2.6.9-34.0.2.ELsmp or 2.6.9-34.0.2.EL Kernel Difference
Submitted by unitetech on Sat, 05/26/2007 - 12:30pm.
I hope this helps some people and if anyone wants to add to it feel free but I thought it was an important topic that has not been covered under its own post.
2.6.9-34.0.2.EL or 2.6.9-34.0.2.ELsmp Kernel Explained
If you have a motherboard that supports hyper threading technology, you will be given an option at boot to choose between 2 different kernels, when you load Trixbox. One is 2.6.9-34.0.2.ELsmp and the other is 2.6.9-34.0.2EL. The ELsmp kernel uses the multiprocessor hyper threading technology built into the system. Here is a suggestion, unless you know what you are doing and are not a newbie then it would be a good idea not to use the ELsmp kernel. The problem is that the ELsmp kernel is the default kernel that boots unless you manually select the EL version. So, you would have to manually select the EL version every time you reboot your machine or it defaults to ELsmp after a few seconds. There are 2 ways to fix this. One is to turn hyper threading technology off in your bios and Trixbox install wont then have the option to default to the ELsmp kernel on boot. The other option is to make a change to the /boot/grub/grub.conf file after you load Trixbox and tell it to default to the EL kernel on boot. To make this change in grub.conf you type vi /boot/grub/grub.conf and then go down to the line that says default=0. Next hit the insert key and you can now go over to the 0 and change it to 1. The line will now say default=1. Now that you made the change hold down the shift key and then press the “:” key you may now save the file by typing in “wq” and hit the enter key. If you messed up in this file, just type in “q!” and enter. That will take you out of the grub.conf file without making any changes. If you want to know more about “vi editor” read up on it. Restart your machine and your default kernel will now be EL and not ELsmp. The second step is so you still have the option to mess around with ELsmp kernel later but understand most of the how to information for Trixbox is for the EL kernel and not the ELsmp kernel. If you do things like rebuild the Zaptel drivers and other things per the instructions on here then you can get a kernel panic or worse if using the ELsmp kernel. To see what kernel you are using if you already have Trixbox loaded, type in “uname –r” at the command prompt.
Damien
If you dont have webmin installed
Sat, 05/26/2007 - 3:23pm
Thanks, simple 68
That is another way and for those of you that dont know what webmin is or dont have it on your system. you can install in by "yum -y install webmin". After it is installed you can access it by going to your machines IP and port 10000 like http://192.168.1.100:10000 .Login with your "root" user name and the password you used to setup your Trixbox.
Damien
Why I dont like SMP
Sat, 05/26/2007 - 5:01pm
I posted this in one of the other threads but I wanted to address it here to from your question Jason.
On the SMP issue. Before Trixbox2.2 came out there was no built in support for the Digium DTM800 card and you had to rebuild the zaptel drivers to the latest 1.2 version to get the system to see it and have it work. Trixbox2.2 has taken care of that issue. Anyways, the reason I am so gun shy on the smp is because in rebuilding the zaptel time after time that kernel decided to die after I did it and I did all the right devel downloads and everything and it still blew up my system. So, why now that the 8 port card problem is fixed am I still scared of it. Well, now the Trixbox2.2 has a nice little bug in it that causes severe echo problems with the TDM04B card. There are 2 fixes for this. 1 is the rebuild of the zaptel drivers on your system and the other is softecho patch. Both work but man I am so tired of blowing up my boxes from rebuilding zaptel drivers under the hyper threading kernel. Anyways im sure there are people out there that got around this but I was building this thread with the intent to address the ELsmp issue along with the RAID1 HOW2.
I guess if you dont use Digium Cards you may not run into these issues:) I personally like the cards even with some of the problems I have been having in the past. I will stick with them for now because they are priced great and work well in most cases even with the few problems.
Damien
Sorry to hear you had those
Sat, 05/26/2007 - 5:19pm
Sorry to hear you had those problems. I've deployed a number of SMP boxes, pretty much all with Asterisk and Zaptel compiled from sources, and I've never had a problem. The SMP kernel source RPM isn't named that obviously, so if you're following a how-to guide that doesn't specifically mention SMP, you can certainly back yourself into a corner. Not sure how doing it wrong would, as you said, blow up the box, but I guess sometimes it's easier to just start over than figure out what went wrong. I've certainly done it. ;)
I guess the real question is, does disabling SMP have any appreciable impact on performance on an Asterisk system?
- Jason
Hyper Threading is On!
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 6:58am
You have Hyper Threading turned on in the BIOS. I always turn it off on the machines I build. Others dont have trouble with that on but I do. If you already have your system setup its to late to change it but if this is a new system I would suggest reloading with it turned off. There is another option to have your system boot to the non SMP kernel but I would not suggest doing so if you are not familiar with linux. You need to download the SMP kernel devel files. You do this with something line yum -y install kernel-devel-smp. You will also have to fix the spinlock issue in the newly downloaded files. That procedure is on this forum or on the wiki.sangoma.com how to install zaptel. Good Luck
Damien
kernel-devel-smp
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 7:10am
Damien, thank you for your response. I am trying to download the kernel sources without luck.
yum -y install kernel-devel-smp
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
No Match for argument: kernel-devel-smp
Nothing to do
I guess Trixbox repos doesn't have this packages.
Any idea?
Trixbox SMP support...
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 7:29am
That Was a Good Choice
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 7:37am
You made the best choice. I didnt know if you would know how to do that. I would also make sure the other kernel is not first to boot again. Under /etc/grub.conf change the default=0 to default=1 or the kernel that you want to boot each time. You may already know this but I wanted to help if I could.
Damien
Next Step :D
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 7:55am
Damien, thanks, yes i did that way. I changed the default boot from 0 to 1.
So now the Channel banks are ready to go. But the issue I am working on that is driving me crazy is that all seems to be fine. I plug an analog phone to the fxs port of my channel bank and call the operator. in CLi>zap show channels it shows all the channels, but when I go to devices in order to add extensions they don't appears as extensions. Any idea? Maybe a bug in TB Pro? should I change to TB CE?
Nicolás.
Trixbox Pro hmmmm?
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 8:16am
Well I dont have any suggestions when it comes to pro. I only use Trixbox CE.
Here is the way I currently load my servers.
I load the 2.2.4 and do a trixbox-update.sh
Then I do a yum -y update
The system is now on FreePBX 2.3 and everything is updated. I then download the kernel-devel and zaptel
Fix spinlock and install zaptel and then the latest wanpipe.
This seems to be the best yet but I am still testing. I have 3 servers loaded this way now and since freepbx 2.2.3 came out there has been a lot fewer problems. I have had good success with modified versions of Trixbox CE so I have not needed to try the Pro. One of the people that I communicate with often that does not have much experience with linux and Trixbox is trying out pro but he is having issues. I
Damien
T1 and FXS Sangoma
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 8:41am
I do have one one production server with a T1 Sangoma and a 2 port FXS Sangoma in it for conference rooms wanting to use polycom wireless pots line conference phones. You have to make sure you have the T1 and the FXS card loaded with the Sangoma wanpipe software. If you do have this and your T1 takes up channels 1-24 and the FKS takes up 25 and 26 then you can enable the FXS to be a system channel under FreePBX extensions choose generic zap device and put in what you want the extension to be and what zap channel. Be careful because if your system does not already see the zap channel and know its an FXS when you do this or you choose the wrong zap channel your amportal can crash from the wrong info. I have done that before so just a heads up. Anyways if you create it and say make the extension 150 and the zap channel 25 then when you call ext 150 the fxs port 25 will ring and vice versa. I hope this is of help. If you need to know how to setup both cards in the sytem there is good info on the wiki.sangoma.com and they are also good about providing support if you call them. If you have already installed the T1 card and you are adding the FXS card later I think the command is wancfg_zaptel or something like that to have the installer program come up and find the new card. Its been a few months since I did that.
Damien
Leaving Trixbox Pro...
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 9:29am
Damien the servers is that...
1 Sangoma A102dx.
1 Rhino 24xFXO (connected to span 1)
1 Rhino 24xFXS (connected to span 2)
They are well configured through wancfg_zaptel and the channel bank's did well configured through AUTO T1 conf.
If I connect an analog phone to an FXS port and see logs Trixbox detects for example Zap/25-1 when i pick it up or hung up.
in CLI> zap show channels all channels appears but cannot add devices or extensions through Trixbox pro web interface. They don't appears in the device select list or vendor select list. (No analog ports)
I tried Trixbox CE a time ago and I am thinking that is better to come back to CE version that keep fighting with Pro. Because all out of Trixbox interface seems to be ok. but no matter what I've tried I cannot make it work.. so I think that we will follow this history in CE version :D
Regards,
Nicolás.
Trixbox with analog ports through T1 + Channel banks?
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 11:31am
Damien, I've just installed Trixbox CE compiled Sangoma drivers an start configuring analog extensions in minutes.... So long life to CE version jeje.
Ah.. also could compile with smp support... I mean all these days fighting with Pro version for nothing....
Well let enjoy CE version.
Regards,
Nicolás.
CE Vs Pro
Wed, 10/24/2007 - 11:47am
Well I would not be in this business without the Trixbox product. On the other hand I would also not have learned so much had the Trixbox product not been so flakey. I dont think that I am alone in thinking that so far no release 2.0 and after has been production stable as is. I have a lot of boxes in production from 1.2.3 thru to 2.2.4 and since 2.0 I have had to modify every single box I have loaded to get it to be stable. Maybe its just me :)
I see Trixbox Pro as Trixbox Pro-Prietary and one of the reasons I am using Asterisk is because I want full control over my server and CE is as close to full control as you can get unless you do a Vanilla Asterisk install (Vanilla is another post)
Damien
Member Since:
2007-01-19