[Asterisk-Users] Questions about alarm reporting in Asterisk

[Ernest W. Lessenger]

> Any good ideas would be appreciated!

We use a package called Nagios to monitor our servers, which works quite
well. It has the ability to track service and host dependencies so you don't
get flooded with a bunch of "service down" alerts when the real cause is a
bad switch (or similar).

It would seem logical for someone (hah!) to write a res_snmp.c for asterisk
that would expose a lot of asterisk's internal data. This would seem a
logical step toward writing fully functional monitoring applications as
well. The module would allow clients to add themselves to the list and
receive traps, as well as check for the current status of various variables.

<brainstorming>
Okay, this may be over the top, but here goes. Write an asterisk application
that sends (and receives) status information to another box over the PSTN.
My idea is not only to use this as a way to verify that * is running, but as
a way to RELIABLY tell that a remote * box is actively accepting incoming
calls. It wouldn't have to be anything complicated, just a heartbeat and
some basic details to let the caller know that "yes, I'm alive and accepting
calls over this line".

Simplified protocol:
1) Monitoring box calls up and says (in DTMF):
	#<my CallerID>#<extension I am trying to reach>#<I'm a machine, so
reply in DTMF instead of voice>#<the secret code is>#
2) The remote box says
	#<your CallerID>#<Your DNIS>#<yes I will accept a call to that
number>#
3) Monitoring box acknowledges and disconnects
4) Remote box disconnects
5) Monitoring box decides whether it likes the answers it received and
performs actions accordingly.

</brainstorming>

--Ernest

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Clif Jones
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 10:16 AM
> To: asterisk users
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Questions about alarm reporting in Asterisk
> 
> I am currently helping a friend build an Asterisk PBX that spans
> several cities using anything from T1s to DSL connections to
> link remote SIP phones, IAX gateways, etc. to a central Asterisk
> PBX server that serves up voicemail, features, etc.  The 
> biggest problem
> that I have had with this system appears to be the leading 
> problem that
> my day job company finds with their VOIP deployments:  Most common
> problems are on the infrastructure network but are reported 
> as "phone system
> problems" because that is the piece that the customer 
> directly interacts 
> with.
> I'm interested in hearing success stories in tying things 
> like Asterisk 
> YELLOW
> and RED alarms and network problems into a central alarm 
> reporting solution.
> 
> The most common problems that I have found are:
> 1. Someone unplugs a X100P from the Dmarc and nobody knows 
> until people
>     complain that calls are not coming in.
> 2. A network span goes down and nobody knows until they can't send or 
> receive
>     calls on that span.
> 
> Here are some ideas that I have thought about so far:
> 1. Installing a basic SNMP agent on each Linux box and using 
> a central SNMP
>     manager to monitor each node.  This would give notice 
> when a remote 
> node became
>     isolated from the monitoring network.
> 2. Rolling in Asterisk alarm logs into a syslog server or 
> even as SNMP 
> traps.
> 
> Any good ideas would be appreciated!
> 
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