[asterisk-dev] Re: How to busy out PRI channels?

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

On Thursday 26 October 2006 11:19, John Todd wrote:
> The problem set seems to be:
>    - how do you [busy,un-busy] channels out from a "live" system without
>        re-loading zaptel?  Should it be CLI only, or should there also be
>        something that is possible from within the dialplan and/or AMI?

CLI+Dialplan.

How is it "difficult" to do live?  You don't remove the lines from zaptel, you 
simply force their state.  normal Zaptel calls would then return that the 
line is busy or offhook, and additional checks in chan_zap would have to 
catch this and note that it's maintenance offhook and NOT call the normal PBX 
code for an offhook channel.

This is (in my opinion) a critical feature of any kind of digital service, and 
if Zaptel does not have hooks in place now to force channel state, it should 
have the appropriate IOCTLs registered.  Something to be able to say "this 
channel's state is forced to be state 'x'" where (at present time) x would 
either be "in service" or "out of service", and to remove the forced state 
you'd just zero the forced state.  The other IOCTL would just return the 
forced state.

>    - how do you display the status of channels?

"zap show channels" -- an additonal column should be added for "state", and 
perhaps get rid of the next-to-useless MOH column.

>    - how do you distinguish if the other side has busied a channel out?

You don't; with CAS T1s you simply see the line as off-hook.  with CCS 
circuits I believe there are two specific states "busied out" and 
"maintenance" which could be used.

-A.