New Install
Submitted by unkyjoe on Mon, 05/05/2008 - 8:17am.
Greetings to all,
I have been reading these forums for months and using Trixbox CE at my own business for well over 1 year now with no problems. Of course I only use about 3 phones and have 2 VOIP lines through Inphonex "an excellent provider I might add"
But I digress:
I have a client in need of a new phone system, there are about 35 phones, using a T1 from XO and a Plexus PBX system with a flaky T1 card and several flaky 8 port cards, hence it needs to be replaced.
I recently completed recabling the entire network with Cat5e cables, they have a Netgear Layer 3 managed switch that I installed over a year ago.
I am preparing to sell them a new system based on Trixbox CE and using a combination of Asstra 57i phones for the receptionist, and 9133i phones for the majority of the other users, and perhaps a few Grandstream 2000 models.
I am curently testing an Intel 945GCNL system board with a Dual Core Processor 2Ghz, 2 Gb of system ram and 2 160Gb WD Hard Drives as the server. The onboard NIC does not have native Liunx drivers so I was forced to disable and install a 3com nic instead. On initial install I had problems with the 3com nic not being able to lock down an IRQ and it would work sporadically, I then stumbled upon the APIC-On command in grub and it appears to be working fine. However I dont know that this board is a good choice for Trixbox, however I am currently testing it. Any suggestions on the pitfalls of using APIC=On would be greatly appreciated.
I am torn between using a Digium-Sangoma-Rhino T1 card, as they are all pretty close in price, and also whether or not I need to purchase an Echo canceling card or to use software to control the echo "if there is any"
Whatever phone I go with will have to have a switch in it so I can run it without having to install dedicated new drops for the phones, is this acceptable ?
What I am looking for is some quidance on this install, it of course has to be rock solid, the customer is aware this is going to be based on Open Source software and will be making a considerable donation as part of the install price. They are fine with this.
So questions are as follows.
Aastra Phones - yes or no - pitfalls - do they support BLF "a must for the client"
T1 Cards - echo or not.
Motherboard recommendations - I checked the various sites including tribxox motherboards but didnt get a clear consensus.
QOS turned on the switch - yes!!
Setup Vlans or not? This switch does support them, but what is the benefit. "I have never setup VLANS before"
Again thanks for looking and the support, I am looking forward to getting this install started, I have ordred the Aastra phones to start testing and to show the customer as well as the Grndstream which I currently use.
you want to plug it in and
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 9:14am
you want to plug it in and go - get a dell 2950 (or 1900-2900) or supermicro something.
aastras - top notch, once they have this, there will be no other. Also - not sure if you care about presence, but its a little nicer if you get a lcd phone (480i-53i+) you can use ethans presence/status suite, it works on 9133s also, but not as clean.
t1 - please dont by a digium, i'm sorry to bash on them, but their support just didnt do me well. Sangoma or Rhino are great, I always get the echo cancaltion on T1 systems just cause i dont want any chance of complaints on a system that large. You can opt not to on the Sangomas, and they will upgrade it later if you need it, i think Rhino might offer the same, but i would just do it - hes probly saving $$ compared to the previous pbx.
network - 35 phones = midrange load, doubt you will get anywhere close to justifying vlans, Scott will be all for it (hes smarter than me;).
I agree with jahyde on the
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 9:26am
I agree with jahyde on the T1 card...but I'd say between Sangoma and Rhino, go Sangoma because they are the only platinum certified card vendor. And yes...spend the extra few hundred bucks on echo cancellation if you want a rock solid system...I no longer sell systems without EC.
-Schw00d
Well actually I am going
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 9:41am
Well actually I am going talk about the BLF first, since it is a very important issue to him.
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Aastra Phones - yes or no - pitfalls - do they support BLF "a must for the client"
Yes, they do support BLF. Asterisk sends out the hints in real time. The BLF works exactly as you would expect it to. They also work as a DSS, you can transfer a call to the corresponding extension by pressing the BLF button. What I have not been able to get to work, without breaking the transfer/DSS is the ability to pickup a ringing extension. The BLF flashes when an extension is ringing, I would think the phone should see that state and send the code for a directed pickup. It is an intuitive function to be able to pickup a ringing extension that is supported on other (non-ip) phone system.
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QOS turned on the switch - yes!!
I don't think you need Layer 2 QoS. Normally I only suggest using QoS on IP trunks that are sharing a connection with other Internet traffic.
While we are on the subject of IP lines. If the customer makes any amount of long distance you should consider at least provisioning an IP trunk on an additional outbound route. The savings can quickly add up.
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nstall a 3com nic instead.
Just my opinion but I would go with an Intel Pro100 card.
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Setup Vlans or not? This switch does support them, but what is the benefit. "I have never setup VLANS before"
With all of that network hardware I would say setup the VLAN it does not have to be anything special with VLAN trunking since you have the CAT 5 cable at each location (you ran two drops per location correct?).
So I would suggest that you pickup a switch with PoE (Power Over Ethernet) this will keep the wire clutter down around the phones. You also should have a UPS on the system and with PoE the phones would not have to reboot with a small glitch in the power.
I would suggest either a two network interface cards or one of the dual head Intel's. One interface for managing the trix and an IP trunks and the other for the production voice network. If you use the PoE switch for the phones you don't even need VLAN's. If you use the switch you have just change the phone ports to VLAN 2 in the management interface. This logically divides the switch up. It's that simple!
Hope this helps....Scott
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
VLAN's
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 9:53am
VLAN's, although not absolutely necessary, are probably a good idea with an instllation of this size. VLANing is pretty easy to do with most switches these days. You can pretty easily set up vlanning on the gui of the switch in a few minutes. Some people here will say VLAN'ing is rarely necessary, but it's not hard to do and there's not really many arguments as to why not. Some say it 'needlessly complicates the install' and 'adds more things to have to troubleshoot', but basic VLAN'ing is so straight forward and easy to do these days I personally call BS on those arguments. In my experiences VLAN'ing tends to make troubleshooting easier in many cases, because along with basic QOS'ing (also very easy to do on most routers), you can be satisfied that the phone and data networks aren't colliding as much. Phone quality is the sort of thing you'll notice instantly, plus it's the sort of thing people who notice first and complain about bitterly when there's lag and jitter. In other words, well worth the extra 20 or 30 mins to VLAN it up.
And most phones with switches in them seem to run pretty well. Separate network drops aren't usually necessary.
And if possible, avoid the 'put together by parts' server route. I say this becuase I've done it before and getting replacement parts can sometimes turn into a headache. In general, it's well worth spending a couple extra bucks for a brand name server. The servers tend to be a little more stable and trustworthy, and when a part fails you can have a replacement at your door very quickly. I've gone both routes personally doing the IT consulting thnig, and I'll never go back to using custom built servers over HP or Dell (I perfer HP personally).
I appreciate all of the
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 9:57am
I appreciate all of the comments so far.
Scott, the switch is a Layer 3 switch, and if QOS is not needed then great I wont futz with it.
The plan was to use phones with 2 ports, there is only 1 lan cable run to each PC-Phone location, the plan was to plug the phone in one side and the computer into the other. The customer will balk at running 35+ more cat 5 cables for the phones. So what I need to know is who is using it in this config and is it reliable?
Schwood: Thanks for the online guide to Trixbox, this is my lifeline for setup. I think I have settled on the Sangoma card as they seem to be highly recommended by everyone.
As far as the computer goes, I do not buy pre-built servers, I prefer to build my own, I love Intel MB's first - then MSI second, and ASUS third. I have had horrible luck over the last 15 years with Gigabyte and Supermicro and simply refuse to use them. My concern is the IRQ sharing issues I seem to have with this Intel board and PCI cards with Linux, if someone could please recommend a solid tested Intel chipset it would be greatly appreciated.
Scott, on the subject of Vlans, I have a little trouble wrapping my head around them as I have never ever used them, do they require running additional cables, or is it like segmenting the lan like a router would do?
P.S No VOIP trunks, I will only be using a T1 for now, however when the contract is up for the T1, perhaps I will look into VOIP for LD in the future.
Also, they have about 5 fax-cc lines, would I be best off to use an external FXS device for those units? I know there are issues with faxing over the Trixbox system.
Thanks again for all the help so far you guys are great for letting me stand on your shoulders.
P.S.S I now have another client, "i put the bug in his ear over the weekend" looking into this system as well. When I sell these systems I am including a "FEE" for the donation to the Trixbox CE open source project as well, is this acceptable business practice? I will not be making money from this, it will all be passed on to this endeavor.
Thanks
Who is going to support this?
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 10:07am
That's great that you want to contribute to trixbox, but if you are going to be expected to provide some support for this system (ie, Sangoma card goes bad and you need to replace) are you going to do this work for free? Are you going to hand this system and customer over to trixbox paid support? I would charge accordingly, as being a nice guy and hooking up a customer of yours sounds great until you find that they have issues or changes that they are always wanting you to do for free since they paid you for the system and probably expect a years support for problems. Just a thought to keep in mind.
i have had a lot of issues
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 10:23am
i have had a lot of issues issues on newer models of those manufacturers you list. the supermicros, used several odd models, and not one has given me trouble, i only use them for trixbox, if its a windows server, then yes i would prefer to build an intel (if i had time to build servers). most of the newer motherboards are geared towards windows, and linux driver support is dragging behind (or centos at least), they dont put much attention towards irq handling as windows shares irqs pretty well now days. supermicro doesnt seem to ride quite the cutting edge.
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The plan was to use
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 10:31am
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The plan was to use phones with 2 ports, there is only 1 lan cable run to each PC-Phone location, the plan was to plug the phone in one side and the computer into the other.
It is very reliable. The reason I was asking this is for configuration purposes. You will have to configure 802.1q trunking on the ports and the phones. This enables both VLANS to be transported down a single wire. The switch in the phone will separate, at layer 2 the data and voice traffic. You will then want to enable QoS at layer 2 on the VLAN.
As stated in another post this is not a hard thing to do. As you get closer to the install we can help guide you in the right direction.
The dual NIC's is a must in this configuration.
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Scott, on the subject of Vlans, I have a little trouble wrapping my head around them as I have never ever used them, do they require running additional cables, or is it like segmenting the lan like a router would do?
VLAN's are relatively simple to implement. Good article on VLAN remember when looking at this that the phone has a built in two port switch.
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Also, they have about 5 fax-cc lines, would I be best off to use an external FXS device for those units? I know there are issues with faxing over the Trixbox system.
If you want any shot at getting the fax working you need to use the matching Sangoma analog board with FXS interfaces. The driver from Sangoma passes the FAX traffic on the Sangoma bus.
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"FEE" for the donation to the Trixbox CE open source project as well, is this acceptable business practice?
Just include it in your integration services line item. I would not make a client issue out of it.
Scott
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
Scott-thanks for the links
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 11:18am
Scott-thanks for the links and the advice I have some studying to do.
Okay, back on the subject of the motherboard, I checked the Supermicro site and all I mean ALL of the supermicro boards use Intel chipsets.
So what I need from you guys now are the specific models of Supermicro boards you have used with success. This way I can extrapolate the chipset used and find a comparable Intel server board.
What is the deal with the APIC line in Linux? What does it do? My fear with this board is the irq timing with the Sangoma T1 card. Right now it is a test machine for learning the ins and outs of Trixbox CE it will not be the production unit, I am just curious as to what this switch does.
huebs: The customer will be purchasing the phones directly as I do not have the resources to purchase them.
I will provide the server at a small markup.
The way I do my billing is stricktly hourly. But in this case I will quote a flat rate install and then put them on a maint support plan. This is what I do now with my customers, they pay a flat fee per month based on the number of servers and workstations on thier network, I cover everything except parts. It has been a huge sucess with my customers, the average 30 user lan with servers costs them about $1000 per month, and I am at thier disposal 24/7
I then proactivly monitor and repair most things remotely, it is not very often I need to do a truck roll, but when I do it does not take much time to fix. My customers love this idea, it is cheaper than a full time IT person and they get all of the benfits, I also provide a firewall-router with this plan that I also monitor and maintain. Built on Clark Connect "excellent product"
This is my business model and once the customers get a little taste they love the idea of not having to worry about anything IT related.
Thanks again for the help.
Server boards
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 2:39pm
Trixbox will support most boards/chipsets, it would mostly boil down to some of the small things - mainly the NIC. Rarely does tb come accross NIC's that it doesn't have drivers for, but nonetheless something to look out for. TB should work with pretty much any supermicro board I would think.
Something to again consider is that there's several models of HP and Dell servers that are certified (by the trixbox folks) for use with trixbox. It's obviously your prerogative to do the custom-built thing, and that's cool, but for an installation of this size I would just hope you appreciate the dangers of going with custom built servers.
**small rant warning** I digress, but my experiences with custom builts is absolute hell when it needs to be serviced or you need parts for it. And yes, I typically used intel server boards and/or supermicro equipment. Just a short while ago I had to calm a customer down because their 'home built' server (provided by another IT consultant) with an intel board was down for almost 3 weeks because we had such a hard time tracking down a replacement board, and even then the replacement wasn't exactly the same board, and required a lot of reconfirguration for slightly different chipsets or revisions of chipsets. And the board was only a 6 month old model! I still use custom builds, but only in scenarios where the servers are used for mundane tasks that nobody cares about (stuff like monitoring appliances, log servers). A lot of it just boils down to what level of service you and your customer deem appropriate. I've been doing IT consulting for the better part of a decade and I made my life a whole lot easier by moving to brand-name servers. I too was very suspicious of them, (and to this day I loathe HP's home-user products) but HP and Dell's home user products and way different than their server products. That being said, I sleep a whole lot easier knowing that if something kacks, I'm not playing run-around-monkey getting replacement parts that *might* work. Sorry about the rant, but I just went through this on someone's custom-built asterisk (not tb) server. Had it been an HP I would have had the *exact* motherboard on my desk next business day. Phew, rant over.
You obviously have a successful thing going and that's great. But again tb typically isn't very picky in my experience.
Rant away its ok.
I have
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 4:27pm
Rant away its ok.
I have been building custom workstations and server since 1988, and in all cases I choose the parts that go in them.
I choose Intel Boards becuase they work, they have a 3 year warranty and Intel makes sure they have replacements for that period. They also use quality components unlike some of the MB manufacturers, like a few years ago I had non Intel board popping caps all over the place. I have only replaced 1 Intel board in that time, and that was due to water damage. Not a board failure.
I found the chipset that the Dell servers use, it is the Intel 3000 series chipset, so based on that I have chosen the Intel S3000AH for those of you interested.
I just dont trust the IRQ issue I am having on the 945GCNL board I am currently using, especially since it is going to also have a Sangoma T1 in it, tell me again what does the APIC=ON do for Linux, create shared IRQ's ? I am still waiting on someone to give me a definative answer on that one.
I have built servers running windows 2k3 server, exchange, sql, etc, all of them mission critical, and usually it is hard drives I have the most trouble with, this is why I insist on mirrored drives. Never have I had another component fail on a server, excluding the PS.
Someone chime in on the APIC=ON command and what it does, "or I could GOOGLE it I guess :)"
Thanks
Someone chime in on the
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 5:44pm
Someone chime in on the APIC=ON command and what it does, "or I could GOOGLE it I guess :)"
You may have better luck if you Google ACPI, might work better in grub also :-)
No performance hit, it turns off power management. Why you would want power management in a server is a topic for another thread.
Scott
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
i went through this in depth
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 6:06pm
i went through this in depth back in the days when testing asterisk on amd chipsets.
if i remember right apic=on forces the system to employ an io-apic interrupt controller, otherwise you would most likely use XT-PIC which was designed on the older AT computer platform.
I think any newer system that uses a smp kernel will have io-apic turned on. You can check how your interrupts are controlled by doing cat /proc/interrupts
Not sure on the exact advantages of this, just that its more efficient in controlling interrupt timers.
Okay I could be wrong on
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 6:15pm
Okay I could be wrong on this, it happens every now and then :-)
It looks there are two switches ACPI and APIC. The documentation is so twisted I figured the APIC hits where typo's.
I hate looking at good but a breeze through the source might reveal exactly what this does. John's explanation makes sense.
Scott
P.S. Found a bit of info, look at the last line, slapping my head:
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Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. Developed by Intel to replace the old PIC standard. Mainly to solve the limited available IRQs problem and to support interrupts on SMP systems.
APIC can still cause many problems (often caused by hardware not conforming to the official APIC standard specification) like hard lockups or devices not working properly. You can then try to turn it off to see if APIC is the problem. To turn APIC on/off add this to the kernel parameters:
apic=off
Either in LILO's lilo.conf or GRUB's menu.lst file (or whatever your bootloader uses).
Or to turn off only local APIC:
lapic=off
Do not confuse APIC with ACPI.
--
Scott
aka "Skyking"
sounds a little better
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 6:44pm
Sorry my bad, I had to use
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 7:06pm
Sorry my bad, I had to use APIC=ON in grub in order to get any network card to work in the PCI slots as Centos does not support this onboard NIC without a kernel recompile.
There are no loadable modules for this network card Realtek 8111B-GR
So if this fixed my problem with the interupts would you recomend a Sangoma T1 Pci-Express card or PCI?
I am having a hell of a time finding a board that will work with Trixbox, all of the information on the Wiki is out of date, and trixbox motherboards is even worse.
What are some of the Supermicro or other boards you guys are using sucessfuly.
Also, does anyone know what this does pci=nommconf
P.S. I just checked this
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 7:18pm
P.S. I just checked this thread http://www.trixbox.org/forums/trixbox-forums/open-discussion/xt-p...
and according to it I should have APIC=On for a SMP system. Yeah!
Ok guys, major screwup on my
Mon, 05/05/2008 - 8:21pm
Ok guys, major screwup on my part.
The command I am using is ACPI=ON not apic=on.
If I remove acpi=on I get irq problems, tell me the name of the boot log file and I will post it as it scrolls by too fast.
Dislexia strikes again!
So one more time, if I use ACPI=ON no problems other than when I run zttest i get about 99.83 percent on timing. If I exlude the acpi command I keep getting irq confilcts on the pci nic card.
Thanks
Member Since:
2007-04-25