[asterisk-users] ZAPtel channel dance

[Bob Chiodini]

On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 11:32 +0200, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 10:10:01AM +0100, Florian Hars wrote:
> > Zaptel installs an /etc/modprobe.d/zaptel and an
> > /etc/{defaults,sysconfig}/zaptel that list the modules in a different
> > order, so If you happen to have a TDM2400P and a TDM[124]xxP, all channels
> > change their numbers if you do a /etc/initd/zaptel restart. This is
> > slightly confusing. 
> 
> The order of the channels is the order in which the spans register to
> Zaptel, which is basically the order in which the modules load.
> 
> On Debian, load the modules through /etc/modules . Otherwise they will
> be loaded through hotplug/udev in an unpredictable order (by the order
> of PCI slots) which may or may not be the order that you like. 
> Gentoo has an equivalent file, whose name I forgot. 
> 
> Redhats seem to lack such a mechanism, and I'm not sure whther or not
> those cards do get hotplugged/coldplugged. Thus the tsrange need to load
> them in the zaptel startup script.
> 
> Anyway, the order in which you happened to load them right now is not
> guaranteed to be the order in which you load them next time unless you
> explicitly 
> 
> > (I'd file a bug if there were a bug tracking system
> > that allowed users to submit bugs).
> 
> Users are surely allowed. Just register.
> 
> Also, bug reports to xpp/genzaptelconf are welcomed. It should be able
> to write such module loading lists that should provide predictable order
> in both Debian and Redhats.
> 

For Redhat, Fedora, CentOS and other derivatives:

You can play tricks in /etc/modprobe.conf using the "install" directive.
The man page for modprobe.conf gives an example.

You could also force their loading and presumably their order in initrd
or rc.modules which runs as part of rc.sysinit.  

rc.modules is the cleanest approach (IMHO), as initrd gets rebuilt by
some updates (e.g. kernel).

Bob...