[Asterisk-Users] some EICON Diva 4BRI questions

[Armin Schindler]

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006, Klaus Darilion wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I have some (short) question about the Eicon DIVA (V-)4BRI cards I want to
> have (short) answered before buying the DIVA card. I know there are several
> Eicon guys active on the list, thus I ask on the list instead of directly to
> Eicon so that all other will benefit as well.

I try to answer.... ;-)
 
> 1. Do Eicon DIVA (V-)4BRI cards support TE and NT mode?

Yes.
 
> 2. Can the clock (master/slave) be configured independent from the mode
> (TE/NT)

I don't know that one. But I can contact Eicon here.
 
> 3. Is the PIN layout for TE or NT mode?

It is TE PIN layout, you need a crossed cable with 100Ohm termination for 
NT-mode.
 
> 4. When I change the mode (implies 'YES' for question 1), will this also
> change the polarity on the connectors or do I have to use a BRI-crossover
> cable?

See answer on 3., cross cable is needed.
 
> 5. If a call is bridged from BRI->BRI, is it done directly on the BRI card or
> via Asterisk

You can configure this in the capi.conf of chan-capi-cm.
If you set bridge=yes, then the b-channels will be bridged on the card, not 
via Asterisk/CPU. This also works between different cards via Bus-Master 
DMA.
 
> 6. Difference between V-4BRI and 4BRI: As far as I understand the 4BRI is the
> better (more expensive) card which also offers FAX on/offramp. Nevertheless I
> can use V-4BRI for faxing when using spandsp. Both cards do support onboard
> echo cancellation. Are this assumptions correct?

Yes.
 
> Usage in Asterisk: please correct me if I'm wrong:
> - Communication between the DIVA cards and Asterisk always happens via the
> CAPI interfaces.

Correct.
 
> - For the Asterisk part I have the choice of chan_misdn or chan_capi(-cm).
> After reading I come to the conclusion that chan_capi(-cm) should work better.

When using Eicon DIVA Server, you can use chan-capi only. chan-misdn is for 
passive isdn cards like the DIVA client cards.
 
> - For the hardware part there are also 2 choices. Either use the Eicon drivers
> included in 2.6 and divactrl or use the source packages from eicon and the
> tools included. Here I'm not sure which method is better. Further I do not
> know how this is related with isdn4linux or other linux ISDN stuff. From:
> http://www.eicon.com/support/helpweb/slnxen/asterisk.asp

The in-kernel driver in 2.6 is the so called v2 driver from Melware. This 
driver works very good. But the driver from Eicons sourceRPM (Melware calls 
it v3) is the newer one with many more features, more supported cards, newer 
firmware... (like RTP support which is used with newer chan-capi-cm as 
well).
 
> 1. "Ensure that you do not have the ISDN4Linux driver or the HiSax driver
> installed."   What is the ISDN4Linux driver? Is is something generic in Linux
> or do they talk about a certain ISDN4Linux driver for Eicon cards?

ISDN4Linux is the 'old' ISDN core of the Linux kernel. It is still there, 
but not developed any more. CAPI is used more and more. The HiSax driver as 
well as older Eicon driver in kernel uses this core. HiSax is the old driver 
for passive ISDN cards, mISDN is the new one here.
With CAPI and Eicon DIVA Server you don't need ISDN4Linux, but it should not
harm if installed in parallel, because CAPI can co-exist with it.
We (Melware) do provide a special driver where the new Eicon drivers can be 
used with ISDN4Linux as well. E.g. when you want to use the AT-emulator 
(ttyI) interfaces of ISDN4Linux with the Eicon DIVA Server cards. But Eicon 
does provide an own special tty-AT-emulator as well.
All these interfaces (CAPI, ISDN4Linux, tty-AT) can be used at the same time
if wanted.
 
> 2. " ...install the isdn4k-utils-devel package...". What is isdn4k ?
> I'm a little bit confused about what I have to install.

The isdn4k-utils (isdn for kernel utilities) contain the CAPI library 
(libcapi20) which is needed for chan-capi to compile/use. That is the reason 
for that package. Just make sure that you have the libcapi20.* and the 
header files of it (some distributions provide the header files via a 
special -devel package only).
Since I have created a special version of that libcapi20 to support 
remote-CAPI via TCP (ISDN Hardware in one maschine, Application in another), 
Melware will provide more packages via chan-capi.org / melware.org soon.

If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Armin

--
Cytronics & Melware