[asterisk-users] Asterisk voicemail

[Tilghman Lesher]

On Tuesday 14 October 2008 05:00:45 Chris Rowson wrote:
> > I'm working on a solution using the Asterisk voicemail component and
> > wondered if anyone knew the answer to this question please?
> >
> > I understand that Asterisk saves voicemail to
> > /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/<context>/<mailbox>/INBOX/  but I
> > wondered if * creates the file in memory (or tmp/or wherever) and then
> > loads the completed file into that directory, or if it writes the file
> > to the directory directly, appending it till the recording is
> > finished?
>
> Sorry to reply to my own post! I notice a tmp directory at
> /var/spool/asterisk/voicemail/<context>/<mailbox>/tmp/ I'm wondering
> if this is where the file is created, and then moved to the INBOX
> folder perhaps?

That is exactly how it works.  It is created with a random file name that is
guaranteed by the API to be unique, the messages are recorded there, then when
complete, the files are moved to the INBOX directory.  This was initially done
to avoid the problem of mailbox owners checking voicemail while a voicemail
was being left.  In certain cases, it would cause possible collisions when a
mailbox owner deleted a message while it was being recorded, which left orphan
(and incomplete) .txt files in the INBOX directory (since .txt files are
updated after the message is complete).

-- 
Tilghman