Getting involved in an existing, and possibly broken system is the wrong way to start with Asterisk. I know, because that's how my career in VoIP started. I had to unlearn a lot of poor practices I learned from that system.<div>
<br></div><div>But anyway without prior documentation or the ability to get the original design intention, I think your next step is to go right back to the beginning, and gather the user requirements and create a design. Then see if it was solved properly, or you need to start over, or what. Without the basics I don't think you can answer the questions you had. Once you know what was needed and why it was custom-written, you'll probably have all those answers. Just know that in its basic form, to process calls for a normal company, nothing is needed other than one Asterisk server. Everything else is extra, which may or may not be warranted. I've seen a number of deployments that seemed geared more towards making a very profitable complex custom system than just giving the customer the best value.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Asterisk is a particularly noob-unfriendly product with a lot of pitfalls and relatively poor documentation. Don't go into it lightly, and always be aware that doing it wrong results in anything from system failures to thousands of dollars in toll fraud costs.</div>
<div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Brynjolfur Thorvardsson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:binni@itanet.nu">binni@itanet.nu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="DA" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">Hi Carlos and thanks for your answer. To begin with: I am a noob in all telephony/asterisk/ror fields, coming from a Classic ASP/MS background! I’ve been nosing around in RoR and Asterisk for the last month or so and have managed to create several RoR sites and to get an Asterisk server up and running so me and my boss can phone each other using softphone on a smartphone.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d">So, yes it’s going to be fun! And again, thanks for your answer.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1f497d"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">Fra:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> <a href="mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com" target="_blank">asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com" target="_blank">asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com</a>] <b>På vegne af </b>Carlos Alvarez<br>
<b>Sendt:</b> 14. december 2011 16:13</span></p><div class="im"><br><b>Til:</b> Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion<br><b>Emne:</b> Re: [asterisk-users] A few (simple?) questions<u></u><u></u></div><p>
</p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 2:18 AM, Brynjolfur Thorvardsson <<a href="mailto:binni@itanet.nu" target="_blank">binni@itanet.nu</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></p>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I’ve been saddled with recreating a running Asterisk PBX setup (with Ruby on Rails). Due to some wrangling between my client and the original developers I am not able to talk to the developers themselves but have been given full SSH access to their servers!</span><u></u><u></u></p>
</div></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Jumping in without documentation or help when there is a questionable relationship between the client and developer...this should be a lot of fun.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> <u></u><u></u></p></div><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The system offers PBX services to ~10 small firms and connects via a SIP trunk to a Telecoms company.</span><u></u><u></u></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Sounds way over-built, but since we don't know the intent of the architecture nor all the features expected, hard to say.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> <u></u><u></u></p></div><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">-</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:7.0pt"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">STUN server – is it necessary (given that there are many free STUN servers on the Internet), and why two?</span><u></u><u></u></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">I don't believe so. <u></u><u></u></p></div><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm">
<div><div><p><span lang="EN-GB">-</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:7.0pt"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Why have a separate Asterisk server for the trunk?</span><u></u><u></u></p></div></div></blockquote><div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Can't think of any reason. <u></u><u></u></p></div><blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #cccccc 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm"><div><div><p><span lang="EN-GB">-</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:7.0pt"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Is the Apache Message Queue server necessary?</span><u></u><u></u></p>
</div></div></blockquote><div><p class="MsoNormal">"Necessary" is not something that can be answered. In their environment as programmed, probably. In general, can an Asterisk server run without it? Yes. A low-end single x86 server can easily support hundreds of endpoints and dozens of concurrent calls, with all Asterisk services running on a single server.<u></u><u></u></p>
</div></div></div></div><div><div></div><div class="h5"><p class="MsoNormal">Do you have Asterisk expertise already? RoR, SQL, other telephony...?<u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><br clear="all"><u></u><u></u></p>
<div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><p class="MsoNormal">-- <u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">Carlos Alvarez<u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">TelEvolve<u></u><u></u></p></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="tel:602-889-3003" value="+16028893003" target="_blank">602-889-3003</a><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div>
<p> <u></u><u></u></p></div></div></div></div><br>--<br>
_____________________________________________________________________<br>
-- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by <a href="http://www.api-digital.com" target="_blank">http://www.api-digital.com</a> --<br>
New to Asterisk? Join us for a live introductory webinar every Thurs:<br>
<a href="http://www.asterisk.org/hello" target="_blank">http://www.asterisk.org/hello</a><br>
<br>
asterisk-users mailing list<br>
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:<br>
<a href="http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users" target="_blank">http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Carlos Alvarez</div>
<div>TelEvolve</div><div>602-889-3003</div><div><br></div><br>
</div>