[asterisk-dev] Zaptel prerequisite for meetme conference calls

[Matt Florell]

On 1/15/07, Nicholas Campion <campnic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've spent a couple weeks getting to know the meetme asterisk module and I
> have a few questions about the zaptel drivers role.  I have been working on
> a Linux environment (Ubuntu 6.10) up to this point and have managed to get
> the zaptel drivers compiled and installed, asterisk compiled and installed
> and conference calling working using ztdummy.  I'm looking at deploying
> asterisk on some proprietary hardware with a proprietary operating system
> where zaptel hardware is non-existent and kernel modules are not an option.
> We have asterisk working on this hardware already, but one of the key
> requirements is conference calling.
>
> Being that I'm not a C program by any stretch of the imagination, I'm coming
> to you guys with some questions.  I have been using ztdummy, but since this
> hardware/software platform will not support ztdummy, I need to understand
> its role in meetme.
>
> First off, I can see that the device "/dev/zap/pseudo" is being used.  I'm
> under the assumption that that is the ztdummy device.  This happens in
> app_meetme.c around line 1209.  The non-blocking write flag is set and ioctl
> is used to set buffering information and put the file in linear mode.
> Around line 1574, it looks like we are writ ting to the /dev/zap/pseudo fd.
> My question here is two fold.  Does all the voice data for the conference
> travel through the /dev/zap/psuedo device?  What does this device/driver do?
>
> I found a message from June of 2005
> (http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2005-June/013249.html
> ) that describes replacing zaptel with POSIX timers.  Since my platform
> doesn't support the hardware or the ztdummy kernel module, I'm beginning to
> think POSIX timers might be our only options.  The Zaptel drivers and
> ztdummy are described as "Asterisk timers."  Do they do more than provide
> timing?  I gather they must given that meetme is writing data to the driver.
>
> So, I believe my options are these:
>
> 1) Modify meetme to use some other timing mechanism besides zaptel/ztdummy.
>
> 2) Modify ztdummy so it doesn't have to be a kernel module.
>

Your other options are to stay with Asterisk and use app_conference or
switch to OpenPBX which uses generic timers for it's new Nconference
conferencing engine.

MATT---