[asterisk-gui] Opinion, what do you want in the gui for users?

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 11:28:03AM -0500, Steven Sokol wrote:
> On 4/13/07, Andrew Latham <lathama at lathama.com> wrote:
> >Would a provisioning middle-ware be the better option. A system described 
> >below.
> >
> >Stations = MAC address
> >Extensions = Stations
> >
> >1. Station starts up and asks for DHCP
> >2. DHCP gives TFTP or CONFIG server per MAC (lots of work here)
> >3. TFTP or HTTP configs to the phones with correct settings (magic)
> >3.1 TFTP or HTTP system ask the manager interface for info for extension
> >3.2 TFTP or HTTP configs created and sent to Stations
> >4. Station registers
> >
> 
> Possibly, but here's my goal in narrative form:
> 
> A user downloads/builds (or buys) an Asterisk with the GUI.  The
> README tells him to go and install all of his phones (Polycom, Snom,
> Linksys, Cisco, Grandstream, etc.), then run the discovery wizard.
> The discovery tool does the following:

The idea with provisioning is automating. If it is not automatable
(scriptable), then it remains a non-useful GUI feature.

> 
> 1) scans the LAN and finds devices.

How?

For Cisco phones: using cdpr?

What other method? scan UDP port 5060 over the LAN?

> 2) Identifies them by either a SIP options response (using the User
> Agent value) or simply by a MAC that fits within a known range for a
> given manufacturer (is this data available?)
> 3) adds the devices to a list (conf file, database, etc.) of known 
> endpoints.
> 
> The system then builds a "guest" account for each of the newly
> discovered devices.  The device uses the MAC address to craft a config
> file for the phone (to be downloaded via HTTP or TFTP) or uses
> something like CURL to post a basic config to the phone.  The system
> also creates a PEER entry in Asterisk (using users.conf?) that points
> to a [guest] or [unknown] context.
> 
> This basic configuration allows the phone to dial 911, dial inside
> extensions and to access the provisioning extension: the administrator
> can dial an extension, log in using an ID and PIN and feed Asterisk
> the new extension number for the phone via DTMF.
> 
> In a VERY simple system that's really all that needs to happen.
> Asterisk will update the users.conf entry for the device and move it
> to the [inside] or [users] or [default] context and that's that.  But
> wait, that's not all....
> 
> In a truly integrated system the user would be able to log into an
> AJAM-powered portal that allows them to control their system features
> (i.e. features configured on Asterisk using the AstDB, etc.) but they
> would ALSO be able to manage the buttons on their phone from the same
> GUI.  They could set busy-lamp fields (BLFs), configure phone
> features, etc. all from their portal page.
> 
> One thing that I would like to try to overcome is the dependence on
> the DHCP->TFPT->HTTP chain.  In some cases the PBX administrator
> simply won't be able to control the DHCP options system in order to
> configure the TFTP option to point to the Asterisk system.  If we can
> build a basic "push" system that can update the TFTP and/or HTTP
> provisioning address on the most common brands of phone, we can avoid
> having to manage the DHCP process or server.

Is there any decent "dynamic" tftp daemon?

Be that by the way of proxying content to a nearby httpd.

-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen       
icq#16849755                    jabber:tzafrir at jabber.org
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http://www.xorcom.com  iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir