager, but now no matter what I set the
> minlength value to, e.g.:
>
>          exten => jaap,n,PrivacyManager(1,1)
>
> ... (I'm not using a privacy.conf file), the submitted caller ID is
> always considered invalid.
This issue has been resolved, at least on my system.

After running some more tests, I discovered that the PrivacyManager  
was only having problems with calls coming in via SIP; anonymous calls  
incoming via ISDN were treated normally. The Asterisk version I was  
using was from Xorcom (1.4.21.2~dfsg-3 for Debian lenny).

Thinking that the version might be a problem, I first decided to try  
for an upgrade. I noticed that Xorcom had a major update in store for  
me -- Asterisk v1.6.1.0~dfsg-1 -- but worried that the corresponding  
replacement of zaptel with dahdi software would cause problems (I need  
it to support my HFC-PCI card). Nevertheless, I gave it a try.

Bad idea. I wasted several hours late last night trying to get the  
HFC-PCI card working working with dahdi, but without any luck. The  
first thing I noticed was that the zaphfc module was still there (not  
renamed), while the one that I prefer -- vzaphfc -- was not. To get  
dahdi_genconf to work I found that it was important for dahdi_dummy be  
loaded after zaphfc. That went fine, but then running dahdi_genconf  
would lock up the system, with thousands of error messages flashing  
across the server console:

    zaphfc: sync lost, pci performance too low. you might have some
    cpu throtteling enabled.

After a few of these lock-ups and reboots, I abandoned the upgrade.  
Obviously, I'll try for it again at a later date, but I really do hope  
that by that time I will discover that dahdi includes a working  
equivalent of vzaphfc.

Not wanting to "go against the grain" by attempting to manually  
reinstall and then freezing the older asterisk and zaptel packages  
from Xorcom, which would certainly get me nowhere as far as my  
privacymanager problem was concerned, I decided at this point to try  
to install the stock version that comes with Debian lenny instead.  
After installing all of the necessary packages, I saw that the HFC-PCI  
card was working again, but so was the privacymanager (for both ISDN  
and SIP). All of my problems were solved!

In hindsight, however, I see that I've been running the stock Debian  
versions of Asterisk and Zaptel for lenny all along. I was running  
v1.4.21.2~dfsg-3 before, just as I am now, but since Xorcom was until  
recently only offering an older version for Debian lenny,  
1.4.21.1~dfsg-0.5941, apt wasn't selecting it. The same can be said  
for the Zaptel packages that I have installed now compared to before  
(1.4.11~dfsg-3), except that before I also had an even older  
zaptel-firmware package installed, 1.4.10.1-0.567, which must have  
come from Xorcom. I don't think that it was influencing matters,  
though, since the compiled zaptel-modules packages are still the same  
version now as before.

So, how come the privacymanager is working 100% now? No idea. Thanks  
to my fantastic backup system, I'm also using the same Asterisk  
configuration files now as I was before. It's a mystery I guess. In  
the mean time, I will see if I can acquire an extra HFC-PCI card from  
somewhere and set up a new system with which to test Asterisk 1.6.

Cheers,

Jaap