[asterisk-users] Managing complex setups with Asterisk

[Jeff LaCoursiere]

On 11/07/2012 05:20 PM, Jeff LaCoursiere wrote:
> On 11/07/2012 02:16 PM, Johan Wilfer wrote:
>> 2012-11-07 20:49, Jeff LaCoursiere skrev:
>>> Just to chime in, if you REALLY want multi-tenant, it is super easy and
>>> surprisingly efficient to use kernel level virtualization to run
>>> multiple instances of asterisk (and even FreePBX).  We use LXC to do
>>> this.  The "host" runs an instance that has the dahdi hardware, 
>>> drivers,
>>> and upstream connections.  The "clients" have SIP connections to the
>>> host for all inbound/outbound, so you have a central place to
>>> collect/process CDR records for billing.  Getting your phones to 
>>> connect
>>> to each instance is an exercise for the network admin ;)
>> Any quirks / observations you have running LXC? We run OpenVZ now with
>> the same setup and it works very well. But as Debian will not support
>> OpenVZ in the next version we are looking for alternate solutions..
>>
>> Do you run Dahdi run Dahdi for timing / meetme on both the "host" (HN)
>> and the "clients" (VE)?
>>
>> Distribution?
>>
>> Any other pitfalls or recommendations with LXC?
>>
>>
>
> Since moving to Ubuntu 12.04 server, LXC mgmt has been much simpler 
> and stable.  Had some troubles with Ubuntu 10, though that was our 
> proof-of-concept, and mainly just with getting a template finalized.  
> Shutting down a container, back then, was a scary and often fatal 
> thing to do.  WIth 12.04 I have had zero LXC related issues in roughly 
> six months.  Have a few dozen companies running on the platform and 
> getting ready to white label the infrastructure to several resellers.  
> In our lab we have managed to get 200 instances, with FreePBX, running 
> simultaneously (though idle) on one host. Each (optimized!) container 
> seems to eat about 75M of RAM.  Our latest tweak is to make all of the 
> containers internally addressed on an OpenVPN-only accessible virtual 
> LAN, and are only distributing telephony hardware that can connect to 
> the platform natively (still on a search for the right ATA, though 
> getting by with DD-WRT router in front of Cisco ATA).
>
> Cheers,
>
> j
>
>

Realized I didn't answer your questions.  Yes, the host runs Dahdi for 
timing, entirely for Meetme in the containers (host is just for 
transport), and the driver is exposed to the containers in the LXC conf 
file.

LXC does NOT have the same level of operational controls over the 
containers, yet, as OpenVZ (like limiting resources).  That hasn't 
really been an issue for us so far.

Cheers,

j