[asterisk-biz] asterisk hardware server

[Paul Matthews]

I am new to this group so can not speak with any authority but I have 
been pondering myself on the same subject as to whether go with 
something like Asterisk at Home, Astlinux combined with say PBXware  or do 
a Centos based self build

Astlinux is written by the co-author of Voip Hacks (which I very much 
reccomend btw) and is a super paired down distro for running on hardware 
with non-moveable parts although as previosuly stated can run equally 
well on more standard disk based hardware. As far as I can tell it is 
based on linux kernel 2.6 and BusyBox which is a favourite for embedded 
linux based hardware. The fact that it is minimal means it is 
pre-hardened in security terms but the downside is that loading any new 
software could be more painful as dependant packages may not already 
exist and you will most likely need to compile missing ones from source. 
Having said this most of the features needed for a small SMB size pbx 
seem to be there such as openssh for maintenance,  pre-configured 
asterisk specific firewall, web server (mini-httpd), cron for scheduling 
periodic jobs, all the asterisk s/w obviously as well as a few custom 
tools such as Astshape (asterisk traffic shaping tool).

My concern, though is that it appears to be a one person effort at the 
moment and although the chap is undeniably skilled if he ever left or 
lost interest you could be left with a potentially difficult to upgrade 
server at customer sites.

Having said this I still plan to give it a try, although I would feel 
more comfortable if all these packages were sitting on a more standard 
os such as Centos

Rgds
Paul


Tim Schroeder wrote:
> Can anyone comment on why one would use the AstLinux distro as opposed to a
> standard (perhaps RedHat ES?) build with Asterisk added?
> 
> Tim
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-biz-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Chris Mason
> (Lists)
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 1:04 PM
> To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] asterisk hardware server
> 
> Frank wrote:
> 
>>Sorry it was a slim 1 U black unit , 
>>
>>Like a Pentium 3 1 gig or something running on flash or other silent
> 
> media,
> 
>>no PSU, no fans nothing.
>>
>>You install Asterisk on the media (sdcard or whatever) and it runs from
>>there.
>>  
> 
> You can run any server this way, using the AstLinux distribution. I have 
> 1 GHz P4 fanless units with a flash drive built in, runs Asterisk and a 
> T1 Card beautifully.
>