asterisk users - Jul 2017 - Options for bridging channels in a smart bridge

Hello,

I am struggling with a problem which I thought would be an easy one : 
bridging several channels together in a *smart* bridge. I emphasize 
*smart* : I want my bridge to be a native_rtp one when only two channels 
are involved, and switch to softmix technology when a third channel 
comes in.

I thought I could use ConfBridge for that, but it creates a bridge that 
is not smart (it is of type softmix even if two channels only are involved).

I can do this with ARI of course, but handling transfers will become 
quite difficult : I will receive replace_channels events, and channel 
optimization will not be performed. I managed to have something working 
this way, but I had to write a lot of code and some situations are very 
tricky to debug.

The easiest way I found was to write a piece if dialplan mixing 
BridgeWait, Bridge and BridgeAdd. This works well, transfers are handled 
by the Asterisk core, and the bridge is smart. Still, it requires to 
maintain a list of bridged channels in order to call BridgeWait, Bridge 
and BridgeAdd in the right order and with the right parameters.

Can you think of any other way (hopefully easier) to achieve this ?

Regards

Jean

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On Wed, Jul 5, 2017, at 01:45 PM, Jean Aunis wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am struggling with a problem which I thought would be an easy one : 
> bridging several channels together in a *smart* bridge. I emphasize 
> *smart* : I want my bridge to be a native_rtp one when only two channels 
> are involved, and switch to softmix technology when a third channel 
> comes in.
> 
> I thought I could use ConfBridge for that, but it creates a bridge that 
> is not smart (it is of type softmix even if two channels only are
> involved).
> 
> I can do this with ARI of course, but handling transfers will become 
> quite difficult : I will receive replace_channels events, and channel 
> optimization will not be performed. I managed to have something working 
> this way, but I had to write a lot of code and some situations are very 
> tricky to debug.
> 
> The easiest way I found was to write a piece if dialplan mixing 
> BridgeWait, Bridge and BridgeAdd. This works well, transfers are handled 
> by the Asterisk core, and the bridge is smart. Still, it requires to 
> maintain a list of bridged channels in order to call BridgeWait, Bridge 
> and BridgeAdd in the right order and with the right parameters.
> 
> Can you think of any other way (hopefully easier) to achieve this ?
Not really, there's no cookie cutter application that behaves as you
need using the bridging API.

-- 
Joshua Colp
Digium, Inc. | Senior Software Developer
445 Jan Davis Drive NW - Huntsville, AL 35806 - US
Check us out at: www.digium.com & www.asterisk.org

Le 2017-07-05 18:51, Joshua Colp a ?crit : 
> On Wed, Jul 5, 2017,
at 01:45 PM, Jean Aunis wrote:
> 
>> Hello, I am struggling with a
problem which I thought would be an easy one : bridging several channels
together in a *smart* bridge. I emphasize *smart* : I want my bridge to
be a native_rtp one when only two channels are involved, and switch to
softmix technology when a third channel comes in. I thought I could use
ConfBridge for that, but it creates a bridge that is not smart (it is of
type softmix even if two channels only are involved). I can do this with
ARI of course, but handling transfers will become quite difficult : I
will receive replace_channels events, and channel optimization will not
be performed. I managed to have something working this way, but I had to
write a lot of code and some situations are very tricky to debug. The
easiest way I found was to write a piece if dialplan mixing BridgeWait,
Bridge and BridgeAdd. This works well, transfers are handled by the
Asterisk core, and the bridge is smart. Still, it requires to maintain a
list of bridged channels in order to call BridgeWait, Bridge and
BridgeAdd in the right order and with the right parameters. Can you
think of any other way (hopefully easier) to achieve this
?
> 
> Not
really, there's no cookie cutter application that behaves as
you
> need
using the bridging API.

Thank you for your quick answer.

Do you think
it could make sense to add an option to the ConfBridge application for
this ? Personally I would say "not really", because many ConfBridge
features may become unusable when the bridge is in native_rtp
technology. 
 
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