[asterisk-users] Dahdi for meetme on AMD64 arch?

Wed Jan 18 12:44:07 CST 2012

"Have you used 64 bit kernels (amd64) in your setup? Distribution?"

Aye,  I use the current stable 64-bit rhel6 branch openvz kernel with 
centos 6 on the node and scientific linux 6 in the template without 
issue other than what I described before with res_timing_timerfd.so 
pegging the cpu and coring Asterisk.

It's never a suggestion a debian user wants to hear, but as the vanilla 
2.6.32 openvz kernel has effectively been abandoned by the OpenVZ dev 
team in favor of the rhel6 version of 2.6.32, and since the node 
shouldn't really be doing anything other than hosting the templates, 
have you considered running centos6/rhel6-openvz kernel on the node and 
debian in the containers?   Just a suggestion, but no further openvz 
development is being done to the vanilla 2.6.32 branch and the rhel6 
openvz kernel will consistently have bug fixes and and backports.

Not trying to start a distro war or anything, rather just a suggestion.

--
<http://www.classiccitytelco.com>

*John Knight*
Classic City Telco LLC
*Email:* john at classiccitytelco.com | *Main:* (706) 995-0200
*Direct:* (706) 995-0201 | *Mobile:* (706) 255-9203

On 1/18/2012 1:01 PM, Johan Wilfer wrote:
> 2012-01-18 16:45, John Knight skrev:
>> Ah, apologies, I just re-read your given Asterisk version.  Indeed, I 
>> was using 1.8.5.0 at the time, not any 1.4.x release.
>>
>> Any digium timing card will work as an OpenVZ compatible dahdi timing 
>> device, I've seen this work on both Virtuozzo and OpenVZ.  Setting it 
>> up, there's no difference in how you set up passthrough access using 
>> DEVNODES to the device from /dev inside the $CTID.conf file.  Just 
>> make sure permissions inside the container make it writable by the 
>> asterisk user.
>>
> Okay, I will try that procedure tonight.
> I'll also remove my Intel dual nic card, and the network bonds.
>
> After that, then only difference to the machine working and the 
> machine not working are i386 / amd6.
> And the os version - debian 5 / 6.
>
> Have you used 64 bit kernels (amd64) in your setup? Distribution?
>
> Thanks for your advices, it's very appreciated!
>
> /Johan
>
>> On 1/18/2012 8:52 AM, Johan Wilfer wrote:
>>> 2012-01-18 11:31, John Knight skrev:
>>>> Hi Johan,
>>>>
>>>> I've run into a similar issue before.  I didn't resolve the problem
>>>> per se, but I got around it by modifying modules.conf to disable the
>>>> loading of res_timing_timerfd.so and loaded res_timing_dahdi.so instead:
>>>>
>>>> noload =>  res_timing_timerfd.so
>>>> load =>  res_timing_dahdi.so
>>>>
>>>> Cpu load came back down and call quality has been excellent since.
>>>> Perhaps this might work for you?
>>> Hi!
>>>
>>> I think the timing support was included in asterisk in 1.6.1/1.6.2.
>>> As I run 1.4 these modules are not available at all.
>>>
>>> Do you run asterisk>1.6 and amd64?
>>>
>>> Another option would be to port my dialplan to a newer version of
>>> asterisk if this can resolve the issue.
>>>
>>> A workaround I've been tinking about is to try to put a spare
>>> Digium-card in the server just for timing, if there is something strange
>>> with the soft dahdi timing.
>>>
>>> I'm not very fond of the idea to rebuild everything on i386
>>> architecture, but that's the last resort.
>>>
>>> /Johan
>>>
>>>> On 1/18/2012 4:24 AM, Johan Wilfer wrote:
>>>>> I'm in the process of replacing an old server with a new one and are
>>>>> making som changes in the infrastructure, the biggest change in my eyes
>>>>> is moving from i386 to AMD64 arch. Yesterday I began migrating some
>>>>> users from the old to the new server.
>>>>>
>>>>> After only 57 concurrent calls in abount 13 conferences the sound are
>>>>> losing quality.
>>>>> The server uses dahdi 2.6.0 for timing but no dahdi hardware.
>>>>>
>>>>> dahdi_test gives results like this when the server is used like that:
>>>>> 100.000% 99.999% 99.994% 99.998% 99.999% 99.616% 99.614% 99.997%
>>>>> 99.998% 99.618% 99.615% 99.994% 99.987% 99.626% 99.628% 99.993%
>>>>> 99.626% 100.000% 100.000% 99.622% 99.999% 99.607% 99.604% 99.627%
>>>>> 99.621% 99.629% 99.627% 99.998% 99.622% 99.995% 99.621% 99.996%
>>>>>
>>>>> Results from dahdi_test with only some calls active:
>>>>> 99.999% 99.999% 99.990% 99.998% 99.999% 99.995% 99.995% 99.993%
>>>>> 99.997% 99.993% 99.999% 99.998% 99.996% 99.996% 99.998% 99.998%
>>>>> 99.991% 99.998% 99.995% 99.995% 99.987% 99.985% 99.996% 99.995%
>>>>>
>>>>> Looking at the cacti graphs the kernel uses 100% cpu (total 400% with 4
>>>>> processor cores), when the problem above is present. Top does not show
>>>>> this kernel-cpu that cacti shows, but this maybe is by design? Asterisk
>>>>> is using about 15% cpu.
>>>>>
>>>>> top - 19:32:06 up 20:57,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
>>>>> Tasks: 213 total,   1 running, 212 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
>>>>> Cpu(s):  7.4%us, 29.6%sy,  0.0%ni, 55.3%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  7.7%si,
>>>>> 0.0%st
>>>>> Mem:  12299332k total,  3967800k used,  8331532k free,   251432k buffers
>>>>> Swap: 19529720k total,        0k used, 19529720k free,  2919456k cached
>>>>>
>>>>>    PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
>>>>> 30666 root       0 -20  539m  25m 6600 S   15  0.2   6:55.01 asterisk
>>>>>    738 root      20   0 19184 1444 1004 R    1  0.0   0:00.08 top
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The old server (i386 Debian 5: Linux 2.6.26-2-openvz-686) can have 320
>>>>> calls in conferences without this problem.
>>>>> The new server (amd64 Debian 6: Linux 2.6.32-5-openvz-amd64) show these
>>>>> problems after 50 calls..
>>>>>
>>>>> Old server:
>>>>> Hp dl360g5, 4 cpu Xeon E5420, 2.50GHz
>>>>> run i386 with PAE and OpenVZ, Debian Lenny
>>>>> uses the broadcom nic's on the motherboard
>>>>> asterisk 1.4.42 in openvz container (uses /dev/dahdi for timing)
>>>>> cacti shows cpu in kernel mode 80% with 320 active calls in conferences
>>>>>
>>>>> New server:
>>>>> Hp dl360g7, 4 cpu Xeon E5520, 2.27GHz
>>>>> run amd63 with OpenVZ, Debian Squeeze
>>>>> uses Intel nic's 82571EB for offloading the processor + nic bonding in
>>>>> the kernel for failover.
>>>>> asterisk 1.4.42 in openvz container (uses /dev/dahdi for timing)
>>>>> cacti show cpu in kernel mod 100% with 57 active calls in conferences
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a puzzle to me..
>>>>>   - Does anyone have experience with amd64 arch and dahdi for timing?
>>>>>   - Can Dahdi om amd64 be responsible for the high cpu in kernel mode?
>>>>>
>>>>>   - I have a spare Digium TE220, would it offload the server to use it as
>>>>> a timing source only?
>>>>>   - How do I debug the high cpu usage by the kernel, can I break this
>>>>> down by module in some way?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Many, many thanks!
>>>>>
>>
>
>
>
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