[Asterisk-doc] extensions.conf section

[Philipp von Klitzing]

Hi Steven!

Where can i find the stylesheet for displaying this?

			<title>/usr/src/asterisk</title>
			<para>
			This is where standard convention places the asterisk source code.
			All examples will point you to this directory when pointing to the
			source code.

Unless I misunderstood the chapter structure I think you should shortly 
mention /libpri /zaptel and /asterisk-addons as well.

			<!-- qcall? Someone who knows this should fill in a sentence about
			it. -->

Technical question: When rendered into PDF I guess that HTML comment will 
drop out = not be shown? At least for the moment I'd suggest to use some 
kind of "open question" tag that can be easily hidden when needed, but 
shown while the documentation is still in the process of being written.

    > From this example you should be able to notice

Hm... sounds a bit like newbie bashing to me. ;->

In general: Maybe it'd be nice to have a very minimal setup provided in 
the book (see recent discussion on users-l) that just lists two SIP 
devices and a minimalistic extensions.conf with the two devices, fwd 
dialout (and maybe iaxtel dialout) and voicemail (so skip the demo).

				<para>
				Hangup is where calls will go to when hangup is detected, or where
				you can send calls that you want to hangup on.
				</para>

On users-l I recently read comments of bkw stating that h has limitations 
and should not be relied upon e.g. for billing purposes etc. It hink that 
should be added here.

				<lineannotation>; Make sure we wait long enough for the CallerID to 
be received.</lineannotation>

This remark is only valid for analog calls, I assume?

		> You may be used to noticing that 9 is associated with dialing
		> an outside line.

In Europe that's typically 0 instead of 9.

				> Exact matches can be typed as is, the letter 'X' matches all
				> digits, and the letter 'N' matches 2-9. This is especially
				> useful when defining outside phone number availability. 

Add a remark on . as well

			<title>/var/log/asterisk</title>
			<para>
			Here is where you find the directory for the Call Detail
			Records(CDR), and a few files containing the messages generated by
			asterisk while running.
			</para>

Is there a chapter forseen for administration (and logging)? I have the 
feeling that this should be added to the outline. Don't confuse this with 
setup and configuration questions, I mean "regular boring admin work" 
here including. The "clustering" sub-chapter should probably be moved 
into this new admin chapter. This could also include info about the admin 
tools astman, gastman etc.

Here's a quick draft:


Administrating Asterisk
    - useful tools
    -- astman
    -- gastman
    -- ...
    - logfiles
    -- log levels and what-goes-where
    --- asterisk
    --- agi and eagi logging
    -- log rotation (disk full!)
    - backup
    -- configuration
    -- voicemail
    -- cdr data
    - startup scripts and watchdogs
    -- startup scripts
    -- watchdogs
    - distributed Asterisk & clustering
    -- using multiple boxes for different tasks
    -- T1 failvoer hardware
    -- databases
    --- sharing data among several * boxes
    --- example: how to deal with remote DB unreachable
    - tips for stable (and conservative) operation
    -- example (to be discussed): don't use mpg123 for MOH
    -- example (to be discussed): daily restart
    - tips for rollout and transition (maybe in another chapter?)
    -- seamlessly moving analog trained users to asterisk
    -- devel box and production box

Wow, I didn't expect that I'd fill the outline that quickly! And here's 
another one that devers a chapter (or big section under the admin 
chapter): Billing and LCR. The Wiki pages on this have grown recently, 
and the frequent calling card discussions on users-l indicate the 
importance of the topic:

Billing and Least Cost Routing (LCR)
    - billing
    -- how reliable are CDR data? Pitfalls?
    -- open source tools and how to integrate them
    - least cost routing
    -- intro (telco LCR, VoIP LCR)
    -- for SOHO
    -- for bigger installations (service provider)
    - calling card applications
    -- intro
    -- considerations

Another addition: Add a "What Asterisk is not" section under
Introduction --> General concept, possibly describing integration 
concepts with other tools like SER.

Cheers, Philipp