Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
Yes the 'stop gracefully' is what effectively blocks the calls as the telco seems to take it as we are answering the calls instead of seeing them as busy. I will look at implementing some sort of way of busying out all the zaptel channels, so that we eventually busy out all 120 channels (4x E1) and then can cleanly take the server offline while our telco presents the calls to the next Asterisk servers correctly. This would be a great way of busying out the server for maintenance while still allowing our inbound calls. Many thanks, Andrew _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brent Davidson Sent: 15 February 2008 00:30 To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it your issue is that when you give Asterisk the stop gracefully command it waits until all active calls have finished before it takes the ISDN down but gives busy signals to new incoming calls on idle channels. If this is the case then it would seem that Asterisk is actually answering the call on the incoming channel and playing a busy signal. From reading a couple of threads on another list it appears this is the case (Google: Asterisk busy out PRI to find the discussion). There also appears to be some interest in making a function do what you need in the future. For the time being, however, a simple solution would be to create a temporary dial-plan that follows each outgoing hangup with a dial command to either a test number or some other service that will just keep playing audio down the line and not hangup. (You'd probably need to set some variable to know which channels had been busied) When you need to take down a server, load this dial plan and wait for all channels to call the busy number, then hang them all up and issue a stop now. It's a messy solution, but it's all I can think of without hacking code. The only other way I'd know would be to hack the code for the dial or answer command and build another command that simply takes the channel off-hook and leaves it there. Good luck, Brent Davidson Lyle Giese wrote: If you take Asterisk down, the PRI should go down as the D channel is down. Then the telco should KNOW that there is trouble with the PRI and those channels are in trouble busy and not availible. If the telco still tries to push a call to a channel on a PRI that is down, then the telco is at fault. Lyle Matt wrote: That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
You got me interested in this topic so I started doing some research. There is a discussion on the asterisk-dev list about adding true busy support to the Zaptel module. As it currently stands, when a call comes in on a PRI channel while asterisk is shutting down asterisk sends a signal back effectively rejecting the call, but the Telco sees it as Asterisk answering the call. What needs to happen is a mechanism needs to be implemented that will place the the channel in the off-hook state after the active call hangs up until the PRI can be truly taken down. I'm not a coder so I have no idea how to begin implementing that, but I suspect it would not bee too difficult for a coder to go in and take a couple of the pieces of code that answer or dial on channel and make an hook state function. -Brent Andrew Smith wrote: Yes the 'stop gracefully' is what effectively blocks the calls as the telco seems to take it as we are answering the calls instead of seeing them as busy. I will look at implementing some sort of way of busying out all the zaptel channels, so that we eventually busy out all 120 channels (4x E1) and then can cleanly take the server offline while our telco presents the calls to the next Asterisk servers correctly. This would be a great way of busying out the server for maintenance while still allowing our inbound calls. Many thanks, Andrew *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Brent Davidson *Sent:* 15 February 2008 00:30 *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it your issue is that when you give Asterisk the stop gracefully command it waits until all active calls have finished before it takes the ISDN down but gives busy signals to new incoming calls on idle channels. If this is the case then it would seem that Asterisk is actually answering the call on the incoming channel and playing a busy signal. From reading a couple of threads on another list it appears this is the case (Google: Asterisk busy out PRI to find the discussion). There also appears to be some interest in making a function do what you need in the future. For the time being, however, a simple solution would be to create a temporary dial-plan that follows each outgoing hangup with a dial command to either a test number or some other service that will just keep playing audio down the line and not hangup. (You'd probably need to set some variable to know which channels had been busied) When you need to take down a server, load this dial plan and wait for all channels to call the busy number, then hang them all up and issue a stop now. It's a messy solution, but it's all I can think of without hacking code. The only other way I'd know would be to hack the code for the dial or answer command and build another command that simply takes the channel off-hook and leaves it there. Good luck, Brent Davidson Lyle Giese wrote: If you take Asterisk down, the PRI should go down as the D channel is down. Then the telco should KNOW that there is trouble with the PRI and those channels are in trouble busy and not availible. If the telco still tries to push a call to a channel on a PRI that is down, then the telco is at fault. Lyle Matt wrote: That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax -- *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Matt *Sent:* Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all servers as our telco will simply relay the BUSY back to the caller. If there are a number of calls on the first server that continue for another 20 minutes, then all inbounds are blocked for that period of time. We are finding at present we have to look at the calls on the server and make a decision if we are busy to simply reboot the server and hence lose calls. Not ideal but then we don't end up blocking our inbounds. What I was hoping to do was find a way to cause the telco to present the call to the next ISDN30 and therefore would allow us to cleanly take down an Asterisk server for maintenance without causing this issue. In a sense to put the ISDN30 into alarm mode while still continuing the active calls. Do you know if this is at all possible, even if we considered patching zaptel to add this functionality or does the telco rely on the entire PRI being in alarm before it presents the call to the next ISDN30 ? This would allow us to run maintenance on our servers during busy periods without causing disruption, and would be an excellent feature. Many thanks, Andrew -- *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Tim Nelson *Sent:* 13 February 2008 18:12 *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Cc:* asterisk-users@lists.digium.com *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Even if * is shutdown, zaptel is still running and your ISDN channels are still technically up. Shutting down zaptel should close the channels and put those circuits into alarm mode. Tim Nelson Systems/Network Support Rockbochs Inc. (218)727-4332 - Original Message - From: Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 12:03:51 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago Subject: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Hi there, I currently have multiple Asterisk servers using Sangoma A104d Quad ISDN E1s. Basically our telco is presenting calls in order of the ISDNs on our servers. SERVER1=1,2,3,4 SERVER2=5,6,7,8 We have redundancy in that if SERVER1 is shutdown then each ISDN PRI is in alarm and the calls will then presented to PRIs 5,6,7,8 on SERVER2. If I have to take SERVER1 offline for maintenance (asterisk -rx shutdown gracefully) any incoming calls receive a BUSY tone. What
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all servers as our telco will simply relay the BUSY back to the caller. If there are a number of calls on the first server that continue for another 20 minutes, then all inbounds are blocked for that period of time. We are finding at present we have to look at the calls on the server and make a decision if we are busy to simply reboot the server and hence lose calls. Not ideal but then we don't end up blocking our inbounds. What I was hoping to do was find a way to cause the telco to present the call to the next ISDN30 and therefore would allow us to cleanly take down an Asterisk server for maintenance without causing this issue. In a sense to put the ISDN30 into alarm mode while still continuing the active calls. Do you know if this is at all possible, even if we considered patching zaptel to add this functionality or does the telco rely on the entire PRI being in alarm before it presents the call to the next ISDN30 ? This would allow us to run maintenance on our servers during busy periods without causing disruption, and would be an excellent feature. Many thanks, Andrew _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Nelson Sent: 13 February 2008 18:12 To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Cc: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Even if * is shutdown, zaptel is still running and your ISDN channels are still technically up. Shutting down zaptel should close the channels and put those circuits into alarm mode. Tim Nelson Systems/Network Support Rockbochs Inc. (218)727-4332 - Original Message - From: Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 12:03:51 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago Subject: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Hi there, I currently have multiple Asterisk servers using Sangoma A104d Quad ISDN E1s. Basically our telco is presenting calls in order of the ISDNs on our servers. SERVER1=1,2,3,4 SERVER2=5,6,7,8 We have redundancy in that if SERVER1 is shutdown then each ISDN PRI is in alarm and the calls will then presented to PRIs 5,6,7,8 on SERVER2. If I have to take SERVER1 offline for maintenance (asterisk -rx shutdown gracefully) any incoming calls receive a BUSY tone. What I would like to know is if there is anyway to get around this and not send a BUSY back to our callers and somehow allow our telco to present calls immediately to SERVER2. Anyone have any ideas or are we stuck with this behaviour until the calls drop to 0 and Asterisk shuts down ? Thanks, Andrew ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
If you take Asterisk down, the PRI should go down as the D channel is down. Then the telco should KNOW that there is trouble with the PRI and those channels are in trouble busy and not availible. If the telco still tries to push a call to a channel on a PRI that is down, then the telco is at fault. Lyle Matt wrote: That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of *Matt *Sent:* Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all servers as our telco will simply relay the BUSY back to the caller. If there are a number of calls on the first server that continue for another 20 minutes, then all inbounds are blocked for that period of time. We are finding at present we have to look at the calls on the server and make a decision if we are busy to simply reboot the server and hence lose calls. Not ideal but then we don't end up blocking our inbounds. What I was hoping to do was find a way to cause the telco to present the call to the next ISDN30 and therefore would allow us to cleanly take down an Asterisk server for maintenance without causing this issue. In a sense to put the ISDN30 into alarm mode while still continuing the active calls. Do you know if this is at all possible, even if we considered patching zaptel to add this functionality or does the telco rely on the entire PRI being in alarm before it presents the call to the next ISDN30 ? This would allow us to run maintenance on our servers during busy periods without causing disruption, and would be an excellent feature. Many thanks, Andrew *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of *Tim Nelson *Sent:* 13 February 2008 18:12 *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Cc:* asterisk-users@lists.digium.com mailto:asterisk-users@lists.digium.com *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Even if * is shutdown, zaptel is still running and your ISDN
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it your issue is that when you give Asterisk the stop gracefully command it waits until all active calls have finished before it takes the ISDN down but gives busy signals to new incoming calls on idle channels. If this is the case then it would seem that Asterisk is actually answering the call on the incoming channel and playing a busy signal. From reading a couple of threads on another list it appears this is the case (Google: Asterisk busy out PRI to find the discussion). There also appears to be some interest in making a function do what you need in the future. For the time being, however, a simple solution would be to create a temporary dial-plan that follows each outgoing hangup with a dial command to either a test number or some other service that will just keep playing audio down the line and not hangup. (You'd probably need to set some variable to know which channels had been busied) When you need to take down a server, load this dial plan and wait for all channels to call the busy number, then hang them all up and issue a stop now. It's a messy solution, but it's all I can think of without hacking code. The only other way I'd know would be to hack the code for the dial or answer command and build another command that simply takes the channel off-hook and leaves it there. Good luck, Brent Davidson Lyle Giese wrote: If you take Asterisk down, the PRI should go down as the D channel is down. Then the telco should KNOW that there is trouble with the PRI and those channels are in trouble busy and not availible. If the telco still tries to push a call to a channel on a PRI that is down, then the telco is at fault. Lyle Matt wrote: That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] *On Behalf Of *Matt *Sent:* Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM *To:* Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion *Subject:* Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all servers as our telco will simply relay the BUSY back to the caller. If there are a number of calls on the first server that continue for another 20 minutes, then all inbounds are blocked for that period of time. We are finding at present we have to look at the calls on the server and make a decision if we are busy to simply reboot the server and hence lose calls. Not ideal but then we don't end up
Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue
Andrew wants to take the system down softly-there are active calls on some channels. He doesn't want to accept additional calls on the idle channels. He can't take the D channel down without disruption to the active calls. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lyle Giese Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 5:45 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue If you take Asterisk down, the PRI should go down as the D channel is down. Then the telco should KNOW that there is trouble with the PRI and those channels are in trouble busy and not availible. If the telco still tries to push a call to a channel on a PRI that is down, then the telco is at fault. Lyle Matt wrote: That does sound like what is happening.. Telco knows channel 1-23 are not busy (so far as they are concerned), however.. so far as you are concerned, they are busy.. so telco sends the call down... but the equipment doesn't take it. I would *think* the Telco could keep trying channels down the hunt group, but maybe not? We have, in the past, seen this issue with our dial-up modem banks.. especially if I would take one offline. However, it is not a big enough issue (i.e. we don't take things down that often) for me to look into it fully. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Don Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the problem is that the telco presents the call on a specific channel, then zaptel tells it that the channel is busy. We need to be able to tell the telco that each unused channel on a given span is unavailable, and it will determine that the others are in use and will present the call on a channel on another span. A rather ugly work-around (since Andrew seems to have lots of channels available, and one would assume that maintenance of this nature would occur during slow periods) would be to make calls to a DID in the same trunk group on all idle channels on the span shutting down then, when all channels on the span are in use and none of them are doing anything useful, take the span down hard so the telco will divert all calls to another span. --Don Don Kelly PCF Corp Real Support for your Virtual Office TM 651 842-1000 888 Don Kell(y) 651 842-1001 fax _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:28 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down formaintenance - blocking issue Honestly.. this sounds like a telco issue.I understand what the other person is saying about the PRI still being technically up... BUT... if the channel is BUSY/BLOCKED/WHATEVER, the Telco should be forwarding the call to the next available channel, which they clearly are not doing. On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tim, Imagine the scenario where we had 10x Asterisk servers, with calls presenting sequentially starting from the first server, then server two, etc. If we took down the first server for maintenance with 'asterisk -rx stop gracefully' we then will block all incoming calls to all servers as our telco will simply relay the BUSY back to the caller. If there are a number of calls on the first server that continue for another 20 minutes, then all inbounds are blocked for that period of time. We are finding at present we have to look at the calls on the server and make a decision if we are busy to simply reboot the server and hence lose calls. Not ideal but then we don't end up blocking our inbounds. What I was hoping to do was find a way to cause the telco to present the call to the next ISDN30 and therefore would allow us to cleanly take down an Asterisk server for maintenance without causing this issue. In a sense to put the ISDN30 into alarm mode while still continuing the active calls. Do you know if this is at all possible, even if we considered patching zaptel to add this functionality or does the telco rely on the entire PRI being in alarm before it presents the call to the next ISDN30 ? This would allow us to run maintenance on our servers during busy periods without causing disruption, and would be an excellent feature. Many thanks, Andrew _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Nelson Sent: 13 February 2008 18:12 To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Cc: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] ISDN PRIs and taking a server down for maintenance - blocking issue Even if * is shutdown, zaptel is still running and your ISDN channels are still technically up. Shutting down zaptel should close the channels and put those circuits into alarm mode. Tim Nelson
