[asterisk-users] Best Linux distribution to use in Asterisk server

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 11:50:59AM -0400, Drew Gibson wrote:
> equis software wrote:
> > Hi, I allways use Gentoo y my Asterisk servers and work well, but what 
> > do you think about to use Ubuntu or another distibution??
> >
> > Thanks
> 
> I have run Asterisk on several Fedora versions, Debian, Unslung (on the 
> NSLU2 or "Slug") and recently Ubuntu. My most critical servers are on 
> Debian and new ones will be on Ubuntu LTS.
> 
> I have had very few OS specific issues. I have always built from source 
> except on the Slug but I noticed that Ubuntu has it in the apt 
> repository which would be a great convenience if you are new to Linux or 
> manage a lot of servers.

Now that you mention it, are packages of that distribution really
maintained?

The recent volnurability of AST-2008-006 is a good test case for that.
If affects both 1.2 and 1.4 .

The annoncement by Digium:

  http://downloads.digium.com/pub/asa/AST-2008-006.html

As with the previous ones, the text is quite clear about the fix.
"backporting" that patch to a slightly older version is not that tricky
(and it is something that a distribution package maintainer is used to
doing anyway).

So what about updates?

The LWN page for this advisory only lists Fedora and Debian:

  http://lwn.net/Articles/280318/

Response ime in both was quite reasonable.

LWN also tracks adsisories from various other distributions. You can see
the list in http://lwn.net/Alerts/ . The following other distributions
have 'asterisk' packages:

 * Gentoo
 * Mandriva (??? - probably only in contrib and is unsupported)
 * rPath (Not sure. See below about AstriskNOW)
 * SUSE
 * Ubuntu (the package is in 'universe', and not officially supported)

The issue is listed as corrected in AsteriskNOW 1.0.3, but the latest
version available for download is 1.0.2 .
If I read rpath's repository page correctly, then the most recently
released version of Asterisk is 1.4.17-2 , from Feb-2008 and thus does
not contain this fix.

To see the versions of packages i Ubuntu:

  http://packages.ubuntu.com/asterisk

As you can see, both Hardy and the development distribution (Interpid)
include the same version of the package. As you can see from following
the changelog link:
http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/universe/a/asterisk/asterisk_1.4.17~dfsg-2ubuntu1/changelog

The security issues of 1.4.18.1 were backported to that 1.4.17 package.
But nothing about the recent advisory.


The Gentoo port is basically where the Ubuntu package is: missing only
the last one:

  http://packages.gentoo.org/package/asterisk


The FreeBSD port has not been updated yet. It is still at 1.4.18, and no
sign of backported fixes:

  http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/net/asterisk/


OpenBSD port was updated pretty fast (by upgrading to asterisk 1.4.19.1)

  http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/telephony/asterisk/


I don't know where to look for in other distributions.

-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen
icq#16849755              jabber:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
+972-50-7952406           mailto:tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com
http://www.xorcom.com  iax:guest at local.xorcom.com/tzafrir