[asterisk-dev] Spring is here :: Test the Asterisk Spring Collection 2006!

[Olle E Johansson]

Friends,

The spring has finally arrived to Sollentuna, where I live and have  
my garden. It's
just a few miles north of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Spring to  
me is preparation
for another gardening season. Work I do now will hopefully result in  
beautiful flowers
a few months away - Fuchsias, Dahlias, Geraniums and other flowers.

The same applies for Asterisk development. Testing we do now will  
result in a new
beautiful product during the summer. The more testing we do before  
release, the
better product you will get. Testing is really important.

Yesterday, I implemented a test scenario described to me by Roy  
Karlsbakk,
a Norwegian friend and Asterisk user. I connected two PCs with Linux  
and Asterisk.
Placed one call from the console over SIP to the other server. That  
server raised
the extension with one and dialed back. My server raised the  
extension with one
and dialed back - 200 times. One call going back and forward 200  
times before
Allison started talking about weasels. Quite a lot of signalling.  
Quite a lot of files
open. The freshly installed Ubuntu desktop ran out of file handles  
and a lot of
interesting things happened. One server started sending re-invites,  
which
confused everything and I ended up with a big mess. A few patches  
later, things
started working as expected.

A simple test that hopefully improved the Asterisk 1.4 release a tiny  
bit.

So what happens if I start adding codec translations? If I add a  
third server?
With two or three small systems, you can cause a lot of havoc and stress
test. Realtime on one server, two other servers that send  
registrations with
one minute expiry and 200 calls each? 200 authenticated calls that rings
for two secs, then hangs up and tries again?

We have things to do, tests to run.

* NEWS IN THE TEST BRANCH

This week, the PostgreSQL driver was committed to SVN trunk. It still
needs testing, as the LDAP ARA driver we have in the test branch.
A lot of small features was implemented in the test branch, among them
a SQLite 3 CDR driver. I am preparing the SIPtransfer branch to be
merged into the testbranch, so hopefully that will happen the coming
week. Feel free to test it from the siptransfer branch today.

And of course, Mark's HTTP server that was committed directly
to svn trunk for testing is also available in the test branch. See it as
AMI over HTTP. It's not a full featured Apache, it's a way to reach
manager over HTTP as an alternative to TCP. Many script languages
can send HTTP requests and receive responses. Mark implmented
a tiny test interface in javascript to prove the usefulness of this.
I am sure that this will make Asterisk manager development much
easier for everyone that works with PHP, JavaScript, Visual basic
or any other language with HTTP objects and methods. Play
around with it and have fun! You will see that the manager interface
needs your love and attention. There are many missing commands,
things you still have to use the CLI for.

* A NICE WEEKEND = A TEST WEEKEND

So I wish you a nice weekend, testing the test branch and taking
care of your plants. Spending time on both, means a fruitful
and colorful summer! Your house is the Asterisk greenhouse!

Read all about the test branch here:
http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/team/oej/test-this-branch/ 
README.test-this-branch.html

Thanks for testing, your work is important to all of us!

Regards,
/Olle