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Effective posting for better help

Posted August 22nd, 2009 by jfinstrom

Introduction

Welcome to the trixbox forums. Often when diving in to Asterisk or being thrown in to it by your employer people come to distributions such as trixbox where the bulk of the install work is done. This saves the time of compiling and configuring the individual components. The best way to learn Asterisk is to actually skip the box distros and do it by hand but this is not always practical. We were all newbs and all started somewhere. Unfortunately the resident experts often forget they were once in that newb space and can be very feisty. This attitude actually grows the longer you have been around due to the fact most of the questions asked have already been answered repeatedly. The goal here is to help folks who are new here transition in with as little pain as possible.

Getting help

The best way to get help is often to help yourself. If you ask a common question you are likely going to be ignored or may get a snide comment from one of the regulars. First step in helping yourself is to look over the wiki. Most common issues are covered through various articles. If nothing there catches your eye the next step is to search. Articles in the wiki for previous versions of trixbox are often relevant to the latest release. At the very least they will get you pointed in the right direction. There is a built in search box that does an okay job but is hit and miss. The best way to search is Google. Google will return results from the forums and other locations which will often get you the answer without waiting. Also in the wiki or via Google you will find general setup guides like trixbox without tears and the sureteq guides which have step by step directions.

Searching with Google

If you are looking for an answer related to an error copy and paste that error into the search box. Most of the time if someone has run into the issue and posed the question they will have included the error in their post so it will show up in the search results. If you are searching for information on a task like adding a trunk then you should search google with trixbox followed by the task like this: "trixbox adding trunks", I often say between me and Google I know everything.

Asking for help

The key to more better answers is to ask more better questions. Assuming you have one of those rare questions that has not been asked before you must ask the right questions and provide the right details to get a fast and effective answer.

Bad questions include anything that starts out "Can I ..." The answer is always "no" because if you could you wouldn't have to ask, It is always better to say "how do I." This of course applies to unique situations and advanced tasks. The quickest way to get slammed or flamed out of the forums is to ask a general administration task like how do I add an extension. General tasks are well documented and can be found via the self help methods.
Good questions have several components:

  1. A good description of your issue
  2. What happened?
  3. What did you expect to happen?
  4. What did you do to make it happen?
  5. What troubleshooting steps have you already taken?
  6. What were the results of those steps?
  7. What have you done on your own to try and correct the issue?
  8. What versions of software are you using?
  9. Relevant console output wrapped in [code][/code] tags
  10. If your post involves an error post the error message
  11. If your post involves a call issue provide the log output of the call
  12. If your output is several hundred lines use http://pastebin.com and post the link

Having a proper post will help alleviate frustration for you and those trying to help you. It helps no one to use the first five posts of a thread trying to figure out what the thread is about or repeating steps you have already done. In addition knowing what you have already done can help forecast other potential issues caused by those steps.

In addition to the proper content your post should be in the proper category. Allot of the specific categories are watched by there respective vendors. If you have a Aastra issue and post in "Open Discussion" your question is less likely to get answered then if you posted it in the Aastra section where the resident Aastra rep could have answered your question in minutes. Generic categories like help, trunks, and Open discussion should be avoided if the topic fits more specifically in to a targeted category.

trixbox is made up of many other projects. While the attempt is to insulate you from the blood and guts of the installation and initial configuration a distribution it does not relieve the administrator of understanding the components that comprise the distribution. The following packages and skills will help users have a better ride on their trixbox experience.

CentOS - Operating system of trixbox. A version of Redhat Enterprise Linux

  1. Navigation, how to move around the file system and copy, move, delete and edit files
  2. Networking, configuring interfaces and verifying the status. Modifying the routing table
  3. DNS, DHCP and TFTP configuration and operation
  4. Disk management and RAID tools

MySQL - The database engine of trixbox

  1. Install tbm-phpmysqladmin this web based tool will assist in the administration of the database
  2. Learn the databases and tables. Spend a few minutes browsing the database

Asterisk - The telephony engine of trixbox. The heart of call processing. The more you know about Asterisk the better

  1. Using the CLI to check status of system
  2. Review the Digium sample configs. While you do not have to edit config files in most cases with trixbox the settings for trunks and stations are the same as for 'raw' asterisk
  3. Learn about Asterisk peer configuration to assist in setting up trunks to providers and extensions

DAHDI/Zaptel - These drivers provide Asterisk with the ability to use telephone interface cards

  1. Learn how to configure your hardware
  2. Check status with /proc data
  3. Use tools to check timing and hardware status

FreePBX - Web based dialplan and system configuration tool. Provides all of the PBX core dialplan functions. Known as 'PBXSettings' in trixbox

  1. The tips, tricks and how to guides all apply to trixbox. Use these resources
  2. Do not post for help in the FreePBX forum. trixbox choose to go their own way with the distribution we as a community are responsible for supporting the trixbox distribution of FreePBX
  3. Learn how to use amportal to properly start, stop and reload the system

There are other packages such as FOP and ARI. The homepage for FOP is www.asternic.org

The best advice to help enhance your trixbox experience is to start reading. Learn what you can about Asterisk, Linux and trixbox. I often hear "I want a phone system I don't have time to learn Linux and all this stuff". If this is you do not expect a free lunch. You should either find the time, take a class or two or leave it to someone who does. Many of the folks in the forum make their living by supporting, installing and customizing these systems. These folks are here to help as a courtesy. If you do not have the time to devote to learning "all this stuff" then hire a consultant. Many of these folks will work locally or remotely as needed so you can have a phone system you don't have to think about.