[Asterisk-Dev] Creating Virtual PBX Partitions

[Stephen J. Wilcox]

Hi,
 I'm doing this .. you already have all your extensions uniquely defined in 
sip.conf, just bring each vpbx into its own context and set vars/process it from 
there..

Steve

On Sun, 11 Jul 2004, Steven Sokol wrote:

> Ok, here goes...
> 
> I'm working on a simple way to create logical partitions from one or more
> Asterisk systems.  Essentially I am building Virtual PBXs (vPBX) by
> segmenting the dial plan.  I have run into one annoying issue.  I have to
> create a separate [vPBXname_features] context for each vPBX because there is
> no way of uniquely identifying the users when activating/deactivating
> features.  I really would prefer to be able to simply include a
> [standard-features] context in the base context for each vPBX.
> 
> The issue comes down to not having a unique identifier for the user making
> the call.  Each user is assigned to one of a several contexts that "belong"
> to the virtual PBX.  When the user dials a feature code the call drops
> through the dial-plan until it hits the [pbxname-internal] context which
> includes the [standard-features] context.  In this context is an option to
> turn on/off DND, FWD, etc.  However, this presents a problem.  The only
> "key" I can use to identify the user/caller in the database (the DB1
> Asterisk database) is their Caller ID value.
> 
> This doesn't work for two reasons: First, the Caller ID value for vPBX users
> is often set to "Company Name" <Main Phone> and is therefore the same for
> all employees/users of the vPBX.  The other option is to set the CALLERIDNUM
> value to <Exten> so that it has the extension number.  But again you get
> overlap as users for vPBX A and vPBX B may both be extension 100.
> 
> As I know I have a tendency to drift away from the ONE TRUE PATH of
> simplicity, I thought I would everyone you a chance to tell me the error of
> my ways.  What strikes you as the best way to introduce a variable for all
> User calls that identifies the vPBX to which they belong?
> 
> My thought would be to solve this by having Asterisk create a variable for
> every call made by a user.  The variable would simply be the username.  For
> IAX and SIP this would be fairly straight forward.  For Zap you could simply
> use the channel name, since they are static.  (Or you could add a directive
> to the zapata.conf file that sets the username.)  I think the same logic
> holds for the other VoIP and TDM channels.
> 
> With this enhancement, we can use the variable (${USERNAME}) to act as the
> unique key when altering feature settings:
> 
> exten => *76,1,DBPut(${USERNAME}/DND=1)
> exten => *77,1,DBPut(${USERNAME}/DND=0)
> 
> Since its easy to set the username to a unique value, we could just use the
> username as the identifier for such functions. (I currently have all IAX and
> SIP users built as "username#vPBXname".)
> 
> A slightly more advanced version of this solution would be to include a
> separate vPBX value that can be added to users of all types.  The vPBX value
> would become a separate vPBX variable whenever the user makes a call.
> Example:
> 
> exten => *76,1,DBPut(${PBX}/${USERNAME}/DND=1)
> exten => *77,1,DBPut(${PBX}/${USERNAME}/DND=0)
> 
> Have I drifted away from the path again?  Am I missing some obvious bit of
> Asterisk-fu that would send Critchfield into a smoking rage were he to read
> this?  Anybody care to guess as to the complexity of making this happen in
> the various Channels?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steven
> 
> 
> 
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